Stereotypes In Pocahontas And The Lone Ranger By Disney

Who has seen Pocahontas or The Lone Ranger by Disney? They are very interesting movies with fun plots to follow, but do they portray Native Americans accurately or do they follow the stereotypes about Native Americans? Disney tries not to follow the stereotypes about the Natives, but looking closely at the two movies, Pocahontas and The Lone Ranger, there are multiple stereotypes. These movies teach children the stereotypes of Native Americans and they grow up thinking that the stereotype is the truth about Natives. By having media follow the stereotype about Native Americans it teaches society the wrong things about Natives, like all Natives are aggressive or redskin. This is not always true. Media, like Disney, teach society stereotypes about

Native Americans that are harmful to present day Natives.
The first film that has an example of Native American stereotyping is Pocahontas by Disney.

Pocahontas is about an indian princess who falls in love with a white Englishman who is appeared as a hero. Now the movie is not historically accurate about Pocahontas life, but there is still many stereotypes in the movie. In the movie the audience is first introduced to the white englishmen on their way to the new world. From the start the audience is shown that John Smith, one of the main characters, is a hero and he can do no wrong. When the white englishmen first meet the Natives they sing the song Savages already labeling the Natives as aggressive beasts that are hiding all the gold. The movie also reinforces the stereotype that all Natives talk to nature or trees because of how Pocahontas spends most of her time talking to a willow tree called Grandmother Willow. Today not all Natives go around talking to tree and not many Natives from the past did that either. Stephanie Dixon said in her journal about children watching this Disney film “Not only do they learn

life lessons, but they also learn things like racial and sexist stereotypes”. This is true. Disney teaches great life lessons, but within those life lessons they teach stereotypes that are harmful. Pocahontas is shown as a beautiful, over sexulaized woman, but in the real world none of the Native women dressed like Pocahontas or even look like her. Not only is this a harmful stereotype to Native American appearances it is also allowing Native little girls to body shaming themselves for not looking like Pocahontas because they believe in the stereotype that indian princesses look like Pocahontas. The movie also has other stereotypes like all tribes are led by a wise leader, or have strong male warriors, or even have a government that is led by men only when in real life women had a lot of power in tribes.
Another film that Disney has that shows multiple Native American stereotypes is The Lone Ranger film made in 2013.

The Lone Ranger is about a white male who becomes a masked ranger who saves the day with a Native American named Tonto by his side. Before the movie was able to be watched by audiences Native Americans expressed their concern about the film. They did not want stereotypes from the past Lone Ranger movie to carry over. While the film crew tried to not disrespect or stereotype the Native people, they still had the actor of Tonto not be a Native American. Tonto was played by Johnny Depp who is not a true Native. According to Stephanie Dixon in The American Stereotype of American Indians, “The producers, directors, and actors have apparently made an effort to respect the culture of the Comanche tribe, yet still use every day cliché ideals about Native Americans”. In the beginning of the movie Tonto is first introduced as an old man in a Noble Savage window, already telling audiences that Tonto and all other Natives are savages. This is a huge stereotype about Natives, but today’s Native Americans are not savages and yet still many people believe they are savages

today.
These stereotypes from these movies are harmful to the Natives. It is harmful because many people believe these stereotypes are true including Natives today. Farah Qureshi wrote in her article “...exposure to common media portrayals has been shown to have a harmful impact on Native American high school students’ feelings about themselves, their community and their academic possibilities”. Students in high school who are Natives already have the pressure of high school and its insaneness and to add stereotypes about them in the mix only makes it worse. These students perform poorly because they are thought of poorly because many educators do not take time to look past the stereotypes about Natives. Another point Farah Qureshi wrote about harmful impacts on stereotyping Natives is “Media depictions of Native Americans can influence how Native people see themselves. Some may be motivated to identify with representations, even if they are inaccurate, simply because one representation is better than no representation”. Not only is it affecting high schoolers it is affecting Natives from a young age to old. They feel that because the stereotype is shown or said so many times then it is better to believe it to be true because at least then they would receive representation.
In conclusion, movies like Pocahontas and The Lone Ranger have harmful stereotypes about the Native Americans. Even though these movies were made by Disney, and Disney tries to not have stereotypes, they still have these harmful stereotypes. The stereotypes are harmful to the Natives because they eventually start to believe these stereotypes are true so they may receive representation in media.