Outside Looking In: Viewing First Nations Peoples in Canadian Dramatic Television Series.

M. Wayne Cunningham is a past executive director of the Saskatchewan
Arts Board and the former director of Academic and Career Programs at
East Kootenay Community College.

A thought-provoking but eclectic study of 50 years of broadcasting Canadian television programs featuring First Nations peoples and subjects, Outside Looking In by Brock University professor Mary Jane Miller will have major appeal for teachers, students, scholars, historians, and social scientists in areas of Native studies, communications, and pop culture as well as being of interest for First Nations, Metis, and Inuit audiences.

As an author “on the outside looking in” since the mid-1980s, Miller has extensively researched her subject through access to archival materials “not readily available to scholars” and “a personal study collection of aging VCR tapes.” In her review of the programs for her selective study she has focused “on what these programs say and how they say it” for a variety of issues such as cultural appropriation, aesthetics, production values, and stereotypes “both negative and romantically positive.” Admittedly avoiding an ethnographic approach, Miller structures her discourse into three major sections: “Framework,” “Series for Children, Families, and Youth,” and a five-chapter analysis of a single program entitled “A Long-Form Series for Adults: North of 60 (1992–1997).” Part One establishes the overview for the book while Part Two encompasses Miller’s views on the support for her thesis of such programs as Radisson, The Beachcombers, Spirit Bay, and The Rez, with concluding comments on the intersection between genres and their fans. Part Three entails detailed discussion of 90 episodes over six years of North of 60 as “the longest running series to concentrate on First Nations characters and issues.” Miller’s Conclusion reinforces the principles of her thesis as groundwork for future exploration by others and raises the importance of such work being done in relation to the mandates of the CBC and the Canadian Broadcasting Act, prior to the additional loss of videotapes, kinescopes, and films. It also includes detailed end notes, an extensive bibliography, and an index.

Miller’s book is a cornerstone for future projects of a similar nature and cries out for a companion study by “an insider looking out.”