영화 <미국의 변방>과 <날개 달린 바위>에 나타난 나바호 인디언 보호구역 담론: 농구, 여성성, 인종 담론을 중심으로

초록

In 2001 and 2002, two Native American films, Rocks with Wings and Edge of America, were released dealing with the same subject, the challenge of Shiprock High School female basketball team toward New Mexico state championship on Navajo reservation. The female basketball players have lost the games repeatedly just before the state tournament until they have received a new coach, Jerry Richardson, an African American from Texas. In spite of his painstaking efforts to improve the team’s skills and strategies, it took more than five years for Richardson to recognize the causes why the female team couldn’t get out of the cycles of failure. They had more to do with Navajo Indian culture and tradition such as forced traditional womanhood, tribalism, and rez-ball, Native American ways of basketball prevalent exclusively on reservations rather than the lack of the teammates’ agility. The better knowledge he acquires about Navajo female culture, the closer he can guide the team to the state championship. This article aims to investigate not only the whole procedure of the team’s attempts to reach the championship but also Richardson’s gradual understanding of Navajo Indian womanhood, rez-ball, and the interracial conflicts between Indians and whites. Besides, it also tries to suggest the alternatives to settle the perennial problems by taking specific examples in the films.

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