Sione's Wedding & Sione's 2

I'll admit it. As an upper-middle-class white male, I'm not exactly the most knowledgeable person when it comes to anything Pacific Island culture related. Sure, I've read about it in school, and seen programs about it on TV, but that stuff never really stuck with me. I'm rather ashamed to say it, but if you mention the phrase "Pacific Islander" to me, a myriad of stereotypes will wade their way into my brain. It’s mainly due to an utter lack of knowledge or context when it comes to this sort of thing.

The Sione’s films are interesting because they paint a picture of what Samoan life is like in New Zealand, but don’t make this the crux of the film. So many other films will rely on the character’s ethnicities to draw their comedy from, but neither Sione’s film relies heavily on this. The one exception, of course, is Derek.

Derek is a “white boy from Glenfield” (as Oscar Kightley’s character puts it). Who acts like he is ‘one of the boys’. It’s rather ironic that a white character represents the most stereotypical and offensive view of your average Samoan in Sione’s Wedding, although it’s one of the film’s most brilliant (and funny) aspects. Sione’s Wedding is a film that by all rights gives one of the most earnest portrayals of Samoan life in New Zealand ever captured on film.

Growing up is a major theme of both movies. At the beginning of Sione’s Wedding, Michael (Robbie Magasiva), Albert (Oscar Kightley), Stanley (Iahito Ah Hi), and Sefa (Shimpal Lalisi) are really just teenagers trapped in the bodies of men in their late 20s/early 30s. Throughout the course of the movie they each slowly learn what it means to grow up. Albert and Tania (Madelein Sami) finally get together, and Sefa proposes to Leilani (Teuila Blakely). In Sione’s 2, They further explore this theme with Albert moving to the North Shore. It’s a very relatable theme, especially for someone my age. I think that this is what gives the two films the status they hold amongst my generation. We can all see ourselves - regardless of our ethnicities or economic backgrounds - in these four boys.

My favourite character in these films was always Albert. I’m not sure why. I’ve always thought that it was because Albert was always the sanest out of the bunch of them. He always just seemed to be along for the ride, letting the others do their thing. He’s a thirty-something year old man with a rather boring job in insurance. That shouldn’t be that appealing right? The more I think about it, the more I think that maybe it has to do with his arc in the films having the least to do with his Samoan background. I can relate to Albert more on an emotional level, and not be constantly reminded that we come from completely different cultural backgrounds. I think with the others, they have more quirks that are more specifically Samoan that I cannot relate to.

Michael spent most of Sione’s Wedding convincing himself that he should forego sleeping with white girls and settle down with a ‘nice Samoan girl’. The pressure to settle down with someone from my own ethnicity is something I have never had to deal with from any of my relatives, yet apparently, for someone of pacific descent, this can be a very big deal.

Sefa’s behaviour throughout a lot of the first film exemplifies the classic stereotype of the ‘rowdy Samoan boy’. It’s a very negative stereotype. One that does little to service the reputation of the Samoan community in New Zealand.

I really just don’t get Stanley. That whole phone sex line thing is just so weird and foreign to me. The fact that Stanley is also portrayed as being quite simple-minded puts me off as well, as I think, however unintentional it may be, that is a slightly racist portrayal of a Samoan.

But hey, I’m white. What would I know?

Despite this, I do think that the Sione’s films actually a pretty good job of truly breaking down racial and cultural barriers, as well as subverting stereotypes when it comes to the portrayal of Pacifica in New Zealand. Yes, stereotypically, the Church plays a massive role in pacific communities, and yes, there is a little bit of hyperbole when it comes to how it is portrayed in the Sione’s films, but there is not a single negative way any aspects of the church are portrayed in either movie (unless you count that Destiny Church parody in Sione’s 2, but come on, it’s pretty funny). It’s also nice that at the end of both films, we get to see big community events (a wedding and a funeral) the way the Samoans do them. I kind of want a Samoan-style wedding myself now. They look like fun.

I think what is truly amazing about these films (to me at least) is that even though they are set in Grey Lynn - a 30 minute drive from my house – I feel like I am being presented with a window into an entirely different country. The differences between little things such as people’s body language, the way they speak, what words are used, and how people treat each other are immense. The fact that all this is taking place in the same city that I have lived in for 14 out of my 19 years on this earth is mind boggling. I have clearly been living a very sheltered life.

I think that regardless of how you may feel about the films themselves, these films are an integral part of NZ culture, and should be treated as such.

Colour

You might wonder why i write about the skin colour issue and the language issue. Well like i mentioned that my partner is from India, we talk a lot about how we Indians discriminate against each other. My partner is amazing and he is not that type, but he says that there a lot of Indian do these things.


Colours It creates brightness, happiness and brings things into sight.
Then why? Why do we see skin so differently? And not treat us right?
Am I meant to be a lighter shade to be nicer,
A lighter shade to be attractive,
A lighter shade to achieve something,
A lighter shade to love.
Why am I so different?
I pretend it doesn't hurt,
That you compare me to dirt.
You worry if my kids will be of a different 'colour',
Not if they will be a doctor, teacher or a physco killer.
Beauty is skin deep.
That has no value now
As you have taken it and turned it around,
The things you say make me wana judge you.
Your finger points at me like I'm an outcast
Have you forgotten the three that are pointing straight at your heart. Look beyond the front,
See outside the box,
Step inside the soul and realise that we are one,
The same, with skin and bones.

26 Hours

Transcript:

26 hours is a long time on a plane
It's nothing compared to a month on a ship
but I feel just as out of place when I arrive
as they did a century ago, starting their new lives

It's funny how, when you're a kid,
you move but it feels like you're standing still
and the world is moving around you
It's the first time my world
has turned
completely upside down
and I know I'm not going home
This is my home now

Nine years old and
nobody liked my accent
Nine years old and
I didn't much like theirs

What's a kid supposed to do?
When crisps are chips
and trousers are pants
and you've never heard of jandals or The Warehouse

I don't fit it
I want to wash my skin
not of colour
but of the sunburn I acquire too easily
(red on white)
and the blisters on my feet
(white on red)
I wish I could bite a bar of soap
and wash my mouth out
of my accent
but how do you clean your brain?
Reset it
So I forget it
feels wrong that Christmas is in summer
And my birthday in June is in winter now

Where I come from
is not like here
I don't belong.

Four Poems and Sione's Wedding by Karlo Mila: A Text to Self Analysis

The topic I will be looking into is the Madonna/Whore dichotomy. A brief description of what this means is that women are forced to construct their sexual identity in one of only two ways: saint or sinner. This is a form of patriarchal oppression because the virgin must be protected by men, and the whore must be punished by them. 

This is still an issue in society today. The Madonna/Whore complex is perpetuated by Christianity and the teachings of the Bible, as Martin Luther King stated when he said "The word and works of God are quite clear: that women were made to be either wives or prostitutes." Western civilisation was built on the Christian religion and this is still the biggest religion in the world. It is also the religion that the colonial Pacific adopted and is strong not only in New Zealand but also in Tonga and Samoa, countries which Karlo Mila has roots in. It’s easy to see, then, how relevant this stereotype is to her personally and also to our country and all of Western civilisation.

I chose the first quote I want to discuss because the Madonna/Whore complex is so apparent in it. Mila writes:

"Same old roly-poly roles
dusky maiden in her little lavalava
fertilising the taro patch
and the mum in her mumu
modern-day Mary, her afro like a halo
hands clasped in prayer
for the sins of her sons." 

Firstly, we have the “dusky maiden” who takes on the role of the Whore. The term “dusky maiden” has been very carefully chosen because its origins can be traced back to when the Pacific Islands were first explored. Sailors from Europe were shocked by the exposed breasts and thighs of Island women, and their supposed promiscuity and willingness to offer sexual favours to the foreign men. This means that the term “dusky maiden,” which was coined by the explorers, has a lot of negative sexual connotations and that’s why this girl is in the Whore stereotype. 

Also, Mila describes her lavalava, or wraparound skirt, as “little” implying it is short and revealing. The emphasis placed on her clothing echoes society’s obsession with the length of women’s skirts and how they must be “a slut” or “easy” if it’s a bit short.

Moving on to the mother, she is clothed in a mumu or full length shift dress, which in contrast reveals very little skin and makes the female figure seem shapeless. The next two lines blatantly describe her as the Madonna figure, “modern-day Mary”-  Mary in the Bible is the same thing as the Madonna, “afro like a halo” - she’s a saint, “hands clasped in prayer” - she definitely has faith in God. Karlo Mila couldn’t be any more obvious here.

The stereotype continues with this next quote: 

“How does a wet 

dream island girl get 

to wear white 

at Sione’s wedding?” 

Here, she is making the point that if you’re a beautiful girl with a gorgeous figure, the imagination of a man then has the power to make you a whore, no matter what your actual number of partners is. If you’re hot enough that he dreams of having sex with you, then that’s as good as actually doing it. She may physically be a virgin for all he knows, but a man’s mind still has the power to make her a slut who doesn’t deserve to wear white at the wedding because it symbolises sexual purity.

The next quote I would like to discuss is:

"Hmm, it seems we're either hula

or hipping it

either on your arm or

talking to your hand."

This blatantly shows sexism because the ideology behind it is that men expect women to be hot hula girls, happy to be a trophy shown off on their arm, and if you’re not happy to be that kind of woman, you can talk to their hand. This is a strong example of the way that women are expected, often not only by the men in their lives but also by the media and other women, to conform to a man’s ideal of what a woman should be, and if she doesn’t she can piss off. This enforces the patriarchal oppression that the Virgin/Whore complex stems from.

Next, Mila discusses the fact that sexual feelings are something that women are made to feel ashamed about:

"alliterated affection
blurs all that sex
and sweat and shame
into art"

Here, the author talks about trying to take her shame and make it into art, which is a positive step toward reclaiming her sexual identity.

What’s interesting about the next quote is that she describes the disapproval as coming from her aunties, not her uncles. 

"pastel and palatable

to our aunties

who'd turn in their graves 

like weeds

if we told the seedy truth"

This is another part where the author notes that women trap themselves in stereotypes by echoing the patriarchal values they were taught when they were young, rather than thinking for themselves and daring to contradict it. It’s scary how accurately this reflects real life. When teenage girls are bullied for being “sluts” it’s far more likely to come from other girls. These judgements are so strong in our society that women effectively oppress themselves, no helping hand needed from the men in their lives.

Text to Self is an important part of analysing a text because in order to achieve their purpose, the author needs to make a connection with their audience, and the only way to do that is to make them think or feel something.

I believe that while in this poem, Karlo Mila focuses on challenging the oppression of women in the Samoan and Tongan cultures that she has roots in, her purpose goes far beyond that, because women from the other Islands, from New Zealand, and even right around the world are able to connect with what she writes. This is because the Madonna/Whore complex affects women wherever Western culture has had an influence, no matter where they came from originally.

To back up that statement, I will give some real-life examples of how prevalent this stereotype is in Western culture outside of the islands Karlo Mila focuses on in her poem. This first example is from the music industry, somewhere you can see it all the time. 

Taylor Swift’s music video for You Belong With Me shows her playing both stereotypes. As the whore, she wears lots of makeup and a revealing red dress, a colour that in Western society symbolises sin and sexual passion. As the virgin, she has natural makeup and a dress that covers a lot more skin, and of course it is white, the colour of purity and innocence. And the virgin gets the boy in the end because obviously no man wants a serious relationship with a whore, she’s not girlfriend material. Again, this is women oppressing women, and shockingly this music video won Best Female Video at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, which goes to show how much our society loves to judge women by these stereotypes and see the Madonna triumph over her slutty counterpart. 

What’s even more disturbing is that the majority of Swift’s fanbase are in their early teens or even younger, and are still learning how to be a woman from the whole world around them, including Swift who they look up to. So they will grow up believing this kind of stereotyping is normal and okay, and that when they reach sexual maturity, they have to be a saint or else they’ll be a sinner.

One of the biggest issues I have with the Madonna/Whore dichotomy is that it doesn’t allow for anything in between Virgin and Whore. This is definitely not an accurate depiction of women’s sexual identity, which can’t be defined by labels because everyone is somewhere different along a spectrum. This next photo is an example of this. 

It shows the judgements women are faced with every day simply because of the length of their skirt, as if that defines your entire being. I think most people would agree that the judgements marked on this girl’s leg are pretty accurate reflection on how a large proportion of society thinks, and it's interesting how they all carry negative connotations, even the ones that fall under the Madonna heading rather than Whore. The issue that this reflects is that in today’s society, a large amount of men consider the Virgin just as unattractive and unsuitable as a partner as the Whore. Yet women are only allowed to be Virgins or Whores, so this is a very twisted outlook.

This next picture is also relevant to that concept that both Whore and Virgin are looked down upon. I opened an ask.fm account and asked for girls to share their experiences with the Madonna/Whore dichotomy, and this website allows people to anonymously submit things to you. The answers I received show just how confused society’s outlook on female sexual identity is, and how easily girls get stereotyped as one or another with no acknowledgement of all the possibilities in between.

And this continues. This next picture is composed of a bunch of screenshots of what else I received for having a page that people can abuse the anonymous function on. These totally inappropriate questions demonstrate to me how obsessed our society is with these stereotypes and with forcing them on people when they know nothing about them or their sexual identity.

So essentially, the core focus of my Text to Self evaluation is that I feel like Karlo Mila connected with me because as a woman I am subjected to the Madonna/Whore complex on a daily basis, and I can relate to the feelings she expresses in the poem about sexual identity and how society raises us to believe we can only be Virgins or Whores.

(1,645 words)

Sons for the Return Home

Sons for the Return Home

This book is an auto-biography on Albert Wendt's family who moves to New Zealand from Samoa in 1960's.  He moves to New Zealand when he is just a child with his brother, mother and father. They live in the Wellington area as that's where his uncle is staying.

In this book, a lot of issues are addressed, such as how the 'papalagi' and the 'others' interacted with each other, how people on the outside saw New Zealand, how kids were raised, and how gays were perceived to be.

This book shows that there was a lot of racism back then when people from the island were considered to be 'dirty'. There is one bit in the book that I found quite sad, when the boys are helping the old man at the rubbish dump and later on that old man shouts at them and tells them to leave him alone. I did think to myself that the old man must have been confused and unaware of his surroundings as he referred to them as the "nazi". It is also at the same time very unbelievable that kids could treat an older man like this. 

Discrimination is also shown when the boys brother is being hated on in school just because he is not studious like him.

The way gays were seen was really disturbing. The man became sick at the sight of two men making love and his wife started crying that the thought of it. People weren't educated on freedom and that they can choose they own partners, so they saw it as a very wrong and sinful thing to do.

The way the book was structured was very confusing for me when I started to read it and found it quite boring, however as I carried on I found it quite interesting and I thought Wendt was very bold and brave to present his life this way to the world. 

(need to add more)

Sione's Wedding and Sione's 2

Sione's Wedding and Sione's 2 is about Samoan boys and how they behave in their community. The first movie is about Sione getting married and the boys are on a mission to find dates for the wedding as instructed by their minister. The second movie is about Sione's death and the boys are on the hunt for one of their friends.

 It is quite interesting to watch these grown men behave like teenagers by wrecking people's wedding and other functions.  One important thing our group noticed when we were preparing for the seminar was the way these characters behaved in front of the minister of their church. They referred to the minister as "your holiness" "your honor  it shows their strong sense of religion by respecting the elders in the community. They even bowed their head while talking to the minister.  Also in the movie when the boys enter the house they remove their shoes and go inside the house. This is done out of respect to the elders and the house owners.

The writers of the movie have brought out this stereo typical act of Samoan's as a group of loud and immature guys in the four main characters, however, they also have other Samoan male characters in the movie to show that stereotyping is probably not the right way to go as not everyone is the same.

The role of women is also quite important as in the first movie the minister bans the four boys from attending the wedding, but once Albert convinces the minister to let them come if they have dates, he agrees quickly. This shows that women bring out the best in these men and keep them calm and stops them from misbehaving.

Togetherness within the community is also shown quite often in these two movies. One can immediately see the unity between the people of the Samoan community when the four boys are called in to speak to the minister, all the people from their community are present. Even when the minister lays the punishment on them, he says "me and my flock" stating that this was a joint decision. This is also demonstrated in the second movie when Sione dies and Paul who is possibly responsible for his death goes missing, everyone starts getting worried about his disappearance and the minister once again orders the boys to go look for him.  Another time the tight unity is shown is when we learn that Sione has been having affairs while being married and towards the end Paul is speaking to one of Sione's girlfriends explaining to her why she shouldn't go to his funeral as this would upset so many people. Even though the boys knew Sione was wrong, they still had the family's best interest at heart and didn't tell anyone about those affairs.

Overall I think they have done a great job at providing good entertainment by making fun and laughing at themselves. 

Confused Language

Born in the Pacific isles of Fiji
I was taught how to respect my elders and how to behave with young kids
I was told stories about who my ancestors were and where they came from
We were slaves, that's right!
Slaves, brought to this island to make it live able, to make it grow, to make money off out it while the rest of our kind was miles away in a country of their own
Now you question us on our language, saying it's not like yours, it's not accurate, saying it’s unknown
No my dear friend you are wrong
Open your eyes and see where we all come from, the one sitting above has made us
Made everyone with skin and bones
Now now don't raise your voice and tell me I'm not an Indian
I am just as Indian as you, born in a different place that's true
But just as Indian as you
I might not sing "jana gana mana" everyday yet I know all the words to it, because I'm just as Indian as you
I do not hate you for your language being different, I see my culture in you and accept you with open arms
So remember this my dear friend if you ever feel the need to put me down
I might not be light skinned like you or know the language as well as you
We were the Indians that made history in the beautiful isles of FIJI and will always remain a part of you.