FICTIONAL WARRIORS: REAL RESPONSES

Since we clearly do not learn everything about a film through a particular character, Murray Smith, instead, makes a case for both “central imagining” (empathy) and “acentral imagining” (sympathy).  With acentral imagining, we are aware of the situation as being fictional but choose to respond emotionally (Smith Engaging 102).  If spectators are continually aware of the situation as fictional, as I believe we are, the idea that cinema can convince us to respond emotionally by means of illusion falls by the wayside as well.[5]  As spectators, we may become wrapped up in what action is happening on the screen, but we do not run out of the theater screaming when a train appears to be hurtling directly toward us.  As Patrick Colm Hogan discusses, our survival instincts are not activated to a high enough degree to cause actual response (Cognitive 142).  Therefore indicating that despite our rapture, we still know to a certain degree that the film is a fiction and not a life-threatening event.  

            While we know the film to be fictional at some level, we do still respond to the characters as if they are real to a certain degree.  In Murray Smith’s argument for engagement as “a complex, heterogeneous set of interacting responses—autonomic, cognitive, affective” (230), he highlights the saliency of character.  Though I have just claimed  Murray Smith does not believe in individual character identification as the sole reason of why we respond to fictional film, he does recognize that characters, in that they represent human agents, allow us to construct them into filled-out imitations of people (31), using what is called “a person schema” (25).  In this manner we are more open to emotional engagement with what we know to be fiction.

            Published in 1995, Murray Smith’s book uses cognitive science to try to answer why we respond emotionally to fiction.  Though he was one of the first to use cognitive science in relation to cinema, many of his ideas are still valid in cognitive theory today, such as that of character saliency and the empathy/sympathy distinction.  While Smith effectively uses the tools available to him at the time, other theorists in the past decade have been able to use new advances in cognitive science to incorporate some of his ideas and give us a broader and perhaps more complete answer to the fictionality question.

            Both Greg Smith and Patrick Colm Hogan use cognitive science research to explain how and why we respond to fiction.  Greg Smith, in “Local Emotions, Global Moods” and later in Film Structure and the Emotion System, develops an associative network model for emotions, based on the workings of the limbic system and emotional subsystems.  

The limbic system is a highly interconnected neurological center that receives information from a wide range of input systems.  Its function is to evaluate that information, to provide an emotional coding based on the evaluation, to trigger an initial response, and to monitor the stream of emotional stimuli and responses…” (108)

He argues that the limbic system is required to be activated for emotional response, yet it can not cause emotion on its own (Smith Local 107)—other areas, such as body posture, vocalization, or conscious cognition must also be activated in order to produce emotion.  A tense body and a shocked scream during a horror movie, while processing what is about to happen, would be sufficient cues to trigger an emotional response of fear.  The structure of the limbic system allows for a flexible emotional response system, which is dependent on the number of triggers and the level of intensity of these triggers.  The need for several triggers could also explain why we do not run out of the theater, fearing for our lives after a single shocking episode.  Often we are cued more subtly to feel emotions, since “to experience and express an emotion requires redundant cues” (Smith Local 109.  This redundancy in film can be found in more understated ways, such as the way a “mood” is constructed and perceived in a film.  Instead of having emotions only linked specifically to characters, Greg Smith makes a case for those overarching feelings, which appear with the style of the film to create a mood, augmenting our emotional response toward a fictional film.  I will return to the idea of mood later when discussing Once Were Warriors.

            Patrick Colm Hogan, on a slightly different note, employs cognitive science to explain how memory and emotion function together in his book Cognitive Science, Literature, and the Arts: A Guide for Humanists.  Hogan talks of memory “priming,” the way emotions and memories are triggered.  He brings up one important distinction regarding emotions and our way of storing them in the brain—the distinction between emotional memory and representational memory.  An emotional memory, after we have “an intense emotional experience,” is stored in a different part of our brains than that of representational memories (Cognitive 182).  When later recalling a representational memory, it always triggers the emotional aspect of that memory, but the reverse is not true.  Emotions can be triggered without a representational memory and this is what, he argues, happens in literature (and by extension cinema as well):

Emotional memories almost certainly play a major role in literary experience as well.  In fact, I now believe the priming of representational episodic memories is not the most important source of literary emotion.  Rather, it is the activation of emotional memories.  Much as in ordinary life, we misattribute these feelings due to our attentional focus on other (salient and attention-grabbing) events, specifically, the events of the literary work. (Cognitive 183)

Thus, as his speculation enunciates, it is not that we feel identification with characters due to a specific similarity in our situations, but it is more likely that personal emotional memories are triggered and we displace these emotions onto the characters because they have captured our attention (though it should be noted that something similar probably caused the initial triggering of the emotional memory).  Consequently, it remains important to look at more than the characters to understand our emotional involvement with a film, since it is likely that other aspects of film—such as mood, lighting, music, shot composition—could be major contributors in triggering those emotions that we often attribute to one or more characters.

            To reiterate, I intend to eventually look closely at the film Once Were Warriors to determine how the film works to engage us emotionally and cognitively through the above approaches in cognitive science.  Additionally, the idea of the implied author is a prerequisite for understanding this construction of the text that we, as spectators, reconstruct with each viewing.  However, before doing a close reading of the film, a look at the historical contextualization of the film and culture will be important to situate the film in terms of postcolonial theory and how theory and contextualization both work for and against the film, especially since the film is often viewed initially from one or more of these perspectives.  While the historical context and cultural aspects do allow another level of understanding to the film, they can also work against the film by labeling it as portraying culturally-specific traditions and enclosing the film in a postcolonial box without further regard.  I would like to take an opportunity here to discuss current Maori culture and current postcolonial theory in order to avoid that my analysis of the film is limited to the same pitfalls of category-specific labels.  By negotiating the postcolonial, I will be able to move beyond its limiting structure in order to emphasize the impact of the film outside of these restrictions.

Postcolonial theory: opening the box

            I am interested in looking at a recent Maori film in terms of its “postcolonial” context—how this film and others have been labeled as “postcolonial” and how their being posited as such affects them.  What exactly do I mean by postcolonial?  And how has postcolonial been problematized in literary theory?  In this section, I will propose possible answers to these questions by looking at recent postcolonial theory in relation to cultural identity and the politics of film.  In addition, I will use Patrick Colm Hogan’s idea of the idiolectal nature of tradition to question the norms of postcolonial categories in order to suggest both the individual specificity and global universality of literary and filmic traditions before moving on to a close examination of Once Were Warriors.     

The term “postcolonial,” as Ella Shohat and Robert Stam argue in Unthinking Eurocentrism: Mulitculturalism and the media, is problematic in its relation to cultural identity because its prefix “post” implies two ideas: “both going beyond anticolonial nationalist theory and a movement beyond a specific point in history”(38).  They argue that “post” allows for an “all-inclusive formulation [which] homogenizes very different national and racial formations” (38) as well as blurring “the assignment of perspectives” (39).  “Postcolonial” is usually associated with “Third World” countries who have gained their independence, but can also refer to “literary productions from all societies ‘affected’ by colonialism”(38).  In light of its generality, “postcolonial” does not specify whether it is the perspective of the ex-colonized or the ex-colonizer, though it is usually associated with the former.  Thus, Shohat and Stam question the easy way in which the “post” equates and collapses distinctions: “The hegemonic structures and conceptual frameworks generated over the last 500 years cannot be easily vaporized with a ‘post.’  By implying that colonialism is over, ‘postcolonial’ obscures the deformative traces of colonialism in the present” (40).  

Unfortunately, not only does the “postcolonial” assume that colonialism and its effects are bygones, but the term also sets up parameters which become very limiting—the work is viewed only in the scope of “postcolonial” instead of relating to other genres, literatures, or concepts.  There are norms and expectations for “postcolonial” as a category.  Likewise, even the recent celebration of “hybridity,” which supposedly rejects any specific identity, is also ultimately an identity category.  As Hogan elucidates: “Hybridity is no less an identity category than ‘authentically indigenous’ or ‘westernized.’  It has the same function in defining and opposing groups and in setting out norms.  It simply defines groups differently and establishes different norms” (Empire 4).  This is, again, where cognitive science approaches can help us to understand identity categories and move beyond their limiting structure.  Hogan insists on differentiating between practical and categorial identity to fully understand how we come to define and group people and things.  Categorial identity, one’s self-concept, is “defined by a set of categories, prominently including gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and so on.  Categorial identity produces in-group/out-group divisions, with all that they entail” (Hogan Empire 8).  Thus, we group and define other people according to our internal hierarchy of categories, which may also include stereotypical properties and ideals.  This can work in interesting ways in the film world: the character can be presented as portraying stereotypical characteristics and thus encourage the viewers to categorize him/her in a certain way, but it can allow the director, who knows how the mind tends to categorize, the ability to play with different categories and stereotypes in order to change, or even shock, viewing expectations.  Important to note, however, is that “category meanings are idiolectal”:  “They are not dictionary or encyclopedia entries, shared by everyone.  They are the residue of an individual’s experiences and understandings.  While they partially overlap with other people’s category meanings, they are necessarily in part idiosyncratic as well” (Hogan Empire 11).  So, there is no guarantee that every person will place a character in the same category but there does remain room for manipulation, especially surrounding widely-accepted clichés. 

Practical identity, on the other hand, is “one’s set of habits, skills, and propensities...[P]ractical identity includes everything from greeting practices (what to say, to whom, in what circumstances) to driving a car to professional activities (e.g., teaching or submitting articles to journals)” (Hogan Empire 8).  Practical identity is composed of “procedural schemas” or “skills”: “cognitive structures that allow us to do certain things” (Hogan Empire 9).  An example would be tying a shoe, once the schema is learned, it is simply “run” without individually thinking of all the small detailed components.  Procedural schemas are very cultural dependent and we acquired many of them unconsciously in childhood by listening and watching behavior around us and then imitating it.  As well as manipulating categories, filmmakers may also manipulate practical schemas.     

Where does this leave authors and filmmakers in pursuit of a contemporary cultural identity in terms of the postcolonial?  As I started to suggest above, filmmakers can leave the limits of postcolonial theory and play with stereotyped or previous identity constructions to defamiliarize viewers and/or purport change, as Murray Smith suggests:

Filmmakers—like all artists—make films in the knowledge of the beliefs, values and interest of society, whether their goal is to affirm, to challenge, or simply to defamiliarize them.  Using this knowledge, they use stereotypes and other aesthetic devices in order to create particular effects. (64)

Not only can filmmakers play with concepts of identity, they create identities as well.  Since we know that a “return to the roots” concept risks fundamentalism, and also that at some point or another outside influences have affected every culture, the task of authors and filmmakers is to create an identity, to create a tradition.  Hogan asserts this poignant relationship between cultural identity and authors/filmmakers/artists:

Authors do not simply live in ordinary culture.  It is their job to make culture.  Literature itself is a part of culture.  Literature is one of the primary means by which a culture represents to itself the ambient acts and ideas of daily life…We hardly ever know an actual marriage in the broad and detailed way that we know a marriage described in a novel or portrayed in a play or film.  Thus authors encounter the dilemmas of cultural identity as a number of different levels, and with perhaps unique urgency. (Empire 2)

How a culture represents itself and even comes to form a cultural identity is directly reflected in literary and artistic works. 

Similarly, cultural identity should not be an original essence to be rediscovered, which is implied by the “post” in postcolonial as there being a before and after, but something that is always in the process of changing and developing, as Stuart Hall suggests: “Perhaps instead of thinking of identity as an already accomplished fact, which the new cultural practices then represent, we should think, instead, of identity as a ‘production’ which is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within, not outside, representation”(392 my emphasis).  Hall, like Hogan, emphasizes cultural identity’s construction in the realm of representation, but also stresses the importance of its ability to constantly renew and reconstruct itself instead of being limited to a certain tradition or definition.  Cinema and literature, then, can be used to create change and open up an un-limiting space of cultural identity through viewing “cinema, not as a second-order mirror held up to reflect what already exists, but as that form of representation which is able to constitute us as new kinds of subjects, and thereby enable us to discover places from which to speak” (Hall 402).  Cultural identity is important but should not be used to restrict cultures to a “ Third World” status, thus limiting their authors to “resistance” or “writing back” as most postcolonial theory insists.  Their work takes place, like every other author whether First or Third World, in an interrelated humanity, which must take into account its global relationship under the rule of dominating capitalism.    

            Since an author’s or filmmaker’s work is directly related to creating cultural identity, it becomes therefore related to cultural tradition as well.  While traditions are usually thought of as a concrete entity/practice belonging specifically to one group or one culture, traditions do not actually exist outside of individual beliefs and practices.  The idea of a concrete tradition is abstracted only from individuals interacting in a community.  Hogan compares the idiolectal nature of tradition to that of language: “Thus ‘English tradition’ or ‘Yoruba tradition’ is an abstraction in precisely the same way that ‘English language’ or ‘Yoruba language’ is an abstraction.  Moreover, it too is a sociopolitical abstraction” (Empire 228).  As there is no “superlanguage” from which English is derived, there is no “supertradition” from which all cultural traditions derive—they exist only insofar as they are practiced by individuals.  With this idiolectal view of tradition, “every tradition belongs only to humanity.  It is collectively owned” (Hogan Empire 229).  As a result, since tradition is owned individually and collectively, it allows for aspects of all cultures to be opened up, giving a more universal sense of literature instead of restricting literature and authors to particular cultures, traditions, and terms such as “postcolonial,” while not erasing or dismissing the relevance of social differences.   

Maori culture and contextualization

Given the above argument, texts can be read at a variety of levels—strictly as a story and plot, as a reflection of a specific culture, or as a more thematic universality.  Often we engage in any or all of these at the same time since they are not mutually exclusive.  The layers in a film or text open up as we possess or attain more knowledge concerning the specific subjects and themes approached in the film.  My main goal in this essay is to pay more attention to aspects often overlooked and the way they contribute to emotional engagement in a film, without undermining the importance of the historical context for a film, since this allows a way to unveil other layers of meaning that are culturally-specific and more humanistically universal.  In light of this, I would like to briefly contextualize the Maori culture and film practices so that in the analysis of the film Once Were Warriors, it is possible to interpret elements of the film that may have more cultural significance.  This adds another layer of meaning in addition to their initial interpretation, but the latter is by no means less valid or important in the way that it affects our emotional engagement simply because it lacks full cultural contextualization.     

The Maori are the indigenous peoples of New Zealand/Aotearoa and constitute 9.7 % of the current New Zealand population, about 383,000 people (World Factbook 2003).  Known as incredible warriors—which is clearly significant to the film with respect to the title—early Maori used a taiaha as a weapon, a staff with a wooden tongue-shaped blade at the end,[6] which the British invaders recognized as more powerful than the bayonet.  Their form of facial tattoos, Ta Moko, was actually carved into the skin, leaving grooves to be painted.  Every tattoo was different and served as a marker of individuality and identity, much like a fingerprint.  In the film, the eldest son joins a modern gang and marks his inclusion in the gang by having his face tattooed using modern techniques with a traditional-looking individuated Ta Moko design.  However, this is a fictive turn toward tradition as the face tattoos were originally reserved for the upper echelons of the tribal party.  Before British colonization, Maori tribes fought amongst themselves and intertribal slavery was common.  Jake references this in the film when he angrily states that he has descended “from a long line of slaves.”

Additionally, the Maori have very strong religious beliefs surrounding the marae, which originally referred to the open area in front of the meeting house (wharenui) where rituals were performed (Allen 47).  The term marae has evolved to include even more at present, as Chadwick Allen explicates further:

Today, marae refers to all the buildings and open spaces in a Maori community facility.  Typically, a contemporary marae contains a carved meeting house (whare whakairo) that represents and embodies the community’s principal ancestor, an open courtyard in front of the house (marae area), and a dining hall (whare kai).  Rural marae also typically include an adjacent cemetery (urupa).” (47)

As the building inhabited by their ancestors, it is constructed and carved to represent the body of the legendary ancestor “from whom the group that owns the house acknowledges its descent” (Allen 48).  Maori are deeply bound to their past, an aspect director Lee Tamahori highlights in an interview: “Maori believe very strongly in the past determining the present and the future…Maori believe that you are only standing on this planet because of your ancestors who came before you.  That’s not uncommon to a lot of indigenous peoples” (Sklar).  The rural marae plays an important role in the film as one of the ways to embrace traditional culture and reeducate the urbanized, younger generations about their ancestral history.

The decline in traditional Maori customs throughout most of the 19 ^th and 20 ^th centuries can be seen to coincide with the British ascent to power in New Zealand.  At the beginning of the 19 ^th century, the British invaded and began colonizing the island.  Maori gave these foreigners the name Pakeha, which refers to their white skin, given that the word also refers to a fairy in Maori (Barlow 87).[7]  The Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840 between the Pakeha and the Maori, recognizing the sovereignty of the Queen of England.  Yet, when the treaty was signed, the Maori were under the impression that the treaty permitted them to retain full ownership of lands already in their possession.  Interestingly, the treaty has two versions, English and Maori, which allowed it to be differently interpreted by both sides.  The Pakeha used this to their advantage to take over most of the land, causing land wars between the two.  In order to receive their independence in 1911 from England, the Maori and Pakeha needed to establish a “coherent New Zealand identity” (Thornley 25).   This, of course, did not mean an equal synthesis of the two cultures, but rather Maori assimilation into Pakeha ideals and a “massive erosion of traditional Maori values” (Thornley 25-26).  After much of the Maori culture and language had died out, a renaissance occurred in the 1970’s, so that today one in four Maori people are able to speak the Maori language and nearly half of those speakers are under the age of 25 (FAQ’s, maori.org.nz). 

Though the Maori language and culture has strongly resurfaced, films about and by the Maori are considerably more limited.  New Zealand as a country does not produce more than a handful of feature films a year, but even those do not always involve Maori directors, crews, or casts.  In light of this, the production history of Once Were Warriors is of considerable interest here, in order to further contextualize the film and also as an example of a recent financially successful and internationally-acclaimed Maori film.[8] 

The $1.3 million film Once Were Warriors was backed by Communicado, New Zealand’s premier advertising agency (Thornley 26).  Though the subject matter of the film was relatively culturally specific to the Maori people, who are but a small population, the film was made to make money:

Right from conception, Once Were Warriors was always viewed as a subversive message to be packaged as mainstream product by its financial backers, Communicado…Together with Tamahori, Communicado banked on two audiences: Maori, who would come to see themselves on screen, and Pakeha groups, coming out of curiosity about how the ‘other half’ lived…” (Thornley 26-27)

Lee Tamahori, half-Maori, was chosen to direct the film and it was to be his first feature film.  His visual experience up to this point was as a seasoned television commercial director in New Zealand.  While the book by Duff enjoyed much success despite being quite critical of the Maori, the vast majority of the Maori had not read it.  Thus, in light of appealing to “both sides” and the commercial aspect of film, the screenplay made some changes from the book when adapting it for the big screen.  The screenwriter was not Alan Duff but Riwia Brown, who moved the focus from Jake to Beth to “creat[e] a strong woman character who is shown holding the scattered, dysfunctional family together” (Thornley 27).  Also, actor Temuera Morrison (Jake) was cast against his usual role in soap operas (Thornley 27).   Finally, the cast, crew, and director used for this film were all of Maori heritage—as I mentioned very unusual in New Zealand film production. 

Once Were Warriors had an amazing impact in New Zealand.  As Kirsten Thompson notes, the film entered the “popular vernacular” of New Zealand: “…cases of domestic violence and child abuse [were] referred to in the national press as ‘warriors families,’ and men acknowledging, ‘I’ve got a warriors problem’” (233).  After the film came out, more cases of domestic abuse were reported, woman’s refuges were packed, and kits were created using the language of the film to educate men about violent behavior (Thompson 233).  The connection to Beth in the film was a strong one for many women: “I felt every punch that she got.  That movie was so real, it was just uncanny” was how one woman was quoted who had been beaten by her husband for 20 years (Pryor in Thompson 233).  Clearly, for some local Maori, there was an identification with one or more characters, and this type of engagement surely heightened their reaction to the film. 

The film turns a scathing eye to the Maori community and places the responsibility of their contemporary situation on the Maori themselves, not simply portraying them as victims of a white society.  Some local critics, like Leonie Pihama, argue that the lack of historical colonial contextualization perpetuates Maori stereotypes and confirms the Pakeha “so that’s how the other half lives” mentality:

Without discussion of the impact of colonization and the acts of violence perpetrated upon our tupuna [ancestors], it is a movie that is unconnected to our historical experience of oppression.  For those who know little about our people and our colonial experiences, the representation of Maori people is limited to a violent, abusive face, and the wider realities of our day-to-day experiences remain hidden. (192)

While the film lacks explicit colonial contextualization by containing few scenes involving Pakeha (and those that are present reinforce their positions of power), the effects of colonization can still be seen visually, in the poverty of the housing development among other things. 

Clearly it is important to look at how the film may or may not perpetuate negative stereotypes.  I do not want to make light of the cultural effects of colonialism.  By looking at some of the varying effects the film had on the New Zealand community helps to begin to contextualize the film in order to understand the environment in which the filmmaker was working, allowing us to better understand how the film confirms or works against stereotypes and clichés.  The presence of another level of meaning is important when analyzing the film, as it allows us, as spectators outside of the culture, to gain insight into cultural meaning, and how this meaning opens up within the bigger global picture, without simply writing off the film’s representations as the end-all be-all explanatory guide to the culture. 

            Unlike the more recent Maori film Whalerider (2002), Once Were Warriors presents a vibrant immediacy that attracts the spectator more willingly.  Whalerider, which also directly confronts the Maori with their responsibility to preserve and continue their unique cultural traditions, contains many visually pleasing scenes in regard to color, though they do not have quite the same emotional effect as in Once Were Warriors.  Instead, the motif of the whale, even with its heavily saturated underwater blue colors, comes across as pretty but rather trite, especially because of the accompanying music.  These filmic aspects cue an entirely different tone for the film—one much more subdued.  
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