[2] Bailey has since then had an extensive career writing, producing, and directing numerous shorts, documentaries, features, and television dramas including The Sheldon Kennedy Story for CTV, Cowboys and Indians: The Killing of J. J. Harper for CBC and the Genie Award–winning Bordertown Café in 1992, which was an adaptation of a play by Kelly Rebar.
[4] Norma Bailey reimagined the experiences of Indigenous women from what had been previously showed through film and television and focused on creating a main character that was strong, independent, flawed, and relatable.
She is flawed and makes mistakes which realigns the narrative towards a more feminist one that embraces motherhood as a constant state of difficulty and imperfection for most women which is perfectly normal.
The 1980s were a time of radical social change were feminist ideologies and activists were publicly addressing sexism alongside re-examining the movements internal racism and classism.
[6] The films Bailey wrote, produced, and directed in the 1980s showcased this ideological re-working of the feminist movement through her treatment and dedication to creating serious and respectful Indigenous led content.
Taking into consideration the example of The Wake alongside a variety of her other films, it is easy to categorize Norma Bailey has an important feminist figure in the cinematic industry.
Bailey has a distinctive perception of womanhood and the various roles women inhabit within society and portrays them onscreen to be representational of lived female experiences.
An example of the link between colonialism and sexism would be the 1876 Indian Act, which forced a patrilineal social structure onto the traditional Indigenous matrilineal organization of society.
[8] Decolonization is an inherently feminist act because it is centred around dismantling an facet of the ancient and oppressive social hierarchy designed to enact racism and sexism within society.
[7] Throughout her extensive career Norma Bailey has written, produced, and directed several films that represent narratives other than her own, such as the experiences of Indigenous people and communities in Canada.
[9] Although the arranged union is potentially beneficial to her tribe, it results in a difficult life for Ikwe as her and her husband are never able to peacefully merge their cultures and create a unified home for themselves or their children.
Traditional values and customs are in a constant state of clashing for Ikwe, though she believes her daughter has to power to create a new way of life using both of her parents cultures.
While in a historic context Indigenous people did intentionally engage with the Europeans, they had no way of foreseeing the dangers that would accompany this decision would bring them and their future generations.
Furthermore, by using non-professional actors in the film and instructing them to be authentic in their portrayal of their Indigenous culture, values, and language Bailey encouraged a safe space for accurate historical representations from non-colonial perspectives.
Even in a modern context it is uncommon for a settler filmmaker, like Norma Bailey, to use actual dialectic representation to ensure proper and distinct Indigenous characterization in the film and television industry.
Bailey elicited a charismatic feeling throughout Ikwe by creating a film about the relationships forged through the fur trade by only offering viewers the opportunity to understand the experiences lived by an Indigenous woman.
Bailey respectfully reserves her judgment of colonialism from her films and instead highlights the strength of Indigenous people and representation in cinema as an important factor in the decolonization movement.