I found it totally refreshing, as I did the overall lack of hand holding in regards to the portrayal of gender, abuse, etc throughout. I'm with Lynch on political correctness, and I felt that moment in particular was funny (enough) even without digging for deeper meaning regarding Lucy's (potentially many layers of) ignorance; even if it's not meant to show her ignorance and is just surface, it still works as comedy. People say potentially insensitive stuff all the time. I don't want it censored in my art just because we're living in a "woke" world.mtwentz wrote:So I looked it up, and apparently 'Indian' is not universally offensive to, as Dick Tremayne would put it, 'native peoples'. Some actually prefer 'Indian' over 'Native American', though many like neither and would prefer to be identified by their specific tribe. So I guess Lynch and Frost get a pass on this one.Mr. Reindeer wrote:Hawk had probably corrected them a hundred times and eventually gave up. Like the “bunny” scene, I think the “joke” is that Hawk has to bear their cluelessness in subdued annoyance while he tries to solve the mystery. I also think it’s significant that L/F grew up in a time when the label “Indian” was considered harmless by the culture at large, and was even the name of a beloved childhood game they both almost certainly played. Mark is obviously now “woke” in this regard, with a large chunk of TSHoTP documenting the wrongs that caucasians perpetrated against Native Americans, and even adding a mea culpa for the “Tommy Hawk” pun he found funny in the ‘90s. As for DKL, I certainly agree with you that he has love in his heart for all people, and he gives Hawk so much dignity in those scenes, and Horse has had nothing but positive things to say. But DKL has always been vocally dismissive of political correctness when people have tried to explain to him how his works might be viewed as insensitive in some circles, and I would guess that he has some nostalgia for the term “Indian” due to the romanticism of the Old West and the frontier when he was growing up.
And I think the argument would be that it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other. Racism doesn’t necessarily have to be either conscious or malicious. Again, not necessarily saying I agree with this.mtwentz wrote:I don't disagree with anything you've written here. I would not think it is an ingrained form of racism, just a mostly unconscious bias toward Caucasians.
Still, I found the exchange odd and I think the humor fell flat, at least for me. Luckily, the rest of that scene was hilarious (IMHO).
I also don't necessarily think Lynch needs to incorporate more persons of color, though I understand the argument. I appreciate his pure vision and don't think of it in terms of those "faults."