Last week on Indigenous People’s Day, the Winslow Movie Theater held a free showing of Frybread Face and Me in partnership with the City of Winslow and the Winslow Unified School District.
Frybread Face and Me is a comedy centered around 11-year-old Benny, who is living in San Diego when his parents tell him that he will be sent to live with his grandmother on the Navajo Nation for the summer. Benny is loosely based on the life of writer and director Billy Luther, who was born in Winslow and graduated from Winslow High School. When Benny stays with his Diné grandmother for the summer, he forms a friendship with his cousin Dawn, or Frybread Face, as she is referred to by other family members. When Benny arrives, he’s the outsider, an “urban native,” but through Frybread Face, who must translate everything for him, he’s able to find his roots.
Charley Hogan, who played Frybread Face in the movie, was 13 when she started filming in 2019. Hogan attended last week’s showing of the movie, signed autographs, took photos, and hosted a Q&A after the showing for the public. Her character explains in the film that they call her Frybread Face because her face is “round and greasy,” but as Benny points out, it’s also “oh so good!”
Hogan briefly spoke to The Tribune about the movie and said that when she first read the script, she felt such a strong bond with the character of Frybread Face. “I related to everything. She really defines me. Her relationship with her grandma was my relationship with my grandpa,” Hogan said. The time she spent with her grandpa growing up brought her to starring in this movie. Hogan said that growing up, she would make jokes and perform in front of her grandpa just to make him laugh, and now she gets to share that comedy with the rest of the world. Hogan told The Tribune that she hopes people leave the movie knowing that it’s about healing trauma and relationships, and she hopes it can help do that for someone.
This movie means so much more to the community than popcorn on a Monday night. Different scenes feature Winslow spots, including Jay’s Garage and the iconic Standin’ on the Corner statue. Winslow has made several appearances on the silver screen, but never has a true local made a film that reached this level of notoriety or detailed the culture of the people who live there quite as well.
Luther, who directed and wrote the film, wrote an email to Mayor Birdie Cano to read before the showing. The email read as a love letter to the town Luther loved, and he advocated strongly for the listeners to relentlessly pursue their dreams. The email mentioned how incredible it felt for him to show this movie at the Winslow Theater, where Luther went to watch movies like Purple Rain growing up. He also talked about going to see movies with Mayor Cano while they were in high school.
Being able to watch this movie, in this theater, with locals who truly understand being raised in this area in the 1990s is exactly how this movie was supposed to be seen. Oftentimes, a character will tell a punchline in Navajo, and then Benny will ask in English for clarification, which allows the general audience to understand the joke, but the crowd last week needed no such clarification.
Oftentimes, in movies, reservation life is depicted as a negative, crime-filled place, but this movie offers another view of rez life to people. This movie does a great job of showing the humorous shenanigans that happen when reservation kids get a little too bored.
As the lights came up and the credits began to roll, the crowd clapped and cheered, not because they saw the movie, but because they saw themselves.
