Why I needed to tell the story of Pernell Bad Arm, the extraordinary man behind the #skoden meme

Cutaways is a personal essay series where Canadian filmmakers tell the story of how their film was made. This Hot Docs 2025 edition by director Damien Eagle Bear focuses on his film #skoden.

In the spring of 2009, I had just finished unloading sound equipment into the Lethbridge Shelter and Resource Centre for my cousin's band, Dead Skins. She worked at the shelter, and with other employees, they'd organized a show for the guests. 

As a fledgling filmmaker, I was dedicated to recording and documenting my cousin's band. I set up my camera and was ready to record the night. One of the workers came up to me, asking me questions about my camera and what I was doing. We chatted for a bit before the idea came out.

 "What if we worked together to create a film about the shelter to educate the people in Lethbridge?"

Being an inexperienced filmmaker, I jumped at the idea. Making a documentary can't be that much more difficult than creating a music video for a rock band, I thought. All I needed to do was record some interviews and edit them together. A partnership was struck between the shelter and me, and we got to work. 

We had high hopes and no money. 

On the first day, I set up in a private room at the shelter. The support workers had created a list of people I should speak to. The first person came in and sat down. He was quiet and watched me get the microphone and camera ready. As I sat down, I realized I knew the technical components of filmmaking, but then I was struck with the question of "now what?"  

I meekly asked, "Could you introduce yourself?"

He responded, "Pernell Thomas Bad Arm." 

He was Blackfoot and from my community, the Blood Reserve (Kainai). At the time, I didn't know how important these next few minutes would become. 

I continued filming interviews and visuals until I edited a meandering 30-minute video that had a lot of talking heads, but no direction or story. I had the intention of filming more interviews to round out the information. But that never happened. 

The film remained unfinished, and I eventually moved to Vancouver for film school. 

On a sunny afternoon in the summer of 2015, I sat at a table with friends, laughing and joking around. I had just graduated from film school and was excited by the prospects of working in the film industry.  

One of my friends was scrolling through their phone and laughed at an image. "I love this," they said and shared their phone with everyone. On the screen was a photo of an older Indigenous man with raised fists and fierce eyes staring right into the camera. It was captioned "Skoden."

My heart sank. It had been several years since I had seen him, but I recognized him instantly. 

Pernell Bad Arm.

From my time working at the Lethbridge shelter as a security guard, I understood the likely context in which the photo was taken. During that time in the late 2000s, we knew people would record and document those living on the streets, intending to humiliate and antagonize. They would share these photos and videos on the internet and social media. This type of content went unchecked and ran rampant. 

I assumed this is where the photo came from. I imagined someone or a group of people, late at night, seeing Pernell on the streets, then confronting and harassing him, pushing him up to the moment the photo was taken. 

I shared this with my friends. They listened and nodded along, understanding the inherent issues with the photo. But I could see they had a vastly different outlook on the meme. It was not a photo of a person in distress. To them, it was the exact opposite. It was a powerful image of an Indigenous man rising to the occasion to fight back — against racism, against settler colonialism and against the unrelenting machine that many of us Indigenous people find ourselves struggling against.  

They saw something empowering.  

The combination of the photo and the word, "Skoden," was seared into the minds of many Indigenous peoples. I saw this play out on social media, where the Skoden meme took on a life of its own, spawning variations and copycats. 

Sadly, Pernell passed away in the fall of 2015. 

Out of respect for Pernell, many people from my community who knew him, such as Mark Brave Rock (his best friend), Starly Brave Rock (Mark's daughter) and Amber Jensen (his caseworker), commented and posted to help humanize Pernell. They asked people not to share the image at the request of his family. 

Their efforts were amplified by an article written by Lenard Monkman at CBC Indigenous. The article told the story of the Skoden meme from the perspective of those who knew Pernell, and shared the family's wishes to stop the spread of the meme.

The idea of making a film about Pernell to help further humanize his story had crossed my mind over the years. But I did not feel ready until I was confronted by an opportunity. In the spring of 2021, a production executive at Telus Originals reached out to me. He was meeting emerging filmmakers and asking for documentary pitches. 

I knew what project I should pitch and understood I had a responsibility to Pernell. He's from my community, and I had so much admiration for him. Despite what life and society had thrown at him, he maintained his caring heart. 

I remember one day, while working at the shelter, Pernell was sitting by one of the tables overlooking the backyard of the shelter. Suddenly, he jumped up and beelined it for the exit. As a security guard, this put me on high alert, wondering what would cause such a response. 

My mind jumped to conclusions. Maybe a fight was happening outside, or shamefully, I thought maybe Pernell was going to fight someone. 

I checked the security cameras and saw Pernell racing up the stairs that led to the overpass and disappearing out of the camera's view. I left to check out the window, and my assumptions were proven wrong. 

Pernell was helping an elderly man down the stairs. He was holding his arm, supporting him each step of the way. Once they got inside, he began to order me and another security guard around to help the elderly man: "We need to prep a bed for him; the old man needs to lie down. We need to get him water to take his medicine."  

I helped get the elder settled and stood in awe of Pernell.

#skoden screens at Hot Docs on April 29 and May 1. More information is available by clicking here.