EDMONTON - Until fairly recently, aboriginal actors were usually seen decked out in feathers and buckskin, playing out the same Wild West roles in countless films and television shows.
They were generally stuck in the past and they certainly weren't playing doctors, truck drivers or lawyers.
Allen Belcourt didn't see much on TV that resembled his own life growing up.
"I'd seen a lot of stuff that goes on on television, right, and it's not a very good representation, a lot of it ... of native people," says the 25-year-old Edmonton actor.
Belcourt had always wanted to act, but was pushed into film by an urge to create a more realistic picture.
"I decided for us to really go ahead with our future in the television industry, we have to tell our own stories."
Belcourt recently debuted his first documentary at the Dreamspeakers International Aboriginal Film and Television Festival in Edmonton. He and other young filmmakers who had taken part in a workshop showed their short films to dozens of teenagers at the festival's youth day.
Many said they saw their work as an opportunity to depict the experiences of aboriginals in Canada today - not just those struggling with violence and drug addictions, but also those doing well, graduating from high school and making a difference.
In other words, real life instead of a stereotype.
Belcourt's documentary follows a night of aboriginal music set up by Chris Ross, a promoter who also runs the aboriginal youth magazine RezX. Belcourt, who has a role on the APTN show "Mixed Blessings," says it's important to show young people such as Ross who are doing something positive.
"You see some of the stuff that's on Hollywood-type movies, it's always about history. It never shows anything that's happening with Native Americans today," Belcourt said. He adds that until recently, you would never have seen a native actor on television as a doctor or a police officer, for example.
Changing stereotypes in Hollywood and beyond will fall to young people just entering the business, said Sonny Skyhawk, who founded the advocacy group American Indians in Film and Television to push for accuracy in both historical and modern portrayals of native people.
Mainstream media still see natives as "people in the past tense," said Skyhawk, who began his career 35 years ago with a role on the TV series "Bonanza" that was "the epitome of stereotype."
Things are slowly changing.
"This GenX, or MTV generation, or whatever you want to call it, they're coming up with those stories, and they're realizing and understanding the power of these mediums in storytelling," he said.
"I think the future holds a lot of promise for our young people because they're finally becoming involved and being part of the solution."
One young actress who began her career when she moved to Hollywood at the age of 10 from Edmonton has seen these changes.
Crystle Lightning, 25, says she was particularly proud of her role as Chloe, a goth girl in the fourth instalment of the popular "American Pie" franchise.
"I wasn't cast as a native actor. I was cast as a girl in high school, as opposed to feathers and buckskin," she says.
She rushes to add that she doesn't have anything against historical movies.
"But we also want to have sitcoms. There's sitcoms for the whites, there's sitcoms for the African Americans. We want ours!"
One teen who travelled to the festival from Saddle Lake, north of Edmonton, said she occasionally gets annoyed at how Hollywood movies depict native people. But Kelsey Cardinal, 16, says it's better to tell a good story that involves your culture than to make an issue of the fact that other films have got it wrong.
"Everyone loves a tale," she said.
"Especially one that's true about your culture, gives it more excitement and gets you more into it."
News from �The Canadian Press, 2008
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