“Film is more than the instrument of a representation; it is also the object of representation. It is not a reflection or a refraction of the ‘real’; instead, it is like a photograph of the mirrored reflection of a painted image.” (Kilpatrick) Although films have found a place in society for about a century, the labels they possess, such as stereotypes which Natives American are recognized for, have their roots from many centuries ago (Kilpatrick). The Searchers, a movie directed by John Ford and starred by John Wayne, tells the story of a veteran of the American Civil War and how after his return home he would go after the maligned Indians who killed his family and kidnapped his younger niece. After struggling for five years to recover his niece back, who is now a young woman, she is rescued by his own hands. Likewise, Dances with Wolves is a Western film directed and starred by Kevin Costner. It is also situated during the American Civil War and tells the story of a soldier named John Dunbar that after a suicide attempt; he involuntarily leads Union troops to a triumph. Then, by his request he is sent to a remote outpost in the Indian frontier “before it’s gone”. There, the contact with the natives is eminent and thus it shows how through those contacts this soldier is transformed into another Indian that belongs with the Sioux to tribe and who is now called Dances With Wolves. While both John Ford and Kevin Costner emphasize a desire to apologize to the indigenous people, they use similar themes such as stereotypes, miscegenation, and the way characters are depicted; conversely, these two movies are different by the way the themes are developed within each film. John Ford’s The Searchers was giving the intention of ap... ... middle of paper ... ... due to the way their roles interact with the Amerind people in the film. As a result, both films represent Natives Americans under 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 add in their own way a new approach to the representation of indigenous people, their stories unfold partly unlike. These differences make one look at the indigenous not only as one dimensional beings but as multifaceted beings, as Dunbar say, “they are just like us.” This is finally a sense of fairness and respect by the non-native populations to the Native Indians. Works Cited Jacquelyin Kilpatrick , Celluloid Indians. Native Americans and Film. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1999
The movie Dances with Wolves was a real good movie and I enjoyed watching it. It showed how life was back in the time of the Civil War. The movie also showed how Indians lived and how they respect everything except the white men.
In The White Man’s Indian, Robert Berkhoffer analyzes how Native Americans have maintained a negative stereotype because of Whites. As a matter of fact, this book examines the evolution of Native Americans throughout American history by explaining the origin of the Indian stereotype, the change from religious justification to scientific racism to a modern anthropological viewpoint of Native Americans, the White portrayal of Native Americans through art, and the policies enacted to keep Native Americans as Whites perceive them to be. In the hope that Native Americans will be able to overcome how Whites have portrayed them, Berkhoffer is presenting
The Movie "Dances With Wolves" shows the stereotypical view of American Indians as uncivilized savages who murder innocent settlers, but most Indians are kind, caring people who were driven from their homes and land as discovered by John Dunbar, the film's main character.
Hollywood has helped create and perpetuate many different stereotypical images of the different races in the world. Those stereotypes still continue to affect the way we think about each other today and many of those stereotypes have been proven to be historically inaccurate. The movie Dances With Wolves, directed by actor Kevin Costner, does an excellent job in attempting to promote a greater acceptance, understanding, and sympathy towards Native American culture, instead of supporting the typical stereotype of Native Americans being nothing but brutal, blood thirsty savages.
iv-v) Works Cited Berkhoffer, Robert F. 'The White Man's Indian. Alfred A. Knopf Publishers, New York: 1978. Dowd, Frances Smardo. "Evaluating Children's Portraying Native American and Asian Cultures". Childhood Education; (68 Summer 92), pp.
The film Broken Arrow (1950) by Delmer Daves is one of the first Western genre films to sympathetically portray Native Americans. From the beginning of Western film production, Native Americans are depicted as savage enemies to be conquered and defeated by white Europeans. The focus of this analysis will follow the change of Native American representation as “blood thirsty savages” (Benshoff and Griffin) to a more sympathetic stance as noted by Benshoff and Griffin in their article Native Americans and American Film. Broken Arrow is credited for making effort to change the representation of Native Americans through a more accurate portrayal. The film can be noted for its many successful attempts in accuracy of Indian portrayal for its time,
...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.
One of the most successful directors of this genre was John Ford. He once introduced himself saying, ‘I am John Ford, and I make Westerns’. The somewhat minimizing nature of this rem...
It is important for more people to become aware of how inaccurate the common perception of Native American Indians is. It leads to racism and negative connotations in individuals, when every culture should be celebrated. Native American Indian authors are able to write about their experiences and allow more people to become conscious of their culture. They first handedly share their personal stories giving more individuals insight on what it’s truly like to be a Native American Indian. The more people who are aware of how false the stereotypical image is, the less issues exist of
The Searchers, is one of the most popular representatives of the classic western genre film. Directed by John Ford in 1956, the film embodies all the definitive characteristics of a Western from the time period in which it was made. Ethan, played by John Wayne, is an ex-Confederate Army soldier who returns home to his brother in Texas three years after the war’s completion. From the start, there is an air of mystery surrounding Ethan and his whereabouts during the last couple years. He has continued to wear his uniform and reveals to have made a fair amount of money while gone, contributing to his appearance of a rough, suspicious cowboy. The obscurity that these factors create around Ethan is important because they allow for the essential seed of wonderment to be planted in the minds of the audience. The audience will then be able to sympathize with Ethan and allow for the creation of the film’s hero.
In the movie Dances with Wolves, which starred Kevin Costner shows a presentation that is pretty accurate historically of the Sioux Indian Tribe and their way of life. Costner’s character, Lieutenant John Dunbar was rewarded for his heroic actions in the Civil War and was chosen to be stationed at an abandoned fort on the new American Frontier. Upon arriving Dunbar the only living thing around him was his horse and a lone wolf he named socks. After being there for about a month the Sioux Indian learned of his presence and had reported this finding to the chief.
Native Americans have faced countless stereotypes in Hollywood movies since the birth of film. Although, natives have made major advancements in the film industry to control how they are seen as well as, show various stories to represent their people but they continue to progress. Native Americans have gone through various changes throughout time regarding how they are portrayed in the media. The movie discusses four different eras that show distinctly different natives in each era. Each era we progress in some way until we reach the renaissance era, this shows how natives get their voice back.
Late in Lone Wolf’s life, American Indians whose histories have been rendered all but unrecognized and invisible shared a common aspiration to rediscover their cultural heritage and repossess their civil liberties. Lone Wolf had sought throughout his life to participate in the cultural determination of his Blackfeet tribe. Art historian W. Jackson Rushing III argues that artists of mixed heritage working in the twentieth-century appropriated “styles associated with the ‘dominant’ culture – Post Impressionism, Expressionism, and Pop Art – to probe the personal and social dilemmas of authentic, but non-traditional Indian cultures.” Through American Indians’ depictions in the popular culture, media, film, literature, and the arts, their passive
In the film The Exiles, written and directed by Kent Mackenzie, a group of Native American adults are shown to be attempting to live in Los Angeles. The theme of these people not belonging in Los Angeles or their homes is interweaved throughout the film as most of the action is driven by a sense of the characters seeming lost. Even though the film is shown through the lens of Kent Mackenzie, a White man, there are still some progressive aspects. The film holds the potential to provide meaningful insight into the plight of Native Americans, not only historically, but today as well.
Through challenging the conventional narrative by using themes and rebuking the stereotypes created by western films, Little Big Man and Smoke Signals were able to reshape the image of native americans as well as helping the audiences visualize another side of the story, and for native americans to find a medium to heal and rewrite their history.