Racism Towards Native Ams Film
There is an old African proverb which states that "until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunters." This seemingly simple phrase has proven itself accurate time and time again throughout all histories, including that of America. The natives of the land now known as America are of course, the lions, and the European settlers of this land, the hunters. As the glorious hunters sweep through the savage lands, inhabited by the backwards lions, they did their best to convert and save the lions; or simply destroy, destabilize and dehumanize them. While the destruction is clear, and the destabilization is also rather apparent, in the many Indian reservation policies passed throughout American History, the dehumanization of Indians is often much more covert. An initial background relating the situation of the natives in the eyes of the European settlers, will be followed by a detailed look at the main Indian movies throughout the history of film, and the stereotypes shown within them. Also, an inspection of recent films with relevant subject matter will be discussed. These three peices will show that the racism expressed in cinema, specifically towards Native Americans, is predominantly institutional
[it] can be viewed only with ambivalence because of their own participation in processes of objectification and commodification, the forms of "playing Indian" to which each gives rise may offer genuine possibilities for unlearning these processes and imagining new ones, that is, for learning things we never knew we never knew. Strong further argues that the majority of Pocahontas' character is not derived from fact, but rather from the figure collectively romanticized through western tradition; through the stories of the western front, the virtues of Indians found in the writings of many famous authors from Rousseau to Thoreau. In the movie, Indians are referred to as "filthy little savages," "barely even human," "only good when they are dead" and "dirty redskin devils," (Wong 1). Or, to paraphrase, the film's best aspect is the fact that it exploits our own exploitations to some degree. The treaties, it would seem, were little more than wasted paper, time, and hope. The use of this tactic found its way into film almost immediately, and very often after the initial use, but rarely does it do so in such a fashion as Broken Arrow. Griffith's Birth of a Nation is quite offensive to many African Americans, there is possibly even less doubt that Griffith did not intend the film to be racist. " The film seems to be telling the viewer that the Indians are vanishing mostly due to the fact that, in history, the dominant race has controlled, and if the minority would not assimilate, they would lead themselves to annihilation. The film does, after all, attempt to humanize the Little Bear character, and fills it full of typical hero virtues. Recently, there have been a string of films hoping to halt this, oddly enough, the two most apparent have been both aimed at children. Manchel states that, unlike popular belief, "Broken Arrow. it allows the filmmakers to skip over the inconvenient fact that the Chiricahua Apaches had been fighting for more than sixty years with Spaniards, Mexicans and Euro-Americans. The most important fallacy it would seem, is the absolute dishonor of the filmmakers who felt it important to end the movie with Geronimo (one of the great Apache "leaders" and Cochise's successor) shunning peace for no real reason. Russell Means has long been one of the chief protestors in the fight against American Indian semblances being used as mascots, and the like.
Common topics in this essay:
Vanishing American,
Native American,
Native Americans,
American Indian,
DW Griffith,
,
Indian Cupboard,
Indians America,
Colorado Boulder,
Richard Dix,
broken arrow,
american indian,
native american,
vanishing american,
little bear,
throughout history,
white man's,
smoke signals,
film russell means,
european settlers,
russell means,
hunt glorify hunters,
white man's indian,
stereotypes expressed film,
tales hunt glorify,
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Acceptance Essays
