Nestor Wu / Staff Reporter

Indigenous voices in media have historically been ignored or misrepresented in the film and TV industry, leaving many talented Indigenous actors, actresses, producers, and filmmakers in the dark, waiting for their time to show the world their culture and creativity.

CBC’s series, Trickster, is an indigenous project that had extreme success adapting an indigenous book into a web series, boosting many indigenous actors/actress’s careers, and most importantly providing an important step towards incorporating indigenous voices into the mainstream.

Trickster is a supernatural thriller drama web series on CBC created by Tony Elliot and Michelle Latimer based on the novel “Son of a Trickster” by Eden Robinson. The series premiered in 2020 from October 7 to November 11 with a total of six episodes.

The story follows Jared, an Indigenous high school student in British Colombia who is trying to pull his struggling family together, as magical events begin to overtake his life.

Producing Trickster would not come without challenges, as writers and filmmakers often struggle to adapt books into shows successfully.

“I love Eden’s books — and they are challenging to adapt because they are sprawling and imaginative, there are many characters, it’s not linear,” said Latimer.

The casting for Trickster was one of the many difficult processes, as finding talented indigenous actors for Trickster’s cast would require a nation-wide search across north America.

Joel Oulette, Crystle Lightning, Kalani Queypo, and Anna Lambe are featured Indigenous actors in Trickster’s main cast that helped bring the deep, complicated, and emotional characters in Son of a Trickster to life.

“The challenge was getting the story right and to honour the authenticity of those characters and their world”

Michelle Latimer

Filming Trickster also came with its own obstacles, flying between sets in Kitimat BC, and North Bay Ontario, while incorporating indigenous methods and cultural practices alongside western filmmaking.

As non-Indigenous people have long occupied the filmmaking space, Latimer realized how much it developed into a colonial hierarchical system of operation.

The typical structure of a film hierarchy relies on above the line and below the line roles. Above the line roles are the story development aspects of production such as producers, writers, and directors. Below the line roles execute the creative vision, consisting of actors, camera operators, art and sound designers, etc.

Essentially, people above the line have more power over people below, as they are ultimately the ones who decide what is put on screen.

During the production of the series, Latimer hoped to find ways to indigenize the process of filmmaking that was heavily structured in non-indigenous ways.

“What does it look like to have an elder come on set and do ceremony and do smudges? What does it look like to have Indigenous people across every department, in the crew and behind the camera? I think there is so much work to be done in that area.”

Michelle Latimer

In the end, Latimer, along with the help of the cast and crew, managed to achieve the near-impossible task of successfully adapting a book into a web series.

Since the release, Trickster has gone on to boost many of their Indigenous actors and actresses’ careers, landing them roles in other major productions, as well as nominations and awards.

Joel Oulette, Indigenous actor and member of the Red River Métis, went from being fresh out of high school to playing the lead role of Jared in the Trickster series. Oulette has since been nominated for best lead actor in a drama series by the Canadian Screen Awards in 2021, and subsequently landed a role on the Netflix live action series Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Indigenous actress Crystle Lightning, member of the Cree nation, has gone to win best actress in a drama series in the Canadian Screen Awards in 2021 for her performance as Maggie, and has also been casted in various other TV dramas after her success in Trickster.

Anna Lambe, an Indigenous Inuk actress who played Sarah, was nominated for best supporting actress in a drama series at the Canadian Screen Awards in 2021, and has gone to play a role in new episodes of HBO’s True Detective.

Trickster was a pivotal moment for Lambe’s acting career, as it helped her see the possibilities in pursuing her dreams as an actress, and the many other opportunities for talented Indigenous artists.

“And even if your passion is not acting, maybe your passion is music, there’s so many opportunities that exist out there. And even if we don’t see them, they’re there. They’re waiting for us,”

Anna Lambe

Trickster was very well received upon release among many audiences with a 6.9/10 rating on IMDb and a 95% score on Rotten Tomatoes. The series was later named scripted series of the year in Playback, a Canadian film and TV magazine.

Trickster’s successes and popularity has proven to be a very influential part in introducing Indigenous voices to larger audiences and to mainstream media.

Upon Trickster’s release on CBC, people from around the world had the experience of seeing an Indigenous supernatural thriller drama, a groundbreaking release because CBC’s Trickster is one of the only indigenous supernatural thriller dramas ever made.

Judging by its popularity, the series left a great impression around the globe, introducing many to the world of indigenous films and TV, and even continuing the momentum to feature Indigenous actors in major productions.

For example, Netflix’s live action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender casted many Indigenous actors including Kiawentiio, Amber Midthunder, Casey Camp-Horinek, Nathanial Arcand, Irene Bedard, as well as employing Indigenous visual artists in the show’s artwork.

This demonstrates that if more indigenous voiced projects are produced, it can eventually lead to mainstream recognition and more major opportunities for lesser known Indigenous actors, filmmakers, and artists.

However, the successes of Trickster as a show and the benefits to many of the actors’ careers would not come without controversy, as Michelle Latimer’s indigenous heritage came under scrutiny shortly after the show’s release.

With the ensuing dispute, Latimer resigned, and CBC decided to cancel the second season. This left many fans in disarray as many questioned why CBC didn’t just pass ownership to a different Indigenous director.

“Yes, it was created under a cloud of misunderstanding and misrepresentation, but using a settler metaphor, if the chief executive officer of a company does something questionable, you fire the CEO, you don’t dissolve the company,”

Indigenous writer Drew Haydon Taylor stated in a The Globe and Mail article addressing his concerns over the series.

Despite the disappointment in the show’s cancellation, the controversy did bring issues to light of authenticity and power in representation that might not have been in the mainstream awareness before.

For Gleneagle students, TV and popular media are a big part of daily life. Series and dramas that offer relatable yet thought-provoking content, show that a popular series can be much more than entertainment.

Trickster demonstrated that it could break new ground, launch careers for Indigenous talent, raise important issues about representation, and be inspirational for young people to pursue their dreams.

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