Killers of the Flower Moon fame Lily Gladstone says using she/they pronouns 'decolonises gender'

Killers of the Flower Moon actress Lily Gladstone featured in the Martin Scorsese directorial as Mollie Kyle, Osage lady and wife to Leonardo DiCaprio's Ernest Burkhart. In the interview leading up to and following the film's worldwide release, the actress has shared several insights on the political dynamic and context of colonisation portrayed in the film, drawing parallels of the same to adjacent cinema.  More recently, Gladstone discussed the sensitive yet politically charged nature of gender politics, more particularly - its decolonisation.

Lily Gladstone lauds the use of she/they pronouns

For the unversed, Gladstone was raised on the Blackfeet Nation reservation in Montana by a father of Blackfeet and Nimiipuu heritage and a white mother. In an interview with People, she shared how her community does not have gendered pronouns (he/him and she/her) to begin with - gender was simply implied in the name, based on the kind of role the concerned person was following through, in society. 

She said, "There is no he/she, there’s only they...we don't have gendered pronouns, but our gender is implied in our name. Even that's not binary..." Speaking about her grandfather she said, "He had a name that had a woman's name in it. I'd never met my grandfather. I wouldn't say that he was nonbinary in gender, but he was given a woman's name because he kind of carried himself, I guess, the way that women who have that name do." Separately, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Gladstone shared, "And there were lots of women historically and still now who are given men's names. They fulfill more of a man's role in society as far as being provider, warrior, those sort of things."

Lily Gladstone herself identifies as non-binary

Lily Gladstone's choice of pronouns are she/her and they/them. While the root of this non-binary identification lies in her upbringing, the actress elaborated what identifying as she/they essentially entails for her. 

She said, "My pronoun use is partly a way of decolonising gender for myself." Gladstone further elaborated that the she/they pronouns is a way of the performer "embracing that when I'm in a group of ladies, I know that I'm a little bit different. When I'm in a group of men, I don't feel like a man...I probably feel more feminine when I'm around other men."

(with inputs from IANS)