nava-who? miss navajo!

i finally watched "miss navajo" by billy luther, and it was even better than expected.

aside from making me crave some frybread (with a hole for spider woman of course), its quite wonderful. nice shots of shiprock, window rock, open desert. it makes me crave that dry heat (maybe only becaue my apartment is chilly). its such a beautiful place. "beauty that hurts" as the admiral would say.

the documentary followed a miss navajo contestant, who seemed to be from shiprock, based on shots outside their home. it was a nice overview of historical and current issues as framed through the pageant. the historical knowledge quiz only stumped me once, though i certainly wouldn't have been able to answer as thoroughly as the contestants (or in navajo!). it involved the treaty of 1868 (the long walk), changing woman, coyote, and the n.n. seal.

i also appreciated the nuanced way of addressing sheep butchering (though no visuals of "fat sheep 4 sale" signs). they mention its traumatic for some people. which i can attest to. but also seem to take pride in it as legitimizing the contest as more substantial than other beauty pageants. (i also want to note that the butchering was more offputting for me because it caught me off guard, rather than being "gross." though it did reconfirm my vegetarianism....but i digress). they also had to make fry bread, and exhibit a "traditional" talent.

it did an excellent job of addressing language loss. none of the contestants were fluent. most spoke some navajo, but were not able to answer questions completely in dine'. and a little of the history of this loss was touched on, including boarding schools, which i also found excellent for contextualization.

all in all, it was excellent, highly recommended, etc. but then again, i'm not quite an unbiased observer.