Discussion To forum members of First Nations, Native American, indigenous Mexican, or indigenous Central/South

To forum members of First Nations, Native American, indigenous Mexican, or indigenous Central/South American descent or people who are quite familiar with any of those tribes: What folktales, myths, or legends, from your tribe that you would want a live-action TV series to adapt? The show would run for at least 4 seasons and with each season being at least 22 epi. It would be broadcast on the Fox channel with Eng. subtitles as the spoken languages are the languages of said tribe.

In this scenario, said series would be written, directed, produced, and starring members that have heritage of said tribe. Now let's say you pick some legend from an extinct tribe. In this what-if scenario, an existing tribe that is closely-related to the extinct tribe from cultural, linguistic, and physical/genetic standpoints. Also, said show would be filmed as much as possible in locations where said tribe(s) live or lived.

Said hypothetical show would also be very well-received and earn multiple Emmy awards.

 

Chupacabra.

 

None of them because they will be 100% shit. They will definitely ruin everything anyway by injecting something unrelated.

 

In this hypothetical scenario, it has none of that! It is very faithful to the source material. If they had to add on to the myth through fillers so to speak, it would be done with events that adhere to the source material "canon".

 

There are too many Greek myth and legends but if I were to pic one to be made into a series, not a movie at least not a single one, but a series would be the Iliad. Now the latest version of it Troy wasn’t bad especially in the looks department. But what it was lacking was the involvement of the gods. The war of Troy was just as much a conflict between humans as it was one between gods. Like the whole reason this war started was because Eris the goddess of discord wasn’t invited to the marriage of Achilles parents.

 

Impossible, folktales are made-up stories. There are countless variations. Which one would be be the source material? If you choose A variation, people who grew up listening to other type of variations would see it as "not faithfully" to the source material. You just can't satisfy anyone.

 

In the context of this, then they would go with the version that is commonly told/written about! Sheesh, is this hypothetical scenario that hard to grasp?:

 

As interesting a mental exercise as this may be, putting it into practice would be a herculean task. You would either be left with a factual documentary level show with bad acting, or something that utterly twists the source materials and still suffers from bad acting. Either way it would go down in flames for being culturally insensitive or be just another trash series thats ignored.

On the other hand that could just be me being utterly pessimistic due to how little i believe the capacity of the movie/tv series industry. Which honestly ranks somewhere around ambulance chasing lawers and used car salesmen.

 

Is the fact that there are countless variations that there is no "common" so hard to grasp?

 

I don't think it should be on my end! I guess I am going to have to make my what-if scenarios even stricter so that @Nightowl1 actually would say "In this scenario, I would pick this myth".

 

Then you are obviously not getting it....

 

In my what-if scenario, it would rarely twist the source material if ever and it would be made by experienced people who are using cultural experts of said tribe. It would be as authentic as what TV budgets and networking time slots would allow for. In other words, in this scenario, this adaptation is as close to as perfect adaptation of a myth that TV can get. In terms of staying true to the source materials, we are talking about at least 95% adherent to the source materials.

 

chubaka

 

Thats why i said its an interesting thought exercise, but would fall apart during execution. Tbh im not sure you could find enough people that would find it intresting due to disbelief in authenticity. And the next tripping point would be getting the funding for capable actors and the likely needed CGI(myths and legends can get really weird). This is why i said it would end with poor acting(think early Hercules, Kevin Sorbo or Xena, Lucy Lawless) and it either being twisted normal TV trash or into documentary level mediocrity.

Point in fact i just recently saw a netflix show about Egyptian gods... lots of bad acting and flashy CGI. It held my intrest only because it was what was playing on the TV at a family get together. Apparently reading novels on my tablet is frowned upon but starring at a TV like a zombie is acceptable... who would of thought...

 

Brainlet tier takes lol. Go ask /tv/ and you will either get ignored or your asshole ripped into pieces.

 

Does being ignored mean they they find potential in your idea and will pitch it themselves, or just that its such a non-idea they cant even be bothered to trash it?

 

It means either they will call him a faggot, tell him to kill himself, ignore it just to meme and shitpost, tell him to go back, or the thread gets ignored and gets archived with at most one or two responses filled with sarcasm or irony. At least that's what happens in other boards I don't go to /tv/.

 

Not any of those things but honestly it sounds fucking cool.

 

I think you are looking at it the wrong way. You have two realistic choices in my view:

1) pick a very specific tribe/band(because a large scale ethnic group might have several variations) and use their legends. The Navajo are spread across several states and into Canada, so one area might have a legend that wasn't handed down in another region, and there might be variations. You could present it as the Navajo in one area of New Mexico have XYZ legend, pointing out a legend might vary outside of there but don't specify.

2) contrast a legend across a grouping of some type. Like the Anishinaabe near me speak an Algonquin language variant and if I was forced to guess share many of the same legends as other Algonquin language groups. So across a region, or common language, etc. might be one way to present a legend. In this you present multiple subtle variations on the legend.

Many myths were corrupted, lines of memory erased, or even modified by tribal assimilation even before the first white people came to America. It didn't get better after that. There are however a lot of books documenting various tribes in the hope of saving some of it before more is lost to time.

Finally, you also could look at it in an entirely different way. Look at the origin of folk lore in general like the Aarne-Thompson categorizing method and then look for specific examples of it in various North and South America areas.

 

This is why humanity is a mistake. I really see no great reason why we were created except temporary and eternal suffering on different worlds.