Dance Me Outside

Dance Me Outside (1995) brings to light the common issues that natives face, such as identity and their rights. For instance, a young native girl is murdered by a drunk white man, and he is sentenced to only 2 years in prison for manslaughter, not murder. The natives rightly feel that this speaks of the injustice they continue to experience. Some of them continue to fight the system by writing letters, attempting to be heard so that their rights may be recognized. Others feel that this does not make a difference, that nothing is going to change. This contributes to the ongoing feud between the whites and natives, and as a result, has some of them retaliating in violence and vandalism because they feel that this is going to make more of a statement than letters.
Cultural tensions are made evident when we see that the older sister has married a white man While the family is, for the most part, accepting of this, her mother is pushing for her to have a baby, enforcing the traditions of their culture. However, the man she is married to has a low sperm count, making it difficult to conceive. The daughter arranges to sleep with Gooch, her old boyfriend, in order to get pregnant without her husband knowing. She is willing to cheat in order to keep tradition alive and please her family. This could be seen as a way to prevent an increase in tension between the two cultures while simultaneously demonstrating the already existing tension. While this takes place, her brothers take her husband out under the guise of giving him a cultural experience. It seems they are playing up the stereotypes that surround the natives, and her husband demonstrates the ignorance often present in white people regarding native culture. This would be an example of how the only knowledge whites are given about natives comes from the mass produced artifacts that stereotype the culture rather than provide an authentic experience. Therefore, the issues of authenticity and misrepresentation are addressed.
In addition, the natives lives appear to be predictable, they don’t seem to have much promise for a life outside the reserve. As a result, they crave more. Silas and Frank want to go to college to become mechanics but find themselves struggling to get in, most likely because of a lack of a good education in the eyes of the dominant white structure. They struggle with their identity-trying to maintain their culture while at the same time trying to be recognized in the rest of the modernized world. This too is an issue made present throughout the movie.