What Is Creative Accountability And Why Do More Directors Need It?

In the last ten years, we’ve seen the impact of artistic mistakes on both peoples and artists. We’ve also seen a lot of discourse around the weight of creative intent, its absence thereof, and of the aforementioned’s impact on those in positions of less privilege within society. But what we haven’t seen, is a clear narrative on how we should handle these mistakes, especially from creative industry leaders. 

James Cameron is a great case study around a talented industry-known artist who seemed to have done so many creative - and political - things right, yet ended up making crucial mistakes leaving large political impacts on a marginalized group. I should state that James Cameron is an incredibly renowned filmmaker and someone who I have a lot of respect for. I am a shameless lover of Titanic - I credit my early sexual awakening to that movie. This past year, I took Cameron’s Masterclass during the pandemic, which was extremely informative in topics such as lenses, angles, and character metaphors. However recent articles involving Cameron have left me reflecting on my ethical admiration of the acclaimed award-winning filmmaker. 

There has been a good deal of backlash against James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water. Much of this goes back to a 2010 interview with the Guardian in which Cameron goes into detail as to what he witnessed from visiting the Xingu Tribe, located in the Amazon. At the time these Indigenous people were fighting against the development of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam during his research for Avatar. As an environmental activist, I personally felt Cameron made some beautiful observations about his learnings from the Tribe. He stood up to the building engineers, and was articulate about the ecological and cultural destruction the dam would create. However, in using his platform to pull back the curtain on one marginalized group of peoples, Cameron, goes on to deflate the humanity of another peoples, the Lakota Sioux Nation:

"I couldn't help but think that if [the Lakota Sioux] had had a time-window and they could see the future… and they could see their kids committing suicide at the highest suicide rate in the nation... because they were hopeless and they were a dead-end society – which is what is happening now – they would have fought a lot harder."

Cameron’s comment was made as an argument to why the Xingu Tribe should fight the capitalist progress of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, and perhaps, as justification to his own role in bringing light to this fight. Yet in the process, the dignity of the Lakota Sioux became verbal and cultural collateral.  

The Lakota Sioux, like most Indigenous American Tribes, experienced major genocide from colonization and continue to experience systemic racism through all areas of society.  However, these peoples have their own unique identity, and have truly also displayed resilience against colonialism and its concurring systems of oppression. More so, they continue to share their traditional knowledge along with a deep understanding of the interconnected relationship between human, spirit, and ecosystem. The Lakota Sioux are not an uninformed stereotype. They - like the Xingu Tribe, like anyone reading this article, hail from a culturally vibrant heritage that cannot - and should not - be limited to a dangerous stereotype used as a form of cultural collateral to weigh the oppression of one peoples against another. To have someone (especially a white man) say these ignorant and hurtful comments in an interview undermines all the work the Lakota Sioux has done to not only survive, but continue to grow in spite of the oppression placed on to them 

This comment was stated over 10 years ago and there is a huge publicity emergence of this next film, however, there is STILL no documented apology from James Cameron (from what I’ve found).

I am not here to judge Cameron, or to add to the diatribe of backlash he is receiving across the internet. As an artist, I too once found myself in a situation of making a blind mistake, the political fallout of which unintentionally hurt marginalized folks.  

When I was in post-production and editing the second film in my award-winning series, Under Review: Katahdin, I realized the whiteness of the narrative I had created.  realized my own  ignorance of leaving very important voices and bodies out of the research, development, and overall creation of this film. My ignorance quickly spiraled into anger - and shame - for how deeply my unconscious bias runs, and how much my past has ruled my casting choices, and for how little I knew about the holistic history of American land.

No, my words - or works - were not plastered over the internet. But, the impact of my misrepresentation was something that dwelled deeply within me. After the release of Under Review: Katahdin, I released a statement for the lack of diversity within the film. This statement is a reflection of my past, present, and future. Through this and through speaking candidly to people, festivals, curators about the blind spots of my creations, I have learned how these lessons and conversations are important to carry forward into the creation process. These learnings are so much bigger than the film that is seen on the big screen because it echoes through all areas of production through:

• being intentional about who is involved in the cast and crew 

• who I reach out to and how I compensate for research 

• what areas are actually chosen to be showcased in the film (does the Bureau of Land Management have more say over this land versus the peoples?) 

• how does potential distribution of the film benefit the Indigenous peoples who land on which we filmed on 

• How can proceeds help the Indigenous tribes   
  

My journey into creative accountability was my own - one I chose to take from the knowing that all art is political, and we have a responsibility as artists to those we impact in good, bad, and unintentional ways. It wasn’t perfect, and the above is just one example - of many steps - I took in my process of building awareness, empathy, learning, and in bringing  a more inclusive and impact-driven mindset in my works. 

However, I do wish more artists, especially those in positions of leadership within the film industry itself, would set a standard for how to similarly navigate such circumstances. Because  in the current conversations - spanning creative inclusivity on one side, to sometimes the very need to cancel culture on the other - we also need to talk about creating a space for creative accountability, and we need that to come from industry leaders. Though Cameron did the research and learned from Tribes about land destruction and holistic practices, it is clear that his biases run deep, as do most white people’s. An apology is necessary, but it’s not the end of the journey. There has to be deep accountability but it also has to be wanted from the filmmaker.