Lily Gladstone on why it’s best that #KillersOfTheFlowerMoon didn’t focus on a criminal investigation: “How unfortunate it would’ve been for audiences to walk away under the impression that the FBI are the saviors of Native women.” https://t.co/GEfGKNGZO6 pic.twitter.com/Tt14fy2Qf4
— Variety (@Variety) November 17, 2023
“To understand the scope of the work that these women do and to understand the irony and how it ties to this man onstage playing an FBI agent — had he done that, how unfortunate it would’ve been for audiences to walk away under the impression that the FBI are the saviors of Native women. We know that is not the truth,” Gladstone said. “Tribal governments in this nation and treaties with tribal people are the whole reason that the United States even exists. You need to enter into treaty with other nations to get your own validity. And yet these treaties are not honored.”
[The FBI Does not help]“Over the course of colonization, the last several hundred years, our inherent sovereignty as tribal nations has been stripped away further and further and further — to the point that if you’re not enrolled in that tribe, on that reservation, and you commit a violent crime against a Native person, nobody can prosecute you except for the FBI. States don’t have jurisdiction on tribal land. Tribes don’t have jurisdiction. It’s only the federal government,” Gladstone continued. “The only people who have any authority to do anything do nothing. And the people who are left to do anything about it are these women here.”
Source: Twitter
Lily’s insight was terribly missed during the film’s promotional circuit. The trades have published a couple articles that framed her and Osage language consultant Christopher Cote’s words suspiciously to fuel dishonest discourse, but her knowledge really shines above the game.
