Do not wear another person’s culture as a costume, white people. Even though you think you are connecting with someone when you speak about another’s identity or experience, your mouth should remain shut but your ears should be open. In Anthony Sneed’s remarkably funny and delightfully cringey short, The Great Cherokee Grandmother, a date goes off the rails when one participant doesn’t know how to stop inserting herself into another person’s exeperience.
John, a Cherokee American, is getting to know Carol, a 34 year old European American as described in the voiceover, at a local North Carolina restaurant. They are in that nerve-wracking first stage of getting to know each other–you can feel that excitable tension– before Carol prods John as to where he is from. He answers simply, but we know quickly that Carol is trying to pinpoint her date’s heritage because he is not white. Carol is doing that thing where she just keeps repeating the same question with a little more of a pointed tone. You’ve seen it, trust me.
After John reveals that he is Cherokee, Carol then takes the opportunity to reveal…that her great grandmother shares the same identity. That is when Sneed’s film blends absurdist comedy with a real truthful emotional tenstion. More and more people are thrilled, nay excited, to share that they also have a Cherokee great grandmother or relative somewhere in their lineage. All the while, though, Sneed never dislocates us from John’s perspective. The camera bounces around, cracking open and bending apart as we understand how John must feel in the moment. How many times has he had to endure this?
Throw in an appearancer from Wes Studi, and you have a careful reminder of just how much people of privilege still need to learn about etiquette and social understanding. Other films–narrative and feature-length–could learn a thing or two about packing a real punch.
