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Welcome to the first of three Wednesday nights I’m dedicating to Sámi movies and TV shows, in a programming block I’m calling “TV☆3SIS Does Giličinu” as a riff on “TV☆3SIS Does Bygdekino” — my programming block for (non-Deaf and non-Sámi) movies and TV shows from Norway. Bygdekinoen, literally “the countryside cinema”, is the mobile cinema service which has operated throughout rural Norway since 1950, and this service area includes the Sámi-speaking areas of Sápmi, the Sámi homeland. In Northern Sámi — the most spoken Sámi language, widely spoken in the twin centers of Sámi culture and politics, Guovdageaidnu(Kautokeino) and Kárášjohka(Karasjok) — Bygdekino is called “Giličinu” as a straightforward calque of its Norwegian name.

Hence, “TV☆3SIS Does Bygdekino” for non-Sámi content, and “TV☆3SIS Does Giličinu” for Sámi content.

For more information about the Sámi people, you may want to check out my translation of “A Sámi State Of Our Own”.

What’s the chef cookin’ tonight?

Overview

  • Reserved time: 180 minutes
  • The Kautokeino Rebellion: 96 minutes
  • Fanime: 34 minutes
    • Each episode is ~9 minutes
      • Large Bagel: 11 minutes
      • Soothing Love: 8 minutes
      • Tokyo Magic Star E8: 9 minutes
      • Tokyo Magic Star E9: 6 minutes
  • TV☆3SIS flourishes: 8 minutes
  • Estimated door-holding: 15 minutes
  • Estimated slack: 26 minutes
    • If we have at least 10 minutes left at the end we’ll watch Magic Heart and the Magical Warriors episode 11.

The spoonful of sugar

The Kautokeino Rebellion

The Kautokeino Rebellion (Northern Sámi: Guovdageainnu stuimmit) is a 2008 historical drama film recounting the events of the titular 1852 anti-colonial uprising of the Sámi people against the local settler sheriff, settler priest, and settler monopolist-merchant in the Guovdageaidnu area. The real-life 1852 Sámi revolt in Guovdageaidnu is perhaps best known for being the only Sámi anti-colonial action to date to result in the loss of human lives. For this reason, the 1852 uprising has earned a particular place in the cultural memory of Norway, as Indigenous activism in the 1¾ centuries since the uprising continually interplays with the ideology of Norway’s ruling class to create a narrative about the Sámi people’s relationship to Norway and the role of the 1852 revolt in that relationship specifically.

The movie The Kautokeino Rebellion is no exception: written by, directed by, and starring Sámi filmmaker Nils Gaup in the role of rebellion leader Mons Somby (and his nephew Mikkel Gaup as the other rebel leader, Aslak Hætta), with the very famous Sámi joik musician Mari Boine doing most of the movie’s score, and a wide range of other Sámi actors etc also working on the film “to tell a story never told before about the prelude and human aspect to the rebellion”, The Kautokeino Rebellion was seen as a bit of a milestone for Sámi representation in the cinema of Norway. However, the film was nevertheless produced by Oslo-based Rubicon, at the time owned by the media conglomerate Schibsted. You may recognize Schibsted from my Norwegian news translations: needless to say, not a company serving Sámi interests!

I’ve heard it said (on The Deprogram) that subversive, radicalizing media is one aspect of capitalists selling the rope from which they will be hung. Is The Kautokeino Rebellion an example of this? Or how otherwise did the Sámi labor to make this film happen, interplay with the Oslo capitalists paying their wages, in this retelling of this very Sámi story dripping in themes of class and colonialism? What tensions and contradictions lie within this film? There’s only one way to find out!

Like Get Ready To Be Boyzvoiced! (2000), which I showed a few months ago, The Kautokeino Rebellion is a film that I watched in school as a kid as part of my compulsory education. As did countless other Norwegians of my generation when they were learning about Sámi history and issues. And like every other movie I saw in school, I’ve been eager to revisit The Kautokeino Rebellion for the many years since for that reason.

Director Nils Gaup is a descendant of one of the 1852 rebellion’s participants. He is also known for writing and directing the highly successful Oscar-nominated 1987 Sámi film Pathfinder (Ofelaš), and has a pretty long filmography otherwise.

The medicine

What is fanime?

A fanime (etym. blend of fan + anime) is basically when someone makes an anime-style cartoon show by drawing frames in MS Paint; compositing them in Windows Movie Maker with pirated music, stock sound effects, and dialog recorded in one take on potato microphones; and posting the result to YouTube. This isn’t necessarily accurate of all fanime, but the throughline is in any case that fanime is a form of democratized amateur animation combining anime aesthetics with “Internet Ugly”. The style is most associated with the Western anime fandom of the mid-2000s through mid-2010s, where it was often difficult to distinguish sincere fanime shows from parodies of the genre.

Large Bagel

Large Bagel is a 2011 magical-girl parody/troll fanime in a similar vein to Nyan~ Neko Sugar Girls. So, not the type of fanime I normally prefer to show, but Large Bagel is supposedly better than NNSG, and is set apart from other fanime by the identity of its creator: Nyanners! Nyanners today is a highly successful Vtuber with 1.4 million subscribers on YouTube, and Large Bagel is part of her “humble beginnings”, made before she achieved fame.

Plot description:

The daily life of human-sized anthropomorphic bagel Pinisu-chan and her best friend Manko-chan, as they balance school with protecting the world from a vaguely defined threat using their vaguely defined powers.

Soothing Love

Soothing Love is a 2010 romance fanime cancelled after one episode, because the creator wanted to focus on hand-making clothes for their online clothing store. It stood out to me because it has a Black main character and Black creator. Which is a nice change of pace from the mukokuseki or “flashbangery” we see in so much other fanime, especially from the late 2000s / early 2010s era.

Plot description from Fanime Realm:

After making a promise to come back, Simess is separated from her friend Cadi. Six years later, they meet once again.

Tokyo Magic Star episodes 8+9

Tokyo Magic Star is an influential 2012-2018 shoujo idol horror magical-girl fanime. Kisaka Toriama (Tokyo Crystal Mew etc) is notably a fan of it. It is the ten-episode chef d’oeuvre of Kawaiiouija / Mari, who also created Terrence Terribly Troubled and Yay! Cat Evan’s Future. A second season of Tokyo Magic Star was going to be made, but had to be put on hiatus due to Mari’s voice dropping, leaving him unable to voice the characters.

Plot description from Fanime Realm:

Sakura Masayuki is a normal 15-year-old girl who wants to live out her dream of becoming an idol. After passing an audition and getting signed to a company with her friend, Umi Matsuoka, the two see the world change slowly around them. The two then find out they have been chosen as sacrifices to Satan and have to become magical girls to stop his evil duing [sic] or else! However, they will not give up without a fight. Sakura, “Death”, and Umi, “Depression”, will now try and fight to save themselves from being killed. Along with their new friend Ichigo Kojima, “Despair”, and Tomomi Usaki, who is also “Death” from years earlier, the four will try and defeat Satan’s crew or else the cycle will repeat itself again.

Episodes 8 and 9 were published on March 19, 2016, and March 12, 2017, almost a year apart and over a year after the last episode we watched.

Content warnings and accessibility

Audio description: Not available.

Sign language: Not available

Captions:

  • English and Spanish softsubs (The Kautokeino Rebellion)
  • Not available (fanime)

Language of audio:

  • Northern Sámi, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish (The Kautokeino Rebellion)
  • English, gratuitous Japanese (fanime)

Content warnings:

  • LOUD OR GRATING NOISES
  • ALCOHOL ABUSE
  • Spit
  • Shower scene
  • Sexual assault
  • Sexualization of children
  • Graphic reindeer slaughter
  • Children in peril
  • High school bullies
  • Deep-voiced girl joke

♫ Uniting nations at the speeeed of liiiiight ♫
[epic sax solo]
♫ Station of the '20s — TV☆3SIS! ♫