So you’re saying that a corporate philosophy of recycling and reusing is a matriarchal philosophy, but creating from new materials each and every time is a patriarchal one?
Absolutely. Yeah, it’s like the seasons. The seasons evolved. We have four distinctive seasons, but they come around again and again and again and they have for as long as this planet has been spinning. These are cycles you cannot stop. I don’t see men having children.
I don’t see many men being fathers to the children they already have, in the sense of being a Dad.
We live in a terminal adolescence with a generation of fathers who are complete adolescents. They can’t educate their fathers because they weren’t educated by their fathers. But women, for the most part, seem to be far more adaptive than men, and far more resourceful because their DNA, their hard drive is so much more resourceful and stronger. Men think they are stronger than women, but that’s definitely not true. Women possess the ability to protect their child and the power of birth. From what I’ve seen, from what I’ve experienced, I haven’t seen strength like that in any man. I’m not for this kind of soft male, like this hipster male who’s gone so soft that he’s of no use. When you get to that stage, you might as well flush yourself down the toilet. That’s rubbish, garbage, being a ‘sensitive guy.’
A metrosexual.
Yeah, fuck that. I mean, I’m not saying men should go around beating each other on the chest like ‘Hey, more beer!’ That’s nonsense, too. I mean, have some integrity, some dignity. It takes some real strength to be able to say, no, all women lead us. You know that film 300?
Yes.
Where the Persian turns around and says, ‘You let your women speak to a man like this?’ And the Spartans are like, ‘Fucking absolutely. We fight for our women. Our women are our counsel. This is why we do the shit we do, for our women.’ But in this culture it’s like we do the shit we do for ourselves. And then we get the trophy, the surgically created woman. These poor girls who are going out doing horrific things to themselves, and young children are concerned about their weight! Little girls! That’s not the way it should be! Well, you have a daughter.
Oh, I see it, too, of course.
I have two sons and they’re concerned about their weight and their clothes. It’s really a violent culture out there.
Well, part of that is just in being a teenager.
Part of it is, but the rite of passage isn’t there. When we were running around the forest, we all had the same resources. We didn’t have Nikes and Levi’s or whatever.
Another part of it is Disney.
Well, the Disney machine sucks out all the nutrients. God knows how many children they go through in their factory, where they process human experience and children and sugar and create their little products. We all get drawn in because they create such lovely little things every now and again. They bought Pixar.
I refuse to think of Up as a product of Disney.
Well, it kind of is.
I know.
But that’s part of it. The devil’s getting smart in that he knows what tricks the human psyche. These are archetypal themes and what extracts the dollar from your pocket and puts it into their pocket. But at some point, I mean, how much money do you actually need? As a corporation, it’s driving itself for, what, profit? If not for the benefit of human resources. Although, I’m sure they have some sort of rehabilitation project that collects used Disney snow globes or something. But Disney’s so iconic. We’ve all grown up with Disney and I think we’re probably more able to identify Disney myths than we are biblical myths. It’s the culture we grew up in so let’s address this stuff and move forward. Personally, I loved it. I’m obsessed with Peter Pan and I loved the original Snow White.
I guess I should say, when I’m referring to Disney I’m referring to the Hannah Montana kinds of shows. Those earlier cartoons have significant merit.
Oh I know. Justin Timberlake Disney. Christina Aguilera Disney. Britney Spears Disney.
Right. It’s just that, for a long time I’ve thought the last true age of childhood is probably around 6 and there seems to be some sort of correlation there.
Precisely. Disney pushes it right around then and these little tweenies or whatever it is that we’re calling them, they’re concerned about their breast size and their attractiveness. Then I go back to my little Native American kids and I look at them and think, these kids can’t even get on the map to get into that stuff. They’re too busy destroying themselves at a very early age. So, like I said, pick up a shovel and start digging. I’m in it but I don’t wear the badge. I don’t turn up for the big gala events. I mean, I was asked to speak at the UN at one point to the Human Rights Commission about indigenous issues and I said, ‘Why? How is this going to serve anything? This isn’t the issue is it?’ And they say, ‘Well, so and so did it and so and so did.’ With all respect to Bono and Zach de la Rocha and all those guys, it’s just more rhetoric.
The only way is to roll up your sleeves and get busy. If you’re a concerned citizen, then go there. When I was involved with the Tibetan Freedom Movement, I sat on a panel at the last one they gave which was in 1999 with my other peers and artists and the questions started coming in about Tibet. Every single person who said something, I said, ‘What do you base your opinion on?’ They’d answer a news article or something they saw on TV. I’d say, ‘That’s interesting because I just came back from Tibet and you have no idea what you’re talking about. You have nothing to base your opinion on. And if you are really concerned about the future of Tibet, get off your fucking ass and go there. Go to the region, alone. Don’t pontificate about something.’
We see this all the time. The Vanity Fair environmental issue or something. People get all their information out of that or National Geographic. Or everybody goes on the Internet and Googles everything. ‘I’ll have to find out about that, let me Google you.’ As a research tool, perhaps, but not to be used as the only source. Get on your bicycle and go there. Like for the feature film, Moorish Dreams, here we are and I know the subject matter is really important so here we are sitting with some Hollywood people and they’re asking for the budget and how much we need for funding. I’m saying, ‘Interesting. I’ve already sent my director and my producer to Tangier way ahead of schedule.’ I said ‘Here’s a camera, just go there and start. Just fucking start if we rely on these clowns this thing won’t be out until 2012 and then we’ll be on the Mayan calendar and who knows…’ All the great stuff, we’re already getting it.
Nothing’s coming out of Hollywood. Nothing’s coming out of New York. It’s coming out of the fact that we had the foresight to actually get on a plan and go there and meet people and just say, ‘Hi. We want to do this, we want to do it with you and we want to leave a legacy.’ When we walk away we want to leave awareness about what’s happening to these children and maybe have it be a better place for these kids to be educated in. The whole idea of Conquest is that, when we leave the area, we leave some kind of legacy so that those kids at Wounded Knee School do have five copies of Harry Potter and that the women’s shelter there does have the ability to wash the linen. Simple shit. Simple stuff.
