Native American Stereotype Representation

Native American Stereotype Representation
Stereotyping may be historical, but the emotions it arouses are eminently present today. According to Jack G. Shaheen, “Stereotypes are especially confining images. They are standardized mental picture[s] . . . representing oversimplified opinion[s] . . . that [are] staggeringly tenacious in [their] hold over rational thinking,” (303). It is obvious today that the presence of the Native American Indians is historically significant. Attitudes of those in the nineteenth century, who viewed images of American Indians, were shaped through the means of media. In this piece I will discuss how society, specifically the media has stereotyped Native Americans.
Native Americans have been stereotyped in media for many decades. Walter C. Fleming, states, “Stereotypes, some believe have a basis in reality. They can be product of over simplification, exaggeration, or generalization. Their harm is that they define an individual by attributes ascribed to the group as a whole” (216). Native Americans are being stereotyped about many things, from their cultural dancing, nature depicted names, religious believes, traditional storytelling, hunting skills to the way they dress (e.g. Tomahawks, feathered, headdresses, and bows and arrows, which are all used as a connection to the spiritual world.) These are just a few of the stereotypical objects associated with the Native American culture. Native Americans are stereotyped as either an outdated civilization of savages, or romanticized as mystical, nature loving warriors and shamans. These images have rapidly grown in the media over the decades in movies, television shows, literature and even video games. One of the Native American characters, who appeared i...

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...ividual to claim Indian identity not based upon reality, but bases upon their own stereotypes of what Indians look like. Debra L. Merskin states, “Soul and face and body, words and action contribute to our identity. We invent ourselves. We are invented by others. I’m not sure what I look like; I just know I don’t look like “one”, at least according to cultural definitions of what constitutes ‘Indianness.’” (p.281)
The process of stereotypically representing Native Americans through media by outsiders will continue. Native Americans would need to infuse the diversity of their own cultures into such image making; they need to become more outspoken when it comes to the elements that represent their own culture and traditions. This will require a lot of patience, since the task is to counter generations of distortions that have been accepted by the mainstream as truths.