Indian Movies; Are They Bad
People usually know more about their own culture, but people also know something aboutother cultures too, whether it is true or not. A white man's perspective may be verydifferent than an Indians perspective when it comes to the Indian culture. I once fell intothat white man's category and thought Indians were evil, worthless, and scary. Well, itcame from watching movies that have portrayed Indians that way. Many movies such asthe famous John Wayne movie The Searchers, have made the Indian culture look likethey are no better than dirt. While there are many of these mythical Indian movies, thereare 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 negativelyinfluenced 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 tobe 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 cowboysand Indians with this other kid. They both started to argue about who was going to be the
It show that they are loving and caringand not violent and evil like the old western movies portrayed them. When I watched the moviemany bad stereotypes came to mind. Thatmade Indians out to be worthless, especially the way they say it, as if it was bad to be anIndian. It showedwho they really are, just normal human beings like everyone else. That would have changed a lot of the negative stereotypes aboutIndians, or at least, the real bad ones. It does have somenegative stereotypes, however, it strives to presents a modern image of Indians. The Searchers doesn't evenstrive to show the contemporary Indian experience of that time. Human beings that should be respected and treated the same way as everyAmerican. They usually were the ones that attacked and raided thecowboys, which made it seem as though the Indians were icons of a violent, hatefulnature. It's a mythical story that is not a part of the Indian image. Whether true or notthese stereotypes can be very damaging. I knowthese 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 ofalcohol in his whole life and he had certainly been around it a lot with his father. Few images are more corrupted than that ofthe 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 andwere the ones that many Americans thought of when it came to Indians.
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