Angry Inuk

Vina Hama
December 4, 2023
NBE3U
Angry Inuk: Analytical Question Responses
1. What is the director's bias? How do you know?

The director, Alethea Arnaquq-Baril is a huge advocate for sealing. She promotes
sealing as a sustainable act that is practiced throughout the Inuit community. This is
apparent from the multiple interviews and scenes in the documentary that talk about the
significance of sealing and how it is important to the Inuit people's traditional way of life.
The author's bias of this is also shaped by her upbringing. Being Inuit herself and
growing up with her cultural background she was introduced to sealing from a very
young age. She was shown a completely different version of sealing compared to what
the public was shown.
2. What is the tone of this film? Explain how this tone is depicted using a specific
scene as reference to support your feelings.
I feel like the documentary had a tone that was equally frustration and debunking the
misconceptions about seal hunting. There was one scene in the beginning of the
documentary where after Alethea and her uncle are done hunting they clean the seal
and start calling people and telling them to bring as many people over so they can share
the meat and people can take their share. This scene is so important in setting the tone
for the rest of the documentary. This shows how selfless seal hunting is, one single seal
was shared with multiple people in the community and will benefit each person who took
their share, this sets the tone of the documentary perfectly by showing how sustainable
this practice is.
3. What is the director's purpose for the creation of this film? What did you learn?
The director's purpose for this documentary is to advocate for the rights and livelihoods
of Inuit people when it comes to sealing. The documentary shows us the Inuit's struggle
with dealing with the negative misconceptions that people have about sealing, and with
these misconceptions and anti-sealing protests we see the negative economic impact.
This documentary taught me how important things like “first impressions” are. The
people who just randomly stubble on the anti-sealing protests will immediately see a
baby seal crying and have their minds made up on the issue, when in reality sealing is
the main reason many Inuit people are alive.
4. How does the concept of “place” play a role in telling this story? Explain your
ideas using one specific example from the film.
In the documentary, the concept of “place” plays a very important role in showing us the
intimate connection between the Inuit people and their land. An example of this is
throughout the documentary we see that sealing isn't just about contributing to the
economy but it is a historical cultural practice that is tied into the Artic environment. The
documentary shows us how deep the Inuit have a relationship with their surroundings.
By doing this it highlights the way “place” has a role in their way of life.
5. How does the media misrepresentation negatively impact the Inuit? Why is there a
double standard intrinsic to the public outcry about the seal hunt? Where else do
you see this happening in contemporary society?
The media misrepresentation shown in the documentary has negative impacts on the
Inuit people in the way it feeds into and creates stereotypes that contribute to the public
having a false perception of seal hunting. As we saw in the documentary this led to
international governments feeling pressure to make policies that were based on
misinformation, which affected the traditional and economic lives of the Inuit people. The
double standard in society about seal hunting is rooted in racism and cultural bias. The
general public has very little understanding of the relationships indigenous people have
with their land. This happens in our society when people see things in different contexts
which leads them to have a misunderstanding about someone's culture and traditional
practices.
6. What can we learn about the environmentalism and sustainability from the Inuit
and Angry Inuk? What can we learn about the dangers of mass media from the
film?
From the documentary, we learn important lessons about environmentalism and
sustainability. Throughout the doc, the relationship the Inuit have with their land is
highlighted. We see how the Inuit participate in their culture by doing things like seal
hunting while still being sustainable and maintaining respect for nature. From this, we
can learn about the dangers of mass media. What we in the documentary contradicts
what the media says about seal hunting, we see how important it is to include certain
groups of people in certain discussions. In this case, if the Inuit people were involved in
the discussion about seal hunting society would see their side and possibly change their
views on seal hunting.
7. How is the Storywork Principle of “wholism” represented in the film? Use two
specific examples from the film to support your ideas.
The principle of wholism emphasizes the interconnectedness of elements. One example
of this is how much the Init incorporates nature into their culture. Seal hunting isn't just
something they do for money it's an activity that is crucial to their identity. We see how
much the consequences of anti-seal campaigning just from the economic loss. This
disrupted Inuit communities, it broke down the factor of interconnectedness by breaking
down their traditions, identity and sustainability.
8. Do you believe that personal ethics and traditional cultural practices can exist
together? Why or why not? Use one example from the film and one example,e
from another text you have encountered in class to support your ideas.
I believe that personal ethics and traditional cultural practices can exist together. I
believe this because it has already existed with each other for many years until things
like colonialism came into play, and this disrupted many people's traditions just because
it wasn't something that settlers were used to seeing. The Inuit people have been seal
hunting for years and so have groups of people in Norway. This tradition was interrupted
when white saviours saw something that they didn't understand and took no time to try
to. An example of this is people using the baby seals as their marketing campaign when
they didn't even take the time to research what's being hunted. The Inuit do not hunt
baby seals but they used this picture because they know that the topic of ethics will be
mentioned when it's a baby. An example of this is when we look at residential schools.
Indigenous people were simply living their lives practicing their culture until settlers saw
their practices and immediately established that it wasn't ethically correct and put them
in schools to “fix” them. This shows that ethics and traditional cultural practices can exist
until something disrupts them.

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Vina Hama

1. What is the director's bias? How do you know?

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