The Business of Fancydancing

Seymour struggles with a deep divide between his indigenous heritage and his current life as an urban gay man. He grew up on the Spokane Reservation but now lives in the city with a white partner, and has gained fame writing Indian-themed poetry for mainstream audiences. This success has created distance from his community, leaving him feeling like he doesn't fully belong to either world, the urban LGBTQ+ scene or his reservation roots.

The film establishes his inner conflict from the opening scenes, showing his discomfort navigating between both worlds.

Seymour's relationship with a white partner adds another layer to his identity crisis. As a gay Native American man, he already feels caught between his indigenous heritage and his sexual identity. Being in a relationship with someone outside his culture intensifies his sense of being disconnected from both his community and mainstream society, reinforcing his feeling of belonging nowhere.

Seymour feels alienated because his success as a poet who writes and sells Indian-themed poetry to mainstream audiences has created a rift with his friends and family on the reservation. While he receives accolades and recognition outside the community, those back home view his work as exploitative or inauthentic. This criticism makes him feel like a outsider in the very community where he grew up.

The film shows his meteoric rise to fame alongside his growing disconnect from reservation friends.

Seymour's childhood friends and family question his decision to write and sell Indian-themed poetry to mainstream audiences. They see his success as potentially perpetuating stereotypes or profiting from Native culture in a way that feels inauthentic. Their scrutiny forces Seymour to confront whether his art genuinely represents his heritage or instead exploits it for personal gain.

Earlier scenes establish that his success has come with criticism from within the community.

The funeral of his close friend Mouse serves as the catalyst. Returning to the reservation for this loss forces Seymour to face the people he has been distant from, and the grief amplifies his awareness of what he's missed and potentially lost. Facing his childhood friends' scrutiny directly, combined with mourning Mouse, makes him unable to avoid the uncomfortable questions about his identity and choices any longer.

The timeline establishes the funeral as the pivotal turning point that propels his self-examination.

Mouse's death serves as a wake-up call for Seymour. As a talented violinist and someone close to him, Mouse's passing reminds Seymour of the fragility of life and the importance of genuine connections. The loss propels Seymour toward reflecting on his relationships, his heritage, and whether he has strayed too far from what truly matters to him.

Seymour writes Indian-themed poetry that resonates with mainstream audiences, which is how he achieved fame and recognition. However, this success is complicated, while it brings him external validation and acclaim, it also creates tension because some in his community view his work as selling out or perpetuating stereotypes rather than authentically representing Native culture.

The film explores damaging stereotypes associated with Native Americans and how they affect indigenous individuals. Seymour's own poetry, while successful with mainstream audiences, raises questions about whether he perpetuates these stereotypes. The film examines how such stereotypes contribute to the suffering and identity struggles of Native people trying to find authentic representation in a world that often reduces them to caricatures.

The film addresses substance abuse as a pervasive issue within the indigenous community, depicting it with empathy rather than judgment. This theme reflects the real struggles many Native Americans face, particularly when dealing with cultural assimilation, identity loss, and socioeconomic challenges. The portrayal highlights how these issues compound the difficulties of navigating between cultures.

The ending is bittersweet. Seymour gains greater self-awareness through his painful homecoming and begins to reconnect with aspects of his heritage he had distanced himself from. However, the summary suggests there is no simple resolution to his deep-seated conflicts. He emerges with a deeper understanding of his identity but is left with a mix of insight and sorrow rather than complete resolution.

Fancydancing is a style of Native American powwow dance that is performed competitively and has become somewhat commercialized. The title likely refers to the tension between authentic cultural expression and the 'business' of commodifying indigenous art for wider consumption, a theme that directly relates to Seymour's own experience as a poet who writes Indian-themed work for mainstream audiences.