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In order to produce a good ethnography, the anthropologist must be aware of their own cultural bias, showing reflexivity in their writing or film. This allows readers to understand where the ethnographer is coming from. Anthropologists must also show reciprocity in order to dismantle tropes. Allowing subjects of study to have significant involvement in the process of creating the ethnography prevents inaccurate depictions of them.

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Flaherty clearly began making this film with a fixed perception of Inuit people as primitive and simple minded. His focus on them only having the bare necessities and struggling to survive ignores the complexity of their culture. This depiction reminds me both of Mead, who likewise thought of the Samoan people as "primitive," and of "Savage Kin," in which early American ethnographers often manipulated aspects of Native American culture to depict them as "savage."

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The film depicts Inuit people as a "simple" group whose survival is never guaranteed. Flaherty includes scenes of Inuits immediately eating the food they catch because of their supposed intense hunger and even overeating in the case of the child with his biscuit and lard. The text, with its inclusion of exclamation points, references to the intensity of the cold, and words like "starving," seems to sensationalize Inuit culture. Since there is no dialogue from the Inuit people themselves, it's unclear how accurate Flaherty's textual descriptions of their actions are.

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In class, we tend to bring up the concept of reflexivity and reciprocity a lot while critiquing ethnographies. In the introduction of the film, it seems like Flaherty is attempting to present some level of reciprocity, as he claims Nanook asked him to stay longer after he had completed filming, and that he had brought his own equipment to show the Inuits his work as he was doing it, so they could "understand and appreciate what he was doing". However, the final film is still plagued by the western gaze. While Flaherty has some sense of awareness of reciprocity, there doesn't seem to be any references to reflexivity, and without acknowledging the unbalanced power dynamic between him and his subjects, he fails to radically dismantle any tropes about the Inuit.

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The implication that Nanook and the other Inuit's lives revolve simply around basic survival needs such as food and shelter reminded me of Mead's argument that Samoan adolescents are largely unbothered by complexities and choices such as politics, so that their coming of age can revolve solely around their relationships with their peers. Additionally, the scene of the white man explaining a record player makes me think of Kroeber's quote about being uninterested in 'survivors in blue jeans'. There is a fetishization of the Inuit's unfamiliarity with "modern technology" which is a recurring theme of other salvage ethnographies which often reflected indigenous peoples as simple or antithetical to the western conception of 'civilization'.

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Nanook and the Inuit people are presented as largely benevolent but, "simple". In the very beginning, Flaherty describes them as "cheerful" and "happy go lucky" despite his claims that their environment is barren and bleak. ' There is a constant emphasis on the Inuit's scarcity of food, and how their lifestyle revolves around simple human needs for survival. Additionally, there is the implication that the Inuit are 'untouched' by Western modernity in their desolate land, exemplified in the scene where a white man must show them how a record player works.

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Well the easiest way to dismantle a trope like this is to be aware of the source you're looking at and not taking everything at face value. Maybe do a bit of your own research. (I feel like this might not be something people would think to do when this film came out though as documentaries weren't really a thing yet and so I am not sure as to how this film was received by scholars and the public)

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I think the recurring trope of non-white people being entranced by white folk. In this film, this was seen throughout by the way the camera crew was able to manipulate the Inuit people to do specific (dumb) scenes. But also, this was seen at the trading post when the Inuit people acted amazed by the white trader's knowledge and technology.

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Inuit people are depicted as sort of savage wild people who are constantly starving and so their entire life is focused on finding their next meal. I found it a bit ridiculous every time some sort of food was caught and the text would always read how they couldn't control their hunger so began eating the raw meat or whatever.

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What are the critiques we've formulated to dismantle each of these tropes?

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What are the critiques we've formulated to dismantle each of these tropes?

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Do any of these depictions remind you of other texts we've read with similar "tropes" (recurring images or depictions of people)?

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Do any of these depictions remind you of other texts we've read with similar "tropes" (recurring images or depictions of people)?

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How are Inuit people depicted? Think about the imagery, their actions, and the text. 

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How are Inuit people depicted? Think about the imagery, their actions, and the text. 