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]