Film Analysis : Reel Injun

One of the themes used in the book is of racism towards the Natives. An example used in the book is of Edward Sheriff Curtis who was a photographer of 1900s. Curtis was interested in taking pictures of Native people, but not just any Native person. “Curtis was looking for the literary Indian, the dying Indian, the imaginative construct” (King, 2003; pp. 34). He used many accessories to dress up people up “who did not look as the Indian was supposed to look” (King, 2003; pp.34). He judged people based on his own assumptions without any knowledge of the group and their practices. Curtis reduced the identity of the Native Americans to a single iconic quintessential image of what Native meant to white society. The idea related to the image of this group of people during the 1900s consisted of racism in terms of the “real looking Indian”. This is not

“Native Son” composed by Richard Wright was revolved into an American drama picture in 1986 by director Jerrold Freeman. This piece caused a lot of controversy on whether the protagonist, Bigger Thomas, is guilty or innocent in the unfortunate events that have occurred. The purpose of this argumentative essay is to examine Richard Wright’s film adaptation of Native Son and prove his innocence based on how society deceived and deprived African Americans, his living and social environment, and his fears.

For over 80 years, Americans have been entertained by Hollywood productions on the big screen. Movies and films have always been a favorite pass time of the country. As a result of the fact that so many Americans turn to the big screen for fun, there is a lot of influence potential carried with the films or the movies that Hollywood produced. With increased ability to disseminate information comes the responsibility of presenting images that are accurate and factual. The influence and perception that Hollywood created was not always positive. There were multiple groups that were marginalized in film through stereotypes. Native Americans were one of the groups that were negatively

I’m not the Indian you had in mind; a video that was written and directed by Thomas King challenges the stereotypical image that America has towards Native Americans. King is also the author of a short novel “A seat in the Garden”. This short story also challenges the established perspective that American society has towards the Native Americans. There are various stereotypes and perspectives that a majority of the public has toward a particular group. For example some of the common stereo types that are seen throughout the media are that all Asians are good at math, women are primarily sex objects, All Africans like fried chicken, and all Mexicans are gangsters. These stereo types are not completely true for an entire group, yet they

Stagecoach – a movie that is widely accepted as the most damaging movie for the Native identity – helped to illustrate this image to viewers at the time. As a result, many Americans believed Natives were all uncivilized and violent, leading to nationwide stereotyping and prejudice. The Indian was the enemy of America as a result. Stagecoach also shows Natives being hunted like animals, which sends the image of them being non-human and thus they should be treated as such. Stagecoach and movies like it mispresented Natives for decades and caused a loss-of-identity amongst the Native community because Natives were dressed the same throughout various films. It was not until the 1970s and 1980s where Natives were properly represented on

Pocahontas is a Walt Disney Pictures animation released in 1995 following the Disney Princess franchise. The movie is about Pocahontas, a native American lady whose home is invaded by Englishmen who wishes to exploit the land’s resources and to “civilize” the people living there. However, one of the Englishmen, John Smith, fell in love with Pocahontas. This essay studies the stereotypes of native American and them being essentialized in the media as being savages, sexism and also over romanticization, as represented in the movie.

Racism towards Native American tribes and individuals have been found throughout mainstream media. From nationally broadcasted sports games to popular Hollywood movies, Native Americans people have been stereotyped and/or culturally appropriated. Many examples of these stereotypes are blatant and have been portrayed for in the media for decades.

“Dear John Wayne” by Louise Erdrich is about the stereotype of the Native American, being a savage race on film and how the Native Americans watching the film react to those stereotypes.

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.

The Indians are finally presented in the movie by the screen scanning across a wide-open desert very peaceful and deserted. In the middle of all this silence the camera fell upon a skeleton of a human that we assume the Indians killed. This is how the movie sets the tone for how we are going to think about the Indians. They play with the stereotype that all us Americans think are true about the Indians. At first we think that we were right, but the story does not end there.

I thought this film was very unique because it shows the true Native American perspective of everyday life, not the usual phony stereotype of Indians such as teepees and bow and arrows. It also showed how much Native Americans are not much different than other cultures. Instead of singling other cultures out or judging people that are different from

From the very beginning you can see a glimmer of spirit in some of the Indians living on the reservation. The local radio personality, for example, made light of their situation nearly every time he was on the screen. His weather and traffic man is a jovial Indian, comfortably seated atop a van out in the middle of nowhere. He has an umbrella set up to shade him from the harsh rays of the sun, and it looks like he sits there on the roof of his van day in and day out. He speaks to the radio announcer over a cell phone, and his reports are given in a humorous way. When asked about the traffic, he replies that about a half an hour ago a car drove by and that's about it. He didn't seem to mind at all that he was away from the hustle and bustle we associate with life in this day and age. When they spoke about the impoverished conditions of the Indians, it was almost as if they had accepted their lot in life, and was doing the best they could under the conditions given to them. Not once did even a hint of anger at the white man enter their his voice.

These harmful images of how the Indian Americans were depicted, were subliminally created by him in many of his previous films where they were repeatedly stereotyped under the maligned appearance of bloodthirsty savages and hardly ever illustrated by their alter ego the noble savages. These descriptions and especially the denigrated bloodthirsty savage illustrations of the Indians remain seen as purely animals into the eyes of non-native populations, which caused racial discrimination against them at that epoch. Therefore, John Ford tried to redeem himself by making the film The Searchers, where he tried to expose the nefarious causes of resentment and racism that at that time the general population had for the Indians. This way of apology is likely to be strong supported by the image of the film’s hero. The depiction of the hero stresses the despicable habits of the westerners such as the tendency of the prejudices towards others. As shown by the arrival of the John Wayne character to his brother’s house and how he looked at Martin who is half-blood Indian. Similarly, Dances with Wolves represented an explicit apology to the indigenous people. However, although it was made by a white person point of view, it emphasizes Indians’ points of view. This is implicitly represented as the hero who is a white soldier from the American Civil War transformed himself into a real Indian of the Lakota Sioux tribe. Although both films symbolize intentions of apology to the

In this movie, one may observe the different attitudes that Americans had towards Indians. The Indians were those unconquered people to the west and the almighty brave, Mountain Man went there, “forgetting all the troubles he knew,” and away from civilization. The mountain man is going in search of adventure but as this “adventure” starts he finds that his survival skills are not helping him since he cant even fish and as he is seen by an Indian, who watches him at his attempt to fish, he start respecting them. The view that civilization had given him of the west changes and so does he. Civilization soon becomes just something that exists “down there.”

Typically referred to as ‘Indians’ in popular culture, Native Americans were traditionally seen in Westerns as the antagonists. The Western genre typically tells the story of the colonisation and discovery of America, which saw the major Hollywood studios revive the interest in the Western. Westerns draw on “historical actuality, a romantic philosophy of nature, and the concept of the […] savage” (Saunders, 2001, p. 3). Westerns often split the “depiction of the Indian, with the cruel and treacherous [Indian] balanced by the faithful [Indian]” (Saunders, 2001, p. 3) which resulted in the portrayals of Native Americans witnessed in films today.