Movie Smoke Signals Essay

Although there exists a plethora of troubling statistics and documented conditions surrounding the Natives, this information remains an afterthought in the national stage. The federal government has largely ignored the issues that Native Americans have suffered from. The notion of what it truly means to be a Native American is convoluted in the popular American perception and therefore, not regarded with much

The movie gave me an insight on the relationship between the US and Indian relationships as it seems as the USA did not like the Indians. It shows this with the perception of the Indians from the comments the white people had made toward the Indians and

So many people today have failed to understand the Native Americans in context of history, which includes conquest of land, forced relocation, and organized efforts to eradicate native cultures. There shouldn’t be any stereotypes toward Native Americans, they shouldn’t be labeled as “blood thirsty savages” for simply defending their own land from intruders. Whether they are portrayed as noble savages, environmentalists, drunken, living of the government, Indian princess/squaw, casino-rich, they find an effort to be treated with a measure of respect and integrity, and that is something that I’ve learned. They may have shown people how to throw knives and axes, ride horses, pass down stories to younger generations, but in today’s society the history of the Native Americans have taught us so much more than that, and to me, that is what’s important about

Smoke Signals is about two Native American friends, Thomas Builds-A-Fire and Victor Joseph, from the Coeur D’Alene Indian Reservation in Plummer, Idaho who go on a journey to Phoenix, Arizona to retrieve Arnold Joseph’s ashes (Victor’s dad). Arnold was an alcoholic who left Victor and his mother as a child, but saved Thomas as a child. Victor and Thomas were raised on the reservation, yet they grew into two different personalities. The first part of the movie shows an authentic portrayal of life on the reservation through Victor and Thomas. The second part of the movie shows the journey taken by Victor and Thomas and their arrival to Phoenix, AZ. The last part of the movie shows Victor and Thomas’ journey back to Idaho.

Everyone has obstacles he/she has to go through when growing up. Some situations are just much worse than others. These tragic memories stick with the person for their lifetime. Victor Joseph in the movie Smoke Signals is a great example of a man with a very dour childhood that includes many hardships. Victor Joseph’s journey in Smoke Signals highlights the universal theme on fear of one’s past.

Even though the Native Americans have been living on the American land for centuries they are still facing harsh conditions. They have been struggling through poverty, dispossession, and lack of education for a long time, and their situation has not improved much over the years. In the novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” and the movie “Smoke Signals”, respectively written and produced by the Native American Sherman Alexie, he emphasizes that the Native Americans’ potential to experience positive change on their reservations is limited. Instead, they need to step out of the reservations to experience significant personal growth and insight.

The Native American tribes of today, are nothing compared to their ancestors. The treatment, hostility, and silver tongues of the past damage can never be fixed no matter how many words, medals, promises, and gifts you give them. The late Native American culture and its tribes have been unfairly mistreated and misrepresented with lies from propaganda, breach of treaties, and harsh antagonization from American business owners and regular people alike. These actions have put a horrendous reputation on the local native tribes, from past to present, that some Americans may never understand.

According to Sherman Alexie, Indians have absorbed American culture over the last few hundred years, not unlike every other minority group. The protagonist of his story, Smoke Signals,

My knowledge of Native Americans culture stems from my parent’s teachings about the topic. When I was young my mother went on multiple mission trips to the Navajo Reservation in Arizona. My mother came back with stories and cultural details unbeknownst to most of citizens I interact with today, one particular story described kids in the tribe that had no shoes and walked around bare foot constantly. I was appalled by this as a child and decided I too would go without shoes, this didn’t last long but this book helped me understand and provide context for my early childhood lessons about Native America culture. In the book the narrator, Junior, reminded me of the lack of health options for the reservations. Often times reservations are idiotically far away from real health care providers that have modern equipment and a surplus of the most up to date medications. This probably accounted for why it was so dangerous to do Junior’s surgery when he was a child. Later my mother explained how bad alcohol addiction was on the reservation, at the time my aunt was going through withdrawn from alcoholism. I couldn’t imagine a population of people who a majority of the people in it have an addiction to alcohol.

When asking a child, educated or not, what they ideas are when they hear the term Native American where does they mind venture to? More than likely do they not consider the former House of Representative, Charles D. Curtis or professor pitcher Joba Chamberlain. But they also do not think of a Native American as being an average person, a boy/girl like themselves. What children believe to be Native American are descriptions such as, feather headdresses, tomahawks, and long braided hair or scalped hair. This cartoon, Hollywood based description is not limited to the mind of a child, but it is what most Americans think of when they hear the term Native America. This icon of Native Americanism is a by-product of the long-lasting term, savages. Savages, by definition are “people regarded as primitive and uncivilized” . Throughout their history American Indians have had the trademark of savagery which has allowed Europeans to isolate, assimilate and mistreat this culture. In result, there has been a phenomenon, in which this paper will discuss as well as the history of savagery in the United States.

Long ago, huge puffy white clouds glided across the vast bodies of water surrounding the land of the Native Americans. The tribes were thrilled yet shocked at the same time to see them. Little did the natives of America know that these harmless looking fluffy clouds were actually huge vessels filled with their descending doom. Western civilization took hold quickly on Native Americans and had disastrous effects on a majority of them. Some native individuals resented the colonization and fought back the white control. Others gave in to the different white policies and adopted the lifestyles of their own enemies. Some who gave in to the western influences, returned back to their “land, language and love of ancient traditions” (Louise Erdrich). Leslie Mormon Silko and Louis Erdrich, authors of Ceremony and The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse respectively, reflect on this aspect of Native American colonization by introducing the theme of “Coming Home” in their novels, where the main characters Tayo and Agnes Dewitt respectively, give in at first to western influences on their minds, but eventually come to realize their true selves by returning to their rightful place and niche within Native American society.

The movie Naturally Native not only addresses the issue of alcohol abuse in Native communities, but also portrays the fetishism and sexual abuse of Native women carried out by white men, appropriation of Indian culture, Indian poverty on reservations, and general dislike of Indians and gaming. With all of these narratives being represented, this film has something everyone can relate to, making the target

The film selections for this assignment are as compelling as they are dramatic. Many issues are addressed and presented in various genres varying from drama to fantasy. All these films, however, have a single theme, which is embedded in the background; an attentive viewer may be able to observe it. The issue is the challenge of the Native Americans to adjust to the modern post-industrial world culturally and economically, all the while remaining loyal to and preserving their traditions. This single issue encompasses all other issues that may be perceived in the films. In fact, all other contemporary issues, while they may be rooted in the distant past, in fact are stemming from this lack of balance between

I believe this film does an amazing job of showing how the American West landscape was and how the soul of the the Sioux Indians were with vivid imagery, language and body language. More than half of the film is dialogued because they were

Native Americans have been subjected to injustice since the beginning of the “discovery” of the New World. Whether it’s been through what is defined as genocide by some people, or being pushed out westward by the government and having land stripped away. This maltreatment has shaped the views of many people about Native American’s rights. The topic of Native Americans has interested me because there has been so much injustice committed against them, yet there have been little to no attempts to amend them. I have never encountered a Native American and it made me realize how scarce their race is at this point in time. This realization made me keen on researching the discrimination Native Americans have been put through and what people have been doing to stop it. Through my research, I found that there is quite a large controversy about whether or not the mass killings of Native Americans were considered Genocide. Native Americans are still being stripped of their holy lands, such as the Dakota Pipeline, ruining their beautiful culture and history in the process. Native Americans have been subjected to mistreatment, however there remains a large population of people that don’t think about the inequality they are exposed to. The injustice being committed needs to be read about in order to understand and improve the conditions that Native American tribes live in.