Decolonizing influence : an exploration of queer sexuality in the film Stryker

Abstract

Through an analysis of Noam Gonick’s independent Canadian film Stryker (2004) as public pedagogy, and in comparison to real life narratives, the authors illustrate how queer sexualities and genders are constructed according to Western hetero-colonial tropes that either silence Indigenous Two-Spirit people or position them as an exotic ‘other’ in queer and non-queer Canadian contexts. Through this comparison the authors shed light on problematic (mis)representations of Indigenous Two-Spirit people in cinema and how this may impact ‘real life’ encounters and assumptions about Two-Spirit people, and suggests some implications for decolonizing Western influence on Indigenous sexuality and gender identity.