Sacred Auntie Rage: Matriarchal Elders, Red (Re)orientations, and Red Resistance in True Detective: Night Country

• In Event: Sovereign Stories: Indigenous Medias and Narratives

Abstract

Issa López’s True Detective: Night Country is the fourth series in the True Detective anthology, following Chief of Police Liz Danvers and State Trooper Evangeline Navarro on two complex and interwoven cases. As they uncover disturbing connections between missing scientists and the murder of an Iñupiaq woman in a small town 150 miles north of the Arctic Circle, the series unravels secrets of Iñupiat women, matriarchal Elders, and community protections when the colonial system fails to bring justice to Indigenous women. With horror overtones, which the director uses as “a tool to explain what’s wrong with society”, the show tells a complicated, nuanced story about Indigenous fem(me) survivance and Red resistance in the face of hetero- and cis- colonial projects. As part of a larger dissertation project, I report the initial findings of a qualitative content analysis of True Detective: Night Country regarding the themes of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, environmental colonialism, and the sacred rage that Indigenous Aunties and fem(me)s carry with us/them. In this presentation, I ask two questions: What can a framework of Red (re)orientations teach us about the past and present operations of U.S. settler colonialism in Hollywood’s visual representations of Indigenous peoples?, and, How do authentic Indigenous media portrayals practice Red (re)orientations to create Indigenizing visual narratives of Indigenous life, futures, and sovereignties? I argue that Iñupiat women are portrayed in the show as protectors of the feminine spirit and community keepers by embodying what I call Red (re)orientations, which amplifies actual Indigenous voices to disrupt settler-colonial narratives of historical ‘objectivity’, through a refusal of center-margin orientations. In this presentation, I discuss examples of these refusals in the season and explore tangible futurities of Red (re)orientations both on- and off-screen.

Author

• Rowan Greywolf Moore, Arizona State University-Tempe