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Sunday, February 23, 2014

Lifetime Movie: Stolen Women, Captured Hearts (1997)


Lifetime's Stolen Woman, Captured Hearts



I just want to preface this: Yes. This is one of those 'Hot savage' movies.
            More complex movies can circumvent the wild romanticism of Native American history, but this is not a super complex movie, and I don't hold it to those standards. Sometimes, a girl just wants to get away from her fat white husband and meet a lean and mean Native American with a luscious mane of hair (said every romance novel ever.) ---> See the end of this post for some awesome romance novel covers.
            I remember studying a Victorian poem in which the writer describes his ideal spot: a hut in the the balmy islands of the New World, where he'd have a "dusky" wife and children. This movie reminds me of that poem, but for Christian American housewives who just want a hot Indian to take them away. I say Christian because the film team inserted the Bible into the film (a lot) and made it significant for the heroine, so I get to comment on it.

Holding a bible over your heart is actually a very useful way to stop a bullet in most films, so good job
            Very, very brief summary: It is 1868, a woman in a Midwestern town marries a man she doesn't know very well and is then kidnapped by Native Americans. One falls in love with her and she resists his really, really obvious advances (For a while) because she is married.
            I will stop there (spoilers!)
            Michael Greyeyes IS pretty hot (also Canadian, for an unrelated fact share.) I really want to know where that surname started in his family line. At what point did that name go from whatever language it started in to Greyeyes? 

Now, for my top five favorite parts!

1) Hitting on the redhead




Tokalah leans back to lounge on some furs and rubs the space next to him. "Anna," he says, smoldering.
            But what he really means is, "I would totally like to sex you up, but my English is limited and I've decided to just sum it up with some bedroom eyes and your name. What do you say?"
            She says no. She's married.
            And I would also say no too, but because I would not want to A) sleep with someone who kidnapped me, B) sleep with someone who I've known for only a few days, and C) end up pregnant. Then again, no one ends up pregnant in romance novels or movies unless it suits the plot.
            Give her a few days, dude! Wow.

2) Learning English

I am 5 years old and I will teach you all I know about English.
First lesson: The white man sucks major ass to everyone but white men
Imagine deciding to learn English for a girl and then speaking to her in that language the day you start learning it. Tokalash does pretty well considering the time limit. True, he drops some of those connecting words, but still - well done!

One of his first full sentences is "The white man is a son of a bitch," but they're not on friendly terms (him and the white man.) Learning English, like a sir. 

3) Slap-Slap-Kiss

Prime example of Slap-Slap-Kiss


I don't know exactly what she's saying here, but based on the Spanish subtitles, it's something along the lines of "You're a stupid, arrogant asshat."

Watchu say, woman?

This is him eating her face, a traditional Native American custom in the territory of Hallmark.

4) Every time the Sarah complains and is NOT killed

Sarah White, known as the Great Complainer of the Wild West
The Native Americans capture this girl along with Anna and she just begs to be killed throughout the movie. She has a word to say about everything, which is not a great method to surviving. And she tries to get Anna killed too. When the tribe leader tells your friend to make a cap or a tie out of some scalps, just sit back and be grateful it's not you. Don't advise her against it. 

"Don't touch that! It could be dirty!"

5) Smolder / Stare

Listen, don't underestimate the power to smolder. When I do it, I look like I'm about to attack you in a park. Tokalach actually achieves a wide range of brooding looks, which I enjoyed thoroughly.


Lasting impressions: Not a great movie, but I liked it anyway. The cheesier, the better. Besides, as far as bad movies go, I've seen worse acting. I love you, Tokalach. You and your inexplicably shaved chest.

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<3 <3 <3 Romance Novels: The Half-Naked Native American <3 <3 <3

A short time into my hunt for Native American themed romance novels (because romance covers are always fun), I just went wild on the word savage in Google Images. Savage Heart, Savage Soul, Wild Savage, etc. Talk about the psychology of the Other. Also interesting, as far as unhealthy body expectations for men go, romance novels have it down pat. It pretty much seems like the authors used the same model for all these covers.  Note that none of them look at all Native American. Maybe a really good looking white couple joined a tribe and had many, many brunette children who they named Hawk, Eagle, and Wolf. 


So much muscle, so little hair. Native Americans must work out and shave a lot.


And if you enjoy this, I'd check out this page. Also, this one.




























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17 comments:

  1. Holy crap!! I totally remember this film! I remember seeing on HBO when I was nine or so (I'm twenty-one now). Ahhh, nostalgia - it is indeed memory without pain, cos your review's the only thing reminding me how totally cheesy it was, and just an overall crappy film. I remember that incident in the tent with the knife, with it lying on that fur rug and the fire gleaming off its blade. And don't they eat dog meat or something?? I remember my nine-year old self feeling thoroughly shocked. Ahh, so much corniness in one film...how do they do it?

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    1. Haha, yes! I love looking back at all the movies I watched when I was younger and realizing how cheesy and silly they were. It's such a strange feeling of deja vu to see childhood movies and TV shows again. You're seeing these images and movements that you remember, but after 15 years or more of experiences (I'm 21 too.) I used to find many things shocking as a kid. If you've ever seen the dream sequence of Oklahoma, that frightened me to death. xD

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    2. I have a question; have you read all these novels? Just askin'

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    3. Nope! I haven't read a romance novel since The Outlander by Diana Gabaldon.

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  2. Thanks for the laugh! I remember seeing this movie when I was 7, and thinking WTF? And wasn't the Bible significant in getting her to make the decision to, you know, leave her husband?

    At least Native Americans have the excuse of naturally not growing a lot of body hair. The other heroes of romance covers are even more inexplicably shaved!

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    1. To be fair to the movie makers, it would be unlikely for her NOT to be a Christian at that time. It's just that they use the Bible in the same cheesy way everything else is used. I guess it's thematic consistency.

      As for the hairless part, if they were JUST hairless (and maybe overweight and average looking instead of hot and fit) I'd assume that there some tribal, cultural explanation. As it is, the cultural explanation more relates to how 21st century people like their men shaven and without back hair. I know this because I personally prefer my men without back hair. xD

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  3. Totally saw this a few years ago on Hallmark with my mother. We laughed and laughed! I must say that I find myself thinking about it at totally random times, and my thoughts sync up with yours. Lots of smouldering stares, and cheesiness. I also wish that girl Sarah had been killed off at the beginning, but oh well.

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    1. I'm all for smoldering stares and cheesiness, but I've just been studying the history of the colonies in college, and this seems even more fantastical. Especially when you read those captive narratives. I mean, some good, solid nice Native Americans they do have. Late 20th and early 21st male ideals they do not.

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  4. Oh how I laughed xD <3 Thank you! Also for the book covers. Wtf did I just scroll through??
    I deeply hate this movie - though of course Michael Greyeyes is very disarming with his hotness, but cutting that away I find myself baffled that some people think that he is ideal and that Anna's husband is the creep :P I suspect those women are into Twilight too :3
    One person even went so far as to call the movie "historically accurate" when I critized it for having twisted morals (one thing is the Stockholm Syndrome another is that because of Tokalah, his entire tribe gets destroyed and the movie doesn't even acknowledge it. No, let us instead reward the idiot by having Anna breaking her husband(who knowingly spend a year trying to find and save her from her kidnappers)'s heart and run away with a possessive, ignorant dumbass who's likely to end up being pretty abusive towards her.
    Fuck yeah!

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    1. Yeah, it's definitely a fantasy world. Movies like this require you to forget reality (and history), but it's done badly, so we're very aware of it.

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  5. I just recently sw the movie, and my gosh I love it!!! Is there a romance novel of the movie? And also are there more movies like this one? ( Annet67@gmail.com )

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    1. Hi Anon (or Annet67). I don't know if there is a romance novel, but there are certainly similar subjects in literary form. I'd suggest that you non-ironically google some of those novels I've included in the post. I'm sure you can find a popular one in the genre.

      As far as movies go, there are actually a lot that are the same type as this (sentimental / adventure / dramatic gaze). I can't think of any Native American ones, but The Outsider is a bit of a Western. The acting is also slightly (very slightly) better than some others.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYIssgwM9Kc

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    2. Try Cheyenne Warrior with Pato Hoffmannn and Kelly Preston. I think you'll like it!

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  6. OMG, is that Janine Turner?! Oh, the shame...Look, I'm a Native guy and I can vouch for the fact that my hair blows around, like, a lot. Something I think people forget (or just don't know) is we Natives actually have a pretty healthy sense of humor on the subject of the "mysterious supermodel forbidden savage hookup". I got girlfriends on my rez that read the same books and crack on each other pretty hard about it because it's so wrong! It's all about the hair, though. Hello Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. And Fabio. I wonder though, do frontier white guys have the same appeal to Natives? I need to start dating more Civil War re-enactors and find out. I will totally get back to you on that one.

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    1. As a Native American, you're a minority. As a male on this blog, you're a super-uber minority, haha! Glad to know that writers and romance-fanatics everywhere got one detail right: Lovely wind-worthy hair. I suggest you find that re-enactor. We need to break new ground here.

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  7. LOL all I can do is laugh at all these comments! This whole page is funny! I'm Native Cherokee/Hawaiian I love the movie cause it's cheesy plus the theme song is nice, let's face it Michael Greyeyes is good on the eyes! Although if a guy stared at me like that all the time, I would have to slap him and say, "snap out of it! either make a move or stop staring at me!" LOL!

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    1. Just say hi to him Moki, because he is a super nice fellow. Michael has several blogs and he was getting ready to work on some documentaries the last I spoke to him.

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