Last Thursday's"Picket Fences" did an episode on a shootout between local and state forces and aboriginals who have seized a court house. The city is building a golf course on their ancient burrial grounds. [Echos of the seige at OKA (1990) in Canada when one Quebec Police officer was killed in an attack on Indian barricades which led to a 2 month stand off with the army replacing the police] In the two subplots of this episode a middle sized kid successfully protects his younger brother by breaking the jaw of the school bully. In the other ,"little people" protest against the use of growth hormones which validates only 'normal height' and eliminates differences. Watching this with mynew contact on Screen-L in mind, I was aware of the likelihood of three different readinss: 1. The "sadly inevittable " possible reaction of some Americans [ with the WACO fire as additional layer of meaning today; 2. The "why not negotiate much longer?" rejection o f the plausibilityof the 24 hour deadline which some Canadians would resist the premise ( though recognizing that the series itself is one of the few that present remarkable eccentricities as the new realism. The cultural context is that Canadians usually perceive guns blazing as culturally specific to America. Yet the OKA ripoff dimiinishes that familiar distancing. 3. the very likely "how dare you claim our lives and our resistance"reaction, particularly triggered by the glib last line of the episode claiming the death of the leader as a lossto the whole community- from a viewer from one of the first nations. Dominant reading? Deviant Readings? Resistant Readings? Comments please. Mary Jane Miller Mary Jane Miller, Dept. of Film Studies, Dramatic and Visual Arts, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1. Phon;e (416) 688 5550 ext 3584, Fax: (416) 682 9020, e-mail: [log in to unmask]