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Stereotypical Native American roles in media and literature
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Native american literature essays
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Sherman Alexie in the “Superman and Me” essay wrote “A smart Indian is a dangerous person, widely feared and ridiculed by Indians and non-Indians alike. … We were Indian children who were expected to be stupid.” Alexie’s father, who was an avid book reader, transmitted his passion for reading to his son. At an early age, Alexie taught himself to read. He read as many book as he could come across with. This addiction for books made him very clever and grow quickly. But being a literary genius didn’t fit with the picture of being an Indian child living in a reservation. Alexis desperately fought to escape his Spokane Coeur d’Alene reservation to accede an High School that could offer him a proficient education and opportunistic future. He craved …show more content…
to become an atypical Indian, break the conventions, and prove the world all the wonders a free Indian can offer. Much of Alexie’s work reflects his story and quest to convince Native Americana should be considered as an equal part and active member of the American society. So, he chose to shoot the “Smoke Signals” movie, adopting panoramic shots, the circular sense of time, and stereotyped characters, to portray the duality of Native American culture, capturing the history of people who have been oppressed, yet attempting to forge their identity in the media saturated world of the 21st Century. The action takes place in the Native American Coeur D'Alene reservation, Alexie's native tribe. The beginning of the film reveals a lot of the reservation's beauty through spectacular panoramic shots of the wide opened and untouched nature landscapes. Chris Eyre, the director of “Smoke Signals” particularly cherishes these shots: growing up in Southern Oregon, he enjoyed taking wide angle pictures of the sceneries to contemplate his "environment patiently, calmingly". He learnt these shots introduce and stage the context of the story, but also draw people's sensibility and emotions to place the viewers in the proper mind-set to discover the story to be unfolded. These framings of delicate and pristine nature also remind us of a past when Native Americans lived in these wild landscapes and shared a spiritual connection with nature ,which became an intrinsic part of their culture. Chief Seattle from the Squamish tribe, wrote in his 1854 speech: “Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. Even the rocks, …, thrill with memories of stirring events connected with the lives of my people, …because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch”. But the outstanding beauty of the landscapes contrasts deeply with the the social economic conditions and uglier aspects of the reservation. The film opens with striking shots of the present poverty of the Native American community: abandoned cars, impoverished homes, and mobile homes aligned in a field. Also, alcohol represents a recurrent theme in the movie to demonstrate its omnipresence among Native Americans, as an unavoidable consequence of their poor social economic conditions. Victor’s father, Arnold Joseph, is portrayed as a father who left his wife and son, accidentally killed his bother and sister-in-law, because of his deep addiction to alcohol. The movie also showcases two young women riding a car backwards and mentioning their recent promise to stop drinking alcohol. In association with wide landscape shots, Native Americans appear stranded between the weight of their culture from the past and their resolution to encompass this culture in the present modern world. This is why, Alexie features both the circular and linear sense time to convey this temporal struggle. He employs seamless transitions in order to create a circular sense of time merging the past and present.
In the West and West interview, he describes these “magical cuts”, as he likes to call them, as a space where “the past, present and future are all the same.” These seamless transitions are achieved through framing effects that allow, for example, to see the presence of a protagonist as a child and an adult simultaneously.
In one scene, Victor and Thomas, adults, converse in the trading post of the reservation. When Victor leaves, Thomas is shown looking after Victor. Then, the camera pulls back to reveal Victor, as a kid, standing in front of the entrance, as if he had just left the trading post. The “magic” operates when the camera frames simultaneously Victor, as a kid, and Thomas, as an adult. In the next shot, “little” Thomas comes running after “little” Victor. And the transition from past to present is achieved seamlessly.
Moreover, the circular sense of time represents another critical reference to the traditional Native American culture. For many Native American tribes, there is no definite beginning or ending to life. They see death as a threshold to access the next world: the beginning of a new
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life. On the other hand, the circular sense of time contrasts with the linear sense of time captured in the road trip of Thomas and Victor. They contemplate the landscapes unfolding behind the window of their moving bus. Hour after hour, day after day, they migrate from one place to another until they reach their destination. Alexis also manages to intertwine both style of sense of time inside single sequences to add another level of complexity to the story, and also cleverly illustrate the struggle Indians face to bridge their cultural past with the present. Finally, Alexie aspires to fight the ethnic stereotypes created by the Hollywoodian culture, which forged an extensive movie list filled with fierce bow and arrow Indian warriors eagerly fighting american soldiers and their deadly rifles. So, to break these conventions, Alexie chose to place indians as the main protagonists of his story within a very contemporary environment. He also attributes, Thomas and Victor, a profound symbolic role and personality in line with the stereotypes of the indigenous population. But as the story unfold, the characters’s personality evolve, change shattering their mold too cliché. Thomas is portrayed as an introverted, mama’s boy, but very bright individual. His curiosity and questioning sometimes seem so intense and profound, his peers will judged him as odd and different: Thomas’ intelligence and sensitivity does not reflect the traditional personality and attitude of Native Americans living in a reservation. Even his physical appearance can seem peculiar. Thomas’ geeky look defies the usual Indian stereotype: he wears large thick glasses, two braids on each side of his head, and a dark suit, which provokes a lot of mockery from his entourage: “Nice suit, Thomas!”. Thomas represents the shaman stereotypes. He tends to transform real-life events from their past into fascinating stories and myths, closing his eyes to live and transmit the emotional intensity of his stories to his auditors. Many of these bewitching monologues relate to lately deceased Victor’s father, Albert Joseph, which help Victor to perceive and appreciate the value of his father’s personality. Victor embodies the well-known warrior stereotype with his athletic, handsome look and short temper.
During their road trip in the bus, Victor strongly encourages Thomas to change his demeanor and match Victor’s to become a “real indian”. “Real indians”, like Victor, look “stoic”, “mean”, and act “like a warrior” in order to be feared and earn the respect of white people. They also cultivate their appearance freeing their superb and legendary long hair, but they certainly do not wear suit like Thomas does.
The conflicting personalities of Thomas and Victor portrayed the duality of Native Americans struggling to keep their culture alive in the midst of the modern technological world.
In order to compel his audience, Alexis required “Smoke Signals” to abound in implicit symbols suggesting the cultural dilemma between past and present, Native Americans have been enduring since their oppression. This film acquired an ample recognition among Indian population, as well as non-Indians. But Alexie’s work goes beyond his essays and stories. He visits Indian children schools as often as he can. He profoundly believes it is through education Indian children will feel empowered to leave their reservation for a brighter future and abandon this endless circle of poverty and suffering. There seems to be a solution to combine the best of both worlds, being successful, yet remaining faithful to his roots and origins: Alexie symbolizes the living archetype of this
promise.
Mattie, Cogburn, and LaBoeuf’s journey through the Choctaw Nation is a long, gruesome one. The scene features a couple of cinematographic techniques that make it very memorable. One of these is editing. The group’s journey takes approximately ten hours, but Deakins uses time lapse cinematography to make it much shorter. The images dissolve into one another with each new image bringing them farther into the Indian Territory. This technique shows the distance the Mattie, Cogburn, and LaBoeuf travel by compressing the time. Another ...
The film, “In the White Man’s Image” and Sally Jenkins’ narrative, “The Real All Americans” both discussed the controversial issues and historical significance of nineteenth century social policies dealing with cultural integration of Native Americans, yet while “In the White Man’s Image” covered the broad consequences of such policies, it was Jenkins’ narrow focus on the daily lives of students involved that was able to fully convey the complexities of this devastating social policy. Jenkins’ recreated the experiences of students at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, bringing the reader along with her as students were stripped of culture, language, and family to be remade into a crude imitation of white society. “...Now, after having had my hair cut, a new thought came into my head. I felt I was no more Indian…” (Jenkins, pg 75). Richard Henry Pratt, the creator of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School that became the inspiration and model for many similar institutions across the nation, intended to save a people from complete destruction, yet the unforeseen consequences of his ...
Sherman Alexie grew up in Wellpinit, Washington as a Spokane/Coeur d’Alene tribal member (Sherman Alexie). He began his personal battle with substance abuse in 1985 during his freshman year at Jesuit Gonzaga University. The success of his first published work in 1990 incentivized Alexie to overcome his alcohol abuse. “In his short-story and poetry collections, Alexie illuminates the despair, poverty, and alcoholism that often shape the lives of Native Americans living on reservations” (Sherman Alexie). When developing his characters, Alexie often gives them characteristics of substance abuse, poverty and criminal behaviors in an effort to evoke sadness with his readers. Alexie utilizes other art forms, such as film, music, cartoons, and the print media, to bombard mainstream distortion of Indian culture and to redefine Indianness. “Both the term Indian and the stereotypical image are created through histories of misrepresentation—one is a simulated word without a tribal real and the other an i...
John Smith, the troubled Indian adopted by whites appears at first to be the main character, but in some respects he is what Alfred Hitchcock called a McGuffin. The story is built around him, but he is not truly the main character and he is not the heart of the story. His struggle, while pointing out one aspect of the American Indian experience, is not the central point. John Smith’s experiences as an Indian adopted by whites have left him too addled and sad, from the first moment to the last, to serve as the story’s true focus.
People mistake the Indian culture for living in T-Ps and going to powwows and always being drunk. But Smoke Signals really shows how the Indian culture really is. It includes how their culture is different from the white man but the stereo types that people put out for Indians are really inaccurate. Victor and Thomas not only take us on this interesting adventure to see his dad but they show us all of the Indian stereo types.
The frontier changes people. Its is a harsh landscape that only very adapted people can survive in. Duncan Heyward and David Gamut both learn this the hard way. They are used to the posh life of England, and do not understand how life on the frontier works. The events of the story change them however, to become men who, while not as good as the Indians, can hold their own in the harsh landscape of North America.
Overall, Alexie clearly faced much difficulty adjusting to the white culture as a Native American growing up, and expresses this through Victor in his essay, “Indian Education.” He goes through all of the stages of his childhood in comparison with his white counterparts. Racism and bullying are both evident throughout the whole essay. The frustration Alexie got from this is clear through the negativity and humor presented in the experiences he had to face, both on and off of the American Indian reservation. It is evident that Alexie faces discrimination from white people, who he portrays as evil in every way, to show that his childhood was filled with anger, fear, and sorrow.
Culture has the power and ability to give someone spiritual and emotional distinction which shapes one's identity. Without culture, society would be less and less diverse. Culture is what gives this earth warmth and color that expands across miles and miles. The author of “The School Days of an Indian Girl”, Zitkala Sa, incorporates the ideals of Native American culture into her writing. Similarly, Sherman Alexie sheds light onto the hardships he struggled through growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in his book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven in a chapter titled “Indian Education”.
In “This Is What It Means To Say Phoenix, Arizona,” Alexie creates a story that captures the common stereotypes of Native Americans. For instance, in the story the narrator states, “Who does have money on a reservation, except the cigarette and fireworks salespeople?” (Alexie). This quotation shows that the narrator addresses the idea that all Native Americans must own businesses that sell fireworks and/ or cigarettes in order to be successful. In this example, Victor is shown to not identify with the Native Americans because he does not pursue the same job opportunities as many Native Americans do. Victor's character is used as a contrast to the stereotypes that , there he represents reality. Another instance in which the author incorporates a stereotype about Native Americans is when Thomas-Builds-the-Fire first makes conversation with Victor. Thomas-Builds-the-Fire informs Victor about the news of Victor's ...
Victor knew he was a Native American that lived on the reservation. However, as he has grown up, it seems he has forgotten the tribal ties of the Native Americans. The people of that culture consider everyone in the tribe to be family and they are not ashamed of who they are and where they come from. Towards the end of the fictional narrative it is said, “Victor was ashamed of himself. Whatever happened to the tribal ties, the sense of community? The only real thing he shared with anybody was a bottle and broken dreams. He owed Thomas something, anything” (519). At the end of the story, Victor has finally realize that he is acting self absorbed. He realizes that this is not who he wants to be and he should not be ashamed to talk to Thomas Builds-a-Fire. Remembering his tribal ties, Victor gives half of his father 's ashes to Thomas. By doing that, Victor is thanking Thomas in his own way. Victor said, “listen, and handed Thomas the cardboard box which contained half of his father. “I want you to have this” (519). Individuals on the reservation thought Thomas was just a madman with weird stories. But in reality he was always true to his tribal identity and has even taught Victor how to get back to that. For example Thomas says, “I’m going to travel to Spokane Falls one last time and toss these ashes into the water. And your father will rise like a salmon, leap over the bridge, over me, and find his way
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.
In his novel, Thomas King plays on stereotypes and expectations that occur in our society on the portrayal of Native Americans. He show us the bias image that we have of them by describing what is an indian from a colonizers point of view, how the genre of western movies has an effect on our perception in society. In the novel, Nasty Bumppo, who represents modern society, explains that :
In Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, the main character Arnold, also known as Junior, has many health issues, and notably stands out in the crowd. It does not help that he is a poor Indian boy that lives on a reservation, and that he decides to go to an all-white high school. Many of his experiences at school, and on the Reservation, impact his identity. Experience is the most influential factor in shaping a person’s identity because it helps gain confidence, it teaches new things, and it changes one’s outlook on the world.
In his essay “Superman and Me”, Sherman Alexie details how he rose above the limits placed upon him because of his ethnicity. Alexie begins the essay by opening up to his audience and recounting how he taught himself to read by using a Superman comic book. Alexie’s family was living paycheck to paycheck, so he began reading anything and everything that he could get his hands on. The purpose of Alexie’s “Superman and Me” is to inform the audience of how one does not need to be affluent to learn. With pathos, repetition, and elaborate metaphors, Sherman Alexie evokes a change of mind from his audience.
The use of jump cuts within Breathless and Contempt was an unconventional technique during the French New Wave and still is today because it violates one of the rules of Classic Hollywood Style. Jump cuts create “…discontinuities that the perceptual system will not ignore because the stimuli fall outside of the accommodation ranges for perceptual continuity, then spatial coherence breaks down” (Berliner). Even though jump cuts are not aesthetically pleasing, Godard uses them for the deeper meaning of the films.