Evolution of Native American Representation in Western Films

In chapter six of her book Making the White Man 's Indian: Native Americans and Hollywood Movies, Ange Aliess explores the topic of how Western have begun to change recently. The changes that she references in the film Dances With Wolves are also present in the film Winter in the Blood as well as in the 1491s shorts, even though the 1491s are a comedy group and not a Western genre. Aleiss describes the ways in which Native Americans reacted to Native portrayals in the film Dances With Wolves, and they tended to see the film’s better sides in contrast with critics. In Winter in the Blood, there are many stereotypes that are explored in ways that make the characters seem more real and less stereotypical as the backstories are revealed, despite

Despite the fact that Winter in the Blood was not made by Native American directors, the film still portrays both the good and bad sides of Native Americans, thus making them more human and sympathetic, as Aleiss describes. However, the contrast between these two films is the tone. Aleiss states that “Dances With Wolves resurrected the Romantic image of the movies’ Indians and set the tone for the decades’ Westerns” (Aleiss 142). Winter in the Blood does not share such a Romantic image and instead chooses a more stark and brutal subject matter with an ending that leaves the character slightly less displaced than before, but still displaced

This is also a problem for Winter in the Blood, as it was not directed or written by Native Americans, but instead by white males. Despite this skewed perspective, the directors attempted to portray Native Americans in a complicated, real, and sympathetic manner, in contrast to previous Westerns in which Native Americans were savage and merciless killers. In the film, the white man called “Airplane Man” asks the main character what kind of Indian he is, to which the main character replies that he is a “normal” one. Just as Aleiss describes, Winter in the Blood moves past typical Western tropes by making Native Americans characters that just want to be understood and to belong