COVER
MAKING SURE QUEER, INDIGENOUS STORIES ARE TOLD Devery Jacobs – actor, lmmaker and activist – is making a name for herself, and for her communities By Courtney Hardwick
MAY / JUNE 2021
As an actor and creative in the entertainment industry, Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs knows what it’s like to be the only Indigenous person – and often the only minority – in the room. But she didn’t always feel that way. Born and raised in the Kanien’kehá:ka Mohawk Territory in Quebec, Jacobs was used to being surrounded by her culture and a family that celebrated that. “Growing up in my community, I was surrounded by people like myself. I always saw myself reflected back at me, so I never felt like I needed to represent anything other than me just being me,” says Jacobs. “But when I stepped into the film industry, all of a sudden I felt this weight of having to represent an entire race of people while just being one person trying to make a living as an actor.” Some of that pressure comes from the lack of Indigenous representation in the industry and as Jacobs builds her career, she is committed to changing that. Although she loved film and had a passion for acting at a young age, Jacobs didn’t feel like she could be successful in an industry that would only consider her for roles that were “ethnically ambiguous.” As an Anglophone living in Quebec, Jacobs found that acting opportunities were limited, so she followed a different passion and went to school to become a counsellor. 26
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She was working at the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal when she was cast in her first leading role in a feature film, Rhymes for Young Ghouls. The film was her first chance to work with an Indigenous writer and director to tell a story that reflected her own lived experiences, and it changed how she thought about her potential in the industry. She recalls: “That was the first role where I was able to see that I can do this: not only do I have the talent, but my experience is worthwhile to be a leading character in a feature film.” The film was a critical success and Jacobs herself received a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Despite that, she soon discovered that roles for Indigenous women were few and far between, and the ones that did exist were often whitewashed. Although recent years have seen a push for diversity on screen, Jacobs still experiences first-hand how projects that focus on Indigenous stories are treated. “Though there is this push for diversity and stories from people of different backgrounds, they’re typically projects that are funded at lower rates. And when filmmakers go to funding bodies for TV and are told, ‘Oh, this would be better suited for APTN [Aboriginal Peoples Television Network],’ that tells us that our stories aren’t worthy of being universal. So there’s still a long way to go.”
