Actor Eds Eramiha and director Kiel McNaughton, on the set of Vegas. (Photo: Greenstone TV)
The new TV drama series Vegas has reignited debate about Māori representation on our screens and the “sovereignty” of Māori stories. Filmmaker Tainui Stephens looks at the challenge for Māori filmmakers.
Thanks to a well-funded new Māori drama series on prime time television, there’s a fuss in some quarters about whether it should have been made. The white elephant in the room is Pākehā participation in the production. Pākehā interests and influences are seen as a threat to story sovereignty — or Māori control over Māori stories.
Vegas is carefully crafted television entertainment about gang life and a search for redemption. It has ignited comment between thoughtful critics who deplore yet another story about Māori violence, and thoughtful filmmakers who claim the responsibility to tell stories that offer solutions to the trauma. Both sides are right.
Commercial media interests often latch on to stereotypes to drum up interest for a story. Whether the project perpetuates or destroys the stereotypes is almost irrelevant. The main thing is to have an idea that’s quickly recognisable and attracts attention. In such a creative industry, this sad fact is mostly a failure of imagination.
Talented Māori filmmakers will take those rare mainstream opportunities to entertain and, hopefully, inspire audiences. In the process, a large number of Māori get valuable experience in an industry, which, so far, has curtailed our growth. Māori are usually the hired crew or cast, rather than producers or employers. That is changing because of ambitious new funding strategies, but it takes time.
Vegas is a co-production between the long established Pākehā production house Greenstone TV, and two Māori companies with deep Te Arawa roots in Rotorua: 10,000 Company and the Steambox Film Collective.
It was in Rotorua where I first encountered what I understand to be story sovereignty.
In March 1984, I was acting in a production of Rowley Habib’s play Death Of The Land at a church hall in Ohinemutu. After the show, I received a message to ring the television producer Ernie Leonard. I had applied for a position as a reporter/researcher for the weekly television programme Koha.
I walked down to a tatty old red phone box by the Rotorua lakefront and tapped out the number in the not-so-secret manner that bypassed the need to pay for the call. After congratulating me for getting the job, Ernie offered me a piece of advice:
“Your ultimate responsibility is to the people, not the producer.”
Ernie was the producer, and my new boss, so I thought it was a brave thing to say. I know now that it was the right thing to say.
It is the people who offer us the material and inspiration for our stories. We shoot, shape, and show the stories to the people. It is the people who let us know if our work is any good or not. The people, through their tax dollars, their koha, and the choices of their representatives, pay for what we do. The people are the ultimate sovereign power. Story sovereignty belongs with the people we serve.
Early in my career, I learned the truth of that. I was making a documentary on the Ringatū faith and had been to three of their monthly hui to ask permission to film one of their services. Each time, I had stayed the night and presented my request to the whare. Each time, I received permission from church elders to make the programme. It was agreed that we would film an upcoming service in Rūātoki.
At the appointed hui, my cameraman Matt Bowkett was setting up the lights in the meeting house when the influential Tūhoe elder and church leader Te Kari Waaka put a stop to it all.
I was confused and fearful for my story. I wondered what could have gone wrong. Kari had been at the previous hui and knew about the plan. The way he was speaking, I could tell the project was in danger. Then local kaumātua and pou of the faith Rangi Puke rose and spoke on our behalf. He was a gentle and diplomatic soul and we got permission to continue.
That experience is one among many, showing me the unique vulnerability that faces Māori filmmakers. The stories don’t belong to us. We make them but don’t feel their impact. We have a duty of respect to all others who are part of the Māori world we inhabit. One that we ourselves make even smaller by being happily related to as many people as possible.
The film poster for Once Were Warriors.
The intelligent and conflicting discourse over Vegas took me back 30 years to the time I realised that a Pākehā company, Communicado, was to make a film of Alan Duff’s Once Were Warriors. I was outraged at the apparent ease by which Pākehā could tell yet another story about Māori gang life and domestic violence.
On the other hand, I was thrilled by the thought that such a talented cast and crew, led by Lee Tamahori, would do a fine job — and, if they got it right, subvert stereotypical expectations of the Pākehā audiences. They did. They created cinema art.
And like any great art, it drew extreme reactions. On one side, people saw it as an honest expose of deplorable male violence. True. On the other, people felt its hyper-masculine style made deplorable male violence appear cool. True.
Not long after Warriors was released and stunned audiences everywhere, Ernie asked me to be the director of a television documentary series, The New Zealand Wars. It was a Pākehā production, and Pākehā historian Jamie Belich was to be the writer and presenter. I was pissed off yet again. What was it about Pākehā and their fetish for stories about natives fighting each other?
I was grumpy about it and told Ernie I wasn’t interested. He insisted I meet with Jamie and the producer, Colin McRae. We did so at the TVNZ marae, and any misgivings I had about the project were washed away. It wasn’t just that Colin and Jamie were expert at their jobs. They’re also smart, loving human beings. Sincerely humble in a Māori space. I wanted to work with them.
For the entire project, Jamie and I functioned as tuakana and teina. Easily. Joyously.
The prof was the man, and clearly my tuakana in terms of the intellectual rigour and historicity of the series. When we ventured into Māori territory — either in the script or on location — I became his tuakana and he, teina to me. It was a partnership where tikanga showed us a way to respect each other. It was very simple.
The New Zealand Wars production team on location in the Chatham Islands/Wharekauri in 1997. From left: Mark Potter, Eugene Arts, Richard Long, Stephen Ellis, Tainui Stephens, Trudy Steele, James Belich, Colin McRae. (Photo supplied)
To achieve the things we strive for, there’s a place for being proud of what we know, and humble before all that we do not. Don Selwyn was a stage icon who trained generations of Māori actors and crews for pioneering productions like Once Were Warriors. He was an indomitable presence with an actor’s relish for language, and for projecting it with force. Many times, in private and in hui, Don told us:
“Ko te kaupapa kei mua. It’s not about you.”
When the Māori makers of Vegas partnered with Pākehā to develop the series, they created a story with roots in painful truths. It was the core of a kaupapa they could all believe in. They acknowledged the pains around the issues and devised a way to get on with the job, safely. And they stuck to their kaupapa despite the naysayers and some vacuous attempts to sabotage the production.
I am saddened when a few bitter colleagues choose to convince actors not to apply for a coveted role because of the involvement of Pākehā, or the nature of the story being told. Our industry is sometimes riven by competing interests in a system that can be brutal as it disperses funds for what it hopes are sound reasons.
When a production has a kaupapa that is apparent and acceptable to all, it becomes a focus for everyone’s efforts. It deserves to be out front. The needs of every individual, from the executive to the runner, are always in a supportive role. To serve the kaupapa requires a humble heart. To fulfil the kaupapa requires the strength that comes from mana motuhake.
Mana motuhake refers to self-determination and control over our destiny. Most of all, it is an attitude, a determined frame of mind that enables us to be in charge of ourselves with excellence, efficiency, and empathy. Our tikanga are the tools we routinely use to define and guide our mana motuhake.
I think to assert our “mana motuhake” is a better use of language than to assert “story sovereignty”.
To deal to all matters of ownership, rights, and the competent execution of a script on Māori terms, with the use of tikanga as and when we wish, is better than seeking a sovereignty that cannot belong to filmmakers. And for me, I will work with Pākehā if they understand and embrace their teina position.
As we Māori filmmakers increase our presence in the mainstream, we will work with whoever we wish, and however we wish, to protect the integrity and control of our own stories.
Ko tāku e mea ana: Waiho mā te iwi te rangatiratanga o te kōrero. Māku te mana motuhake hei waha ake.
The sovereignty of the story lies with the people. Mine is the power to give it voice.
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Kia ora. Ko Inez Te Reiiti taku ingoa, he uri nei o te whānau Kingi.
That’s right. The main character was named Kingi, there are scenes filmed outside our Kingi homestead. Our koroua was our rangatira amongst others of his time. He has only recently passed. His mana remains through uri who still live in our whānau home.
The production was an insensitive parade to takahi on the mana of our koro, of our tupuna and of the many whānau members who remain in the pā and throughout Rotorua. There was no care taken, and yet your local collective all know exactly where he lived, that the name Kingi would be offensive. Perhaps not so offensive if it wasn’t directly in front of our wharepuni, our home.
Before I continue, I am both a legal owner, mokopuna and hapū member of Ohinemutu.
Our pā is not public property it is private, collectively owned and occupied by the ahikaa on behalf of the hapū. A pohiri does not equal permission to explicitly do anything, neither does a letter drop. It only means an opportunity to fully disclose your intentions. The outcome of naming the character Kingi + the joke of a scene and script outside our koro and kuia’s life long home should have been covered with the family. Instead I saw it on the TV screen first and there it remains to be replayed.
The team on the ground are from iwi from around Rotorua. Up until the passing of our koro, the actions taken and lack of care, would have lead to inter-tribal issues. Not to mention the intra-tribal issues that could be planted from saying “but the iwi had a pohiri for us. We paid the trusts”.
You say, Tainui, “a few bitter colleagues”. They were not bitter. They were thinking of the people before they thought of the producers. They were thinking about families like ours who would be insulted and hurt. We aren’t the only ones.
Further, the Pā isn’t domain for the whole iwi to give comment and permission on how to use our identity or our location. The Ahikaa are the one who give that permission, and it is by consensus not by individuals.
The programme uses identifiable and very rare landmarks such as ngāwhā where we cook, our church (a fully carved icon), and the steam that we identify ourselves by. So specific are these landmarks that they are part of our pepehā – they even have names. When you film them, you film us and I don’t recall signing any release forms or being transparently consulted. Vegas has created an association between our tupuna and the negative story.
5% of land mass is whenua māori in this country; much less than this is papakāinga where the tangata whenua have unbroken occupation of the whenua. This is very very precious and you make a mockery of our treasure and our koro. I know that the production team were warned, before filming, during and then via a public article. That is what you do for your people, you warn them of the dangers that are coming.
The pākeha teina you speak about, really stuffed up
Wow! As an emerging Māori producer and storyteller, this article has been so beneficial to my evolving worldview and gives me concepts through these proverbs on how to approach Te Reo and Māori stories. Thank you Tainui Stephens!
Tainui Stephens has over a life time not only developed a deep understanding of the place where we stand as storytellers, in aotearoa but he can articulate clearly the problems and solutions in two languages. I salute you Tainui. Protected by the shade of the mighty Totara, many seeds can grow.
dame gaylene.
Great article from Tainui Stephens. His points are very valid and being a Pakeha and an ex film producer from South Africa, I agree the two cultures should unite in the quest to make movies and to tell the stories and educate the world and New Zealand about the incredible Maori culture. Put away the personal and cultural differences and just get on with it! I think Vegas is a fantastic series and it’s well put together, great production values, great performances by the cast, great editing and camera work, great story, overall a production to be proud of, a perfect example of two cultures working together in harmony.