The film, “Reel Injun” reveals a distortion of the way Hollywood sees Native American life through comedy and the real way Native Americans live which changes according to the current times. Dozens of films recreate the way Americans believe Natives live as savages and wear costumes decorated with feathers, but Hollywood does not show the true spiritual side and the meaning of why they live the way they do. US history negatively affect Native American live which lead to the image of Natives to be clouded by imagination through film, changed the way Natives viewed themselves and expect to live, and misshaped the view we have about Natives. Over the course of the film, clips of many western movies play which show parts of Native Americans …show more content…
One of the Natives says “We’re Indians watching Indians on tv,” which seems surreal because it is not how they live as savages. Over time these real Indians start to believe that what films show is their reality because aside from the stories they hear, seeing it shows a new perspective and changes their views on how their ancestors lived. It changes their views as in they believe they must all be these tough men who are masters of horseback riding, when they do not even own a horse. So it becomes a race to save the image or prove themselves that they have of their own culture in their own land, which is harder once civilizations grow and forget that Natives too are humans. John Trudell explains, “We're too busy trying to protect the idea of a Native American or an Indian - but we're not Indians and we're not Native Americans. We're older than both concepts. We're the people. We're the human beings.” Moreover, Native Americans believe in the great spirits of their ancestors and how nature is one with humans, but the sacred lands of where their ancestors fought for freedom and died, become forgotten by erasing the memory Americans have about the battles. The Battle of Little Bigfoot and The Battle of Wounded Knee is very much alive for the Natives in the film, there is a deep respect for their ancestors, but the memory of their ancestors only lives in them. “We'll never be able to …show more content…
Their history is no longer about their teachings or the oral stories told for years, but now it becomes a show to about how they dressed. Native life is very much alive, it is not considered just history but lives in the lives of their descendants, the Native Americans which have become forgotten. Furthermore, in the film there is an uprise of Hippies that use headbands and live as free spirits like the Natives, but the Natives explain that they never used headbands or live freely. “Spiritual, noble and free has captured the imagination of Americans,” is expressed in the Reel Injun to interpret the characteristics we have deemed over “indians.” In particular, the movie Pocahontas is the first modern animation we see as a representation of Native America. It is presented as a glimpse of history and a mockery to Indian life. From the beginning, it details the love story between Pocahontas and John Smith, but Pocahontas was not the woman we see in real life, she was about 9 years old when they first encounter each other. Society deems this movie to be a creation of what life was for the Natives, but now society says “Natives aren’t true Americans.” Comments and movies as such affect Natives and their image, because people like Russell Means suffered consequences when white boys would encounter them. “And all of a sudden we'd hear,
The Historical Interaction Between the Europeans and Indians in the Disney Movie Pocahontas Over the past couple of weeks, we have been studying the story of the Native American (Indian) princess, Pocahontas. We have studied both literature and the 1995 Disney movie. I am going to write about what methods are used to portray the relationship between these two civilisations. Both media portray the same relationship between the civilisations; this is one of mistrust, misunderstanding and dislike. From the moment the Europeans landed in "the new world", the natives were not sure of what to think of them, they looked different, sounded different and carried themselves differently.
The depiction of Native Americans to the current day youth in the United States is a colorful fantasy used to cover up an unwarranted past. Native people are dressed from head to toe in feathers and paint while dancing around fires. They attempt to make good relations with European settlers but were then taken advantage of their “hippie” ways. However, this dramatized view is particularly portrayed through media and mainstream culture. It is also the one perspective every person remembers because they grew up being taught these views. Yet, Colin Calloway the author of First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History, wishes to bring forth contradicting ideas. He doesn’t wish to disprove history; he only wishes to rewrite it.
A Cree filmmaker named Neil Diamond directed Reel Injun. At a young age, he always cheered for the cowboys but never realizing that he was the Indian. He explores the portrayals of North American Natives through a century of cinema. These images of Natives have shaped people's opinions and views about Aboriginals. Through these depictions, it has led to stereotypes that caused discrimination among the First Nations. Reel Injun emphasizes not to generalize indigenous people through media and films.
Back in the days 1607 was the time where Natives of American had their own land and freedom. Coming to the contribution of the film of Pocahontas with the cons and pros. The history will continue and a famous figure should always be honored. Disney is leaving out and changing out the most important events from this historical figure that represents the Native Americans her name is Pocahontas.
As a result, both films represent Native Americans from the point of view of non-Native directors. Despite the fact that they made use of the fabricated stereotypes in their illustrations of the indigenous people, their portrayal was revolutionary in its own times. Each of the films adds in their own way a new approach to the representation of indigenous people, their stories unfolding in a different way. These differences make one look at the indigenous not only as one dimensional beings but as multifaceted beings, as Dunbar says, “they are just like us.” This is finally a sense of fairness and respect by the non-native populations to the Native Indians.
It appears the caricature of Native Americans remains the same as first seen from the first settler’s eyes: savage-like people. Their culture and identity has become marginalized by popular culture. This is most evident in mainstream media. There exists a dearth of Native American presence in the mainstream media. There is a lack of Native American characters in different media mediums.
By implementing pictures, ideas, and interviews in the film made it seem authentic and presented by individuals who took part. The illustrations of tanks, helicopters, and guns formed an emotional stance with mournful music following while the Americans were forcing the Indians off of American ground where they did not belong. Trudell explains how Indian children are getting to know the relationship between the government and themselves. The Indians want to be treated as human beings, treated equally, and to be treated with respect. Why could they not obtain the same level of respect as others
...views of these people and what they are expected to be, is taken away as the viewer realizes that the life of the natives is very common and understandable. This film almost goes to prove that often the reason that a certain group is tagged by prejudice views, is because little is known about where they are coming from, how they live or what they are experiencing in life. The film Dances With Wolves does a good job of proving that often our stereotypical views of others are inaccurate, and that the Native Americans of the west were not all that different from the whites that also inhabited the plains.
They brought real Natives to play the Natives on the big screen and eventually movies were created by Natives themselves. Around the same time was the Hippie movement; many people wanted to be like the Natives they saw in the films even though it was not an accurate depiction of the Natives. They liked the 'positive stereotypes' of the Natives in the movies, the family unity and their strength as warriors. In the 1960's the American Indian Movement (AIM) also began and in 1973 The genocide at Wounded Knee occurred. Jim Jarmusch says “That is a genocide that occurred and the [American] culture wanted to perpetrate the idea that [the natives] these people are now mythological, you know, they don’t even really exist, they’re like dinosaurs.” This shows just how much Americans wanted to belittle the Natives, and despite succeeding for a number of years, the New Age of Cinema commenced and movies like Smoke Signals began what some would look at as a Renaissance. The Renaissance explained in Reel Injun discusses the rebirth of the Native American in the Hollywood films, and how the negative stereotypes went away with time. Reel Injun also makes a point to explain how it impacted not only the films but Americans who watched them, and ultimately America as a
Pages one to sixty- nine in Indian From The Inside: Native American Philosophy and Cultural Renewal by Dennis McPherson and J. Douglas Rabb, provides the beginning of an in-depth analysis of Native American cultural philosophy. It also states the ways in which western perspective has played a role in our understanding of Native American culture and similarities between Western culture and Native American culture. The section of reading can be divided into three lenses. The first section focus is on the theoretical understanding of self in respect to the space around us. The second section provides a historical background into the relationship between Native Americans and British colonial power. The last section focus is on the affiliation of otherworldliness that exist between
The movie starts by showing the Indians as “bad” when Johnson finds a note of another mountain man who has “savagely” been killed by the Indians. This view changes as the movie points out tribes instead of Indians as just one group. Some of the tribes are shown dangerous and not to be messed with while others are friendly, still each tribe treats Johnson as “outsider.” Indians are not portrayed as greater than “...
Cowboys and Indians is the popular game played by many children played as a game of heroes and villains. Natives are villainized in American pop culture due to the history being told by educational institutions across the nation. There are not many positive roles popular in the media about Native Americans. Many roles are even played by white people. The costume representation is not accurate either. The disrespect towards them is especially seem on Halloween, when people dress as Natives in cute and sexy ways that they think represent their culture. War paint, beads, feathers and headdresses are ceremonial accessories that represent their culture, it not a fun costume to wear. Only if they are being criticized and ridiculed, like they have been in the past. Racism has also been a huge problem when it comes to using creative names for sports teams, like the Redskins for example. Redskin is a derogatory and offensive term towards Native Americans and many white people do not see it as wrong due to the privilege they inherited throughout history. The disrespect towards them has grown and today it seems that if Natives were not getting ridiculed, they are for the most part ignored. The concerns that King describes in his book explains how the past has wired Americans to believing everything they have once learned. White people
The Disney movies of Pocahontas tell a plot of a Native ¬American tribe and English colonists that fight for the land the Native Americans live on though war ultimately creating moderate peace. While keeping to their own sect, the imbalance of power between the two social groups is prevalent throughout much of the story. Walt Disney’s Pocahontas is more than a classic children’s movie. It is a thoughtful, well contrived narration that portrays a message that in order to fit in, you must be a certain race and born into a specific culture. Disney’s Pocahontas suggesting that the color of our skin shouldn’t matter when being accepted into social groups as well as the idea that arranged marriage should be rejected. Thus, treating people right could ultimately have a positive outcome and lastly, the film also suggests that family roles change without a mother figure.
Produced in 1943, They Died With Their Boots On, a Warner Brothers® film, is a horribly inaccurate account of the events that lead to the Battle of Little Big Horn. His early days in war were depicted accurately, however. Boots told of his experiences at West Pointe; the most important experience is, notably, his graduation. He received the absolute worst scores ever recorded at West Pointe upon his commencement. After that point, it all goes down hill. Custer was also a womanizer, but in this film he was quite a gentlemen, being sure to get Elizabeth Bacon’s father’s permission for everything the two did together. Custer was displayed as a very sympathetic and warm-hearted general, while he was, in actuality, not such. Custer was known to be rather a large egoist and somewhat of a rude man. Then, for “dramatic effect”, filmmakers fabricated a conspiracy that Custer’s “enemies” concocted to remove him from opposition. His opponents, executives of a large company which he refused a position in, “lied” about gold in the Black Hills in order to trick thousands of Americans into violating a peace treaty with the Sioux. The truth: there really WAS gold in the Black Hills. Negro slaves were depicted as goofy and silly, added only for comic effect. One lady in particular danced about singing a rhyme, “Rabbit’s foot, work your charm, protect that lady’s man from harm!” after reading the “tea leaves” for a friend. The Sioux Indians were also depicted rather inaccurately. They all wore a single feather in the backs of their heads and yipped and hollered just as “Indians” would do. They screamed and beat their hands on their mouths, all the while speaking English in the manner of a five year-old. Finally, the film’s depiction of Civil War battles, not to mention the battle of Little Big Horn, were laughable. There were twenty, MAYBE thirty men all lined up on either side of the field, and every time the Union soldiers fought, at least two Confederate soldiers or Indians fell, dead. However, when the opposing side fired or attacked, the Union cavalries were nearly impregnable.
I enjoyed watching Disney films while growing up, and Pocahontas was one that I watched often. In the movie, Pocahontas was portrayed as being an “Indian Princess” that was one with nature as well as submissive. One of my favorite Disney movies was Peter Pan. Both films obviously contain many Native American stereotypes, such as that Native Americans are an unprogressive people and savages. In Peter Pan, the characters wore sacred headdresses, sat in a circle and smoked tobacco while chanting to a stereotypical Indian drum beat. “What Makes the Red Man Red?”, a song in Peter Pan, contains incredibly offensive terms such as “injun” and “squaw” in the lyrics. In Pocahontas, the terms “savage”, “devil”, and “primitive” are used to describe Native