How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman And America Before Columbus

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Giovanni Stradano’s engraving, Amerigo Vespucci awakening “America”, is embedded with many examples of colonial discourse. It illustrates many myths including the myth of racism and conquest. How Tasty was my Little Frenchman and America Before Columbus both explore the myths of racism and conquest. The myth of racism is evident in both How Tasty was my Little Frenchman and America Before Columbus. The cultural difference between the Europeans and Native Americans in both films is pretty obvious. The racism in America Before Columbus is more evident than in How Tasty was my Little Frenchman. During portions of the film involving Europeans, they play dramatic background music as if the Europeans held more importance over the Native Americans, …show more content…

America Before Columbus is centered around the year 1491, which is known as a “European” year. The whole film is building up to Columbus’ discovery of the “new world”. This documentary is believable because they have scientists and expert opinions. With their professional tone and academic vocabulary, it is easy to believe that the film showed all true facts and situations. The fact is, the winners write history so it is likely that some important parts of history were not shown in this film. Europeans are lying about what is really going on. They are selfish in their conquering of empires and only seeked power and fortune. The Europeans killed anyone in their way out of greed, but they were unable to understand the natives’ presumably “other” way of living. This makes the viewer question who the real savages are. The Natives may have consumed their enemies out of honor, vengeance, and respect, but Europeans ripped their enemies limb from limb and fed them to flesh eating dogs. The Natives and the Europeans held many prejudices against each other and thus failed to understand each other. This idea is illustrated in How Tasty was My Little Frenchman. The Natives captured Jean and brought him into their community. He married and even fell in love with a woman from the village. Even though Jean was given a decent life in the village, he was …show more content…

While the documentary still seemed to be biased for the Europeans and held prejudices against the Natives, the fictional movie opposed the idea of racism and favored the Natives over the Europeans. Cannibalism is a projected idea of savagery which was lightly addressed in America Before Columbus, but cannibalism was more clearly described in How Tasty was My Little Frenchman. Although in that film, cannibalism was not shown as being “savage” but a form of honor and respect for one’s

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