Last Of The Mohicans

The most serious Native American stereotypes are clearly visible in films of the early twentieth century in Hollywood westerns. The big screen stories about western cowboys defeating Native tribes proved to be extremely popular and lucrative. Hollywood then started producing western tales in incredible quantities . In most Westerns, white cowboys represent courageous, brave, and quick witted men while the Indians are the dimming past. Cowboys are logical. “Indians” are irrational. Together, cowboys and Indians are the ego and the heart of the Anglo-Saxon identity. Native American characters in twentieth century films have ranged from stereotypes including the bloodthirsty, raging beast to the noble savage. Still other Indian characters, whether they are heroes, bad guys, or neutral, were the characters with little to no character development or range in their personalities. These stereotypes have their origins in popular American literature dating as far back as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Jacquelyn Kilpatrick, author of Celluloid Indians, notes that popular stories “centered on Native American savagery served as outlets for violence and pent up aggression in an early American society that prided manners and respectability.” (Kilpatrick 2) In these stories, the Native American population was seen as bad, though individual members could be represented as good. These stereotypes continued for years. One author, James Fenimore Cooper, began publishing a series of stories titled The Leatherstocking Tales in 1841. Kilpatrick emphasizes that Cooper

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

The last of the Mohicans is a very entertaining film. But it is not as historically accurate as you may think.

This essay will consider why interracial love and friendships use to be important for the survival of some people, how it made conflict amongst people surrounded by one another , and what could have possibly happened if interracial relationships had not been desired. In the book , The Last of the Mohicans.

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 Native Indian history of violence and debasement changed their views and self-image as well. This change later affects how they adapt to American culture and education after being dissuaded from embracing their own for so long. The violence and indifference shown towards the Native Americans during the “Trail of Tears” contributed greatly to this change. In this dreadful journey, Natives of all kinds were forced off

Native Americans make up less than .9% of the United States population. With this trivial number, it is difficult to keep its culture and traditions alive as generations progress. In the short story “War Dances,” author Sherman Alexie morns the loss of Native American identity through a deprecating tone which illustrate a divide between generations.

Everyone has a preconceived opinion of how a certain ethnic group is in terms of the way they live, the morals they hold, the way they deal with people different from them, and how they deal with one another. We come to these conclusions by what we have seen in the media, heard from other people, or actually experienced ourselves. Most people would consider these opinions to be stereotypes. Dances with Wolves is a motion picture that deals with and touches on all sides of personal stereotypes we as American and American Indians have about each other. John Dunbar takes us through and allows us to see how it is to come into a situation he was not familiar with and then eventually the

For most of my life, the word “Native American” had immediately made me think of feathers, powwows, and a society uncorrupted by civilization. However, in watching the movie Smoke Signals, a movie that depicts the modern Native American culture, I learned many other things. For one, I learned that many of the customs that modern Native Americans have are very similar to my own. I also saw that the family life of the Native Americans in the film had many of the same problems that my family had undergone in the past years. This film was unlike any that I have ever seen; therefore, it reached me on a very personal level.

Until fairly recently the popular culture of American literature and film did not attempt to study the true representations of Indians in North America. Instead they chose to concentrate on the romanticized/savage version of Native people: which is an idealistic view of a Native with long, beautiful flowing hair riding on a horse obsessed with chanting and praying to the savageness of a rowdy, wild Native causing unnecessary mayhem to the white people. This portrayal of Native people in mass media had led to the stereotyping of Natives, which in turn had ricocheted into real life. Not only do non-natives succumb to these ideals, but Natives do as well.

In Dances with Wolves and The Searchers the viewer was able to see many of the Indians values and how they differ from the ones of the white men. In both films the Indians were vibrantly painted with symbols on their body and horses .They also wore feathered hats and beaded jewelry. The Indians were very spiritual in Dances with Wolves. They held many ceremonies with lots of dancing and music.

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.

The Last of the Mohicans begins three years into the French and Indian War. The French allied with Native Americans conspire to seize Fort William Henry, the plans are cut off by a Native scout named Magua. Magua presents the plans to British General Webb, who counters by sending troops to reinforce Colonel Munro at Fort William Henry. After the troops leave, Munro’s daughters, Alice and Cora demand to be escorted to see their father. General Webb sends the daughters with Major Heyward, as they leave, they run into a stranger. The stranger happens to be Magua, who decides to lead the group Fort William Henry. Awhile later the group meets a second stranger whose name is David Gamut a psalmodist who seems very out of place forest. Gamut explains he is lost and would like to join the group, he is accepted .

The 1992 movie version of James Fenimore Cooper's "The Last of the Mohicans" was directed by Michael Mann and starred Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe, Steven Waddington, Russell Means and Eric Schweig. As an epic about human conflict, the movie addresses all the necessary elements of social, political and spiritual concern required for such a production; however, the grandiose spectacle of Hollywood film making abilities cannot mask the stereotypical Native American imagery blatantly portrayed in this movie.

“The Last of the Mohicans” is a historical novel written by James Fennimore Cooper in 1826, depicting colonial America in 1757 amidst the bloody and long-drawn French and Indian War. The novel is an epic tale of war, loyalty, and the clashing of peoples from different backgrounds and races. Roughly 160 years later, the novel was adapted into a film which, despite the identical settings of the book and the movie, largely transforms the complex historical novel of a war amongst races into a saga of love, lust, and sacrifice through the oversimplification of the novel’s two female characters, Cora and Alice. Although, in the book, Cora is depicted as a fiery and mysterious Afro-Caribbean woman who lacks a love interest and dies heroically at the hands of the enemy, in the movie, Cora is reduced to a white woman whose character is centralized around the competing interests of two white men and appears destined for love. Ultimately, Cora’s character transformation from book to novel through her changed race, her exerted femininity, and her eventual romantic happy-ending demonstrates the serial reconstruction of strong, complex female characters as oversimplified vehicles for an audience-accepted romantic plotline and the centralization of male character dominance.