Dance

Nothing has done more to perpetuate liberal myths about the Plains Indians than Kevin Costner's Dances With Wolves, the beautifully done and ever politically correct film that was the Academy Awards 1991 "Best Picture". The historical inaccuracies of this film were so gross as to be amusing. (My wife hates to go to films like this with me; I either gripe about the propaganda or giggle at its silliness.)

My favorite was the scene where the old medicine man asked Kevin Costner why he was going to start a family so soon instead of waiting. "Sure!", I told my wife, "I bet they have a Planned Parenthood set up in one of those tepees!" The Indians not only lacked modern birth control technology, but, because of continual warfare, the uncertainties of their nomadic lifestyle, and the dangers of buffalo hunting, faced the serious threat of underpopulation. Hence their willingness to steal and adopt outsiders. Added to show the enlightened nature and progressive spirit of the Indians, this ridiculous scene only demonstrates the director's desire to manufacture a politically correct film.

That desire is repeatedly shown in the film's representation

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At least Indians ate lean meat! But the Indian diet Parkman observed and shared would surprise modern Americans. Gross Indian cuisine, at least according to the Costner, had a certain raw nobility, as when Indians ceremonially feasted at the fresh kill. [10] In the film's depiction of both women's sexuality and their place in society, modern American and Hollywood values are artificially forced unto Indian culture. In Costner's film, white Americans were guilty of the vilest eating practices, such as the mule driver who was slurping down greasy, half-cooked bacon just before the Indians caught him. Dogmeat was considered the greatest delicacy - especially from white dogs. One critic suggested that in "Dances With Wolves" Costner committed cultural suicide.

For a different perspective on the Sioux Indians romanticized in Costner's film, see Francis Parkman's The Oregon Trail.

This 'getting even', however, though understandable, is dangerous since it is driven by a general hostility to Western culture. Yet the romantic tradition of Europe never flourished among the polygamist Indians, who secured wives by purchase. The film opens with Costner, depressed and frustrated by the Civil War, riding back and forth along enemy lines trying to get himself shot.

In one sense, Hollywood gets even with Dances With Wolves. When 19th century artist George Catlin suggested painting a few pictures of Sioux women, he was heartily jeered at by the whole village, and someone explained that women were good for nothing, since they "never took scalps, nor did anything better than dress skins and make fire". When a mangy cur growled at him, Parkman got even by buying the mutt from a squaw, paying the delighted owner extra to prepare it, and inviting the whole village to the feast.

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