‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Is a Missed Opportunity on MMIW
Acclaimed filmmaker Martin Scorsese’s newest movie, Killers of the Flower Moon, has racked up more than $100 million at the box office and countless accolades. The film tells the story of white exploitation of members of the Osage Nation, fueled by greed for oil money.
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, as well as Indigenous actress Lily Gladstone, the film has faced criticism for glorifying the murders of Osage Indians and telling the story through a white lens. According to Indigenous journalist Frank Hopper’s latest piece for YES!, Scorsese also overlooked the critical issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women. Hopper, whose work has appeared on Last Real Indians, Indian Country Today, and in The Stranger, reviewed the film with YES! Racial Justice Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali.
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Sonali Kolhatkar
joined YES! in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of YES! Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent Media Institute’s Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (2023) and Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence (2005). Her forthcoming book is called Talking About Abolition (Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women’s Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master’s in Astronomy from the University of Hawai’i, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on “My Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host” in her 2014 TEDx talk of the same name.
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