Subjects:
other cultures too, whether it is true or not. A white man's perspective may be very
different than an Indians perspective when it comes to the Indian culture. I once fell into
that white man's category and thought Indians were evil, worthless, and scary. Well, it
came from watching movies that have portrayed Indians that way. Many movies such as
the famous John Wayne movie The Searchers, have made the Indian culture look like
they are no better than dirt. While there are many of these mythical Indian movies, there
are hardly any movies such as Smoke Signals, that portray who Indians really are. Thus,
the majority of Indian movies, which were made by white people, have negatively
influenced Indian culture with stereotypes that are very hateful towards the Indian culture.
Why is it that when little kid's play Cowboys and Indians they almost always want to
be the Cowboy? My mother told me a true story about this little Indian kid from church.
My mom was at church and she watched as this little Indian kid wanted to play cowboys
and Indians with this other kid. They both started to argue about who was going to be the
. . .
and not violent and evil like the old western movies portrayed them. When I watched the movie
many bad stereotypes came to mind. That
made Indians out to be worthless, especially the way they say it, as if it was bad to be an
Indian. It showed
who they really are, just normal human beings like everyone else. That would have changed a lot of the negative stereotypes about
Indians, or at least, the real bad ones. It does have some
negative stereotypes, however, it strives to presents a modern image of Indians. The Searchers doesn't even
strive to show the contemporary Indian experience of that time. Human beings that should be respected and treated the same way as every
American. They usually were the ones that attacked and raided the
cowboys, which made it seem as though the Indians were icons of a violent, hateful
nature. It's a mythical story that is not a part of the Indian image. Whether true or not
these stereotypes can be very damaging. I know
these aren't true, however, that is what came to mind when watching it.
Victor Joseph who was one of the main characters in the movie, had never had a drink of
alcohol in his whole life and he had certainly been around it a lot with his father. Few images are more corrupted than that of
the American Cowboy and Indian movies. Since there where so many more negative Indian movies and so little good ones,
the good ones were hardly ever seen; thus, the bad stereotypes were so overwhelming and
were the ones that many Americans thought of when it came to Indians.
Essay's Topics
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