Summary

Devery Jacobs finds the depiction of Native American people in Killers of the Flower Moon to be painful, grueling, and unnecessarily graphic. Jacobs believes that the Osage characters were underwritten compared to the white men in the film, and that showing more murdered Native women on screen normalizes violence against Indigenous people. Jacobs criticizes non-Native directors for centering the white perspective and focusing on Native people’s pain, and expresses a preference for an Osage filmmaker to tell this history.

Actor Devery Jacobs slams the depiction of the Osage murders in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. Jacobs is best known for playing Elora in the series Reservation Dogs, where she plays a young woman who is part of the Muscogee Nation. Jacobs herself is a part of the Mohawk tribe, and has devoted her career to portraying Indigenous characters.

Now, Jacobs criticizes Killers of the Flower Moon’s portrayal of Native American people. As a Native American herself, Jacobs described the experience of “watching this movie [as] f*cking hellfire.” While praising the performance of lead star Lily Gladstone and Scorsese’s “technical direction,” Jacobs argued that the film’s violence did not show “honor or dignity” to the Osage people.

Rather, Jacobs argued that “by showing more murdered Native women on screen, it normalizes the violence committed against us and further dehumanizes our people.” She felt that this 3.5-hour film would have been better off if the time was awarded to an Osage director rather than Scorsese. The rest of her thread reads as follows:

“Being Native, watching this movie was f8cking hellfire. Imagine the worst atrocities committed against yr ancestors, then having to sit thru a movie explicitly filled w/ them, w/ the only respite being 30min long scenes of murderous white guys talking about/planning the killings
It must be noted that Lily Gladstone is a an absolute legend & carried Mollie w/ tremendous grace. All the incredible Indigenous actors were the only redeeming factors of this film. Give Lily her goddamn Oscar.
But while all of the performances were strong, if you look proportionally, each of the Osage characters felt painfully underwritten, while the white men were given way more courtesy and depth.
Now, I can understand that Martin Scorsese’s technical direction is compelling & seeing $200mil on screen is a sight to behold. I get the goal of this violence is to add brutal shock value that forces people to understand the real horrors that happened to this community, BUT—
I don’t feel that these very real people were shown honor or dignity in the horrific portrayal of their deaths.
Contrarily, I believe that by showing more murdered Native women on screen, it normalizes the violence committed against us and further dehumanizes our people.
(And to top it off; to see the way that film nerds are celebrating and eating this sh*t up? It makes my stomach hurt.)
I can’t believe it needs to be said, but Indig ppl exist beyond our grief, trauma & atrocities. Our pride for being Native, our languages, cultures, joy & love are way more interesting & humanizing than showing the horrors white men inflicted on us.
This is the issue when non-Native directors are given the liberty to tell our stories; they center the white perspective and focus on Native people’s pain.
For the Osage communities involved in creating this film; I can imagine how cathartic it is to have these stories and histories finally acknowledged, especially on such a prestigious platform like this film. There was beautiful work done by so many Wazhazhe on this film.
But admittedly, I would prefer to see a $200 million movie from an Osage filmmaker telling this history, any day of the week.
—and I’m sorry, but Scorsese choosing to end on a shot of Ilonshka dances and drumming? It doesn’t absolve the film from painting Native folks as helpless victims without agency.
RIP to Mollie, Anna, Minnie, Rita, & all the other very real Osage folks who were murdered over greed. Tobacco down for the countless Osage folks today, whose family histories have been marked by these atrocities. The pain is real & isn’t limited to the film’s 3hrs and 26 mins.
And a massive F*ck You to the real life, white Oklahomans, who still carry and benefit from these blood-stained headrights.
All in all, after 100 years of the way Indigenous communities have been portrayed in film, is this really the representation we needed?
#KillersOfTheFlowerMoon

The Copious Violent Murders In Killers of the Flower Moon Are Understandably Controversial

Prior to the release of Killers of the Flower Moon, the narrative surrounding Scorsese’s epic feature was entirely different. Actor Leonardo DiCaprio and Scorsese talked extensively about how much the script was revised from its original version in order to center Gladstone’s character Mollie in Killers of the Flower Moon’s narrative. The rhetoric seemed to be that it was a landmark film not just because of its technical prowess, but also through its offering of a more balanced portrayal of Indigenous people that went against Hollywood’s “checkered past.”

The actual movie, however, is not crafted in quite as balanced a way as DiCaprio and Scorsese suggested. Mollie speaks few words over the film’s second act, though this can be somewhat attributed to her current circumstances. Instead, Killers of the Flower Moon sees Mollie in continual trauma but rarely given a direct voice. Around her, those within her family and community die violently, and their bodies are represented in extremely graphic ways, as is typical for a Scorsese movie. Even the official Osage consultants for Killers of the Flower Moon expressed mixed opinions about its depiction of these historical events.

On one hand, Scorsese likely felt that shying away from violence in Killers of the Flower Moon would in some ways minimize it. On the other, Jacobs makes a strong argument that by showing brutal death over Osage “languages, cultures, joy & love” in some way “further dehumanizes” a group that is already so oppressed in the media. Killers of the Flower Moon may be one of the first of its kind in giving such atrocities the epic, auteur-designed treatment, but in its shortcomings, it reveals that Hollywood still has a lot to learn.

Source: Devery Jacobs/Twitter