Native American Culture Analysis

Have you ever wonder how the world was created from another culture’s perspective? Native Americans used creation myths to explained to their people how the world was developed overtime. Creation myths are a big part of the Native American culture. they have been passed down from generation to generation. In the creation myths, harmony with nature, rituals, and strong social values are shown in each myths. The purpose of having strong social value in these myths is to teach younger Native Americans valuable lesson if they ever do something bad. These myths reveals how the rituals were created and their intentions for doing it. Creation myths has harmony with nature in it to show a very close kinship between them

In a country as racially diverse as the United States of America, it is certain that there is tension amongst those of different races. While most minorities have fought long and hard to earn acceptance and equality from others, Native Americans have not reached that level of unity yet. In fact, in “We Talk, You Listen ,” Vine Deloria Jr. argues that there is a movement toward minority inclusion, but it has come at an expense of dehumanizing racial groups like Native Americans. For instance, Deloria states that in war movies, Indians have only appeared under white men to send secret messages using a language that the enemy would not be able to understand, meaning that “it was the strangeness of Indians that made the visible, not their humanity”

Current American society is constantly affected by events from the past, but sometimes what society thinks is in the past is not so far behind. The way Native Americans were treated historically continually plays a part in current American society. Due to the racism and stereotypes carried throughout society the Native American cultural circle is constantly under fire.

Hollywood’s leading animation studio has had many instances of stereotyping and being racially insensitive. Two main examples of their racism towards Native American tribes have been Peter Pan and Pocahontas. In both instances, there have been controversial songs that have the Native Americans at the center. Both depict the stereotypes that are not necessarily true of the tribes.

The Reel Injun is an amazing display of how Native Americans are interpreted on the film screen throughout the years. Being oppressed by the white invaders who mistreated their generosity and kindness by using them for manual labor caused them to be treated less than human. Native American children growing up witnessed people of their kind being murdered and being the savage group of individuals causing violence and being the villain of the story. Through all the mistreatments the Native Americans persevered to change how society perceived them by making positive actions to highlight their value. Building upon the last paragraph, Native Americans in the early years where portrayed as hunters and¬ warriors who ride horses as their mighty form of transportation.

Hollywood has been making movies about many people throughout the begining. One of the most popular types of these movies is old westerns with cowboys and Indigenous people. Hollywood has not always represented an accurate portrayal of Indigenous peoples in the portrayal of all Indigenous Peoples as Plains Peoples, savages, and constantly warring against other tribes.

In addition, that trait shares Hall’s ‘racialized regime of representation,’ of how people of color are in a constant historic struggle around the stereotypes fixed upon them by the dominate culture. Richard Dyer, a Professor in Film Studies, clarified that “in stereotyping the dominant groups apply their norms to subordinated groups, find the latter wanting, hence inadequate, inferior, sick or grotesque and hence reinforcing the dominant groups’ own sense of the legitimacy of their domination” (pp.356). The European colonies were the dominate culture that established the normalcy of US society. These perceptions can lead the subordinate group, or race to be internalized the dominate culture and racially stigmatizes others and themselves. Neil Diamond, one of the directors of the documentary Reel Injun (2009), conveyed a reasonable example of the indoctrination of negative stereotypes; while he was growing up in a remote community as a child. Diamond mentions that although the children were actual “Indians,” they all wanted to play the ‘good guys’ a.k.a. the cowboys in their children’s’ game. Young Native Americans are continuously exposed to mainstream misrepresentation that can cause them to develop insecurities, to devalue and dehumanize themselves and their own culture.

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.

This movie was made in 1953 when Indigenous people were being thrown into residential schools and having their land taken away from them. At the time of production, the producers felt that there was nothing wrong with film because during that period of time racism was a part of everyday life. In order to get a better understanding of these problems within the film I had to watch it. After watching the film, I was shocked at how much racism and sexism was a part of the film. Directors often degrade minority groups by portraying them a certain way so they are not put in the same category as the main characters. The imagery is in movie portrayed indigenous people in a negative manner. In one of the scenes, an Indian chief is shown yelling and making animal noises. This scene is unacceptable as it leads the audience to perceive Indigenous people as illiterate. Moreover, the scene dehumanizes the Indian Chief by portrayed him as an animal rather than a human. This contributes to the major problem of dehumanization because if the Chief is portrayed as an animal the audience is less connected with him therefore the racism did not seem that serious. When kids watch this movie, they take all of this in and it sticks with them so when they do see an Indigenous person in the outside world, they view them as animals instead of actual human beings.

Animated films are commonly regarded as innocent and enchanting with little influence on the ideological beliefs that develop in children. Yet it is evident that this rhetoric is detrimental to the understanding that children are highly susceptible to influences from film and lack necessary skills to think critically. Thus, animated films instill ideologies within children that follow them throughout their lives. The predominant white narrative within the Disney film Pocahontas misrepresents Indigenous culture by portraying them as savage, bestial, and primitive caricatures while the falsification of historical events sets to maintain the archetypical white Anglo-Saxon supremacy, creating hegemonic ideologies that decisively impact how Indigenous people are viewed negatively within society and internally feel Otherized, causing confusion of personal identity. I will begin by articulating how films provoke fantasy, fears, and social concerns to garner audiences for profitability. These provocations are rooted in the ideologies of the dominant culture at the expense of Indigenous peoples. I will then express how the ‘Self’ (white men) and the ‘Other’ (Indigenous people) are segmented within Pocahontas and the effects this has on the relationship of Indigenous people to society. Next, I will discuss how the false representation of historical events creates cultural hegemony and reinforces categorization of Indigenous people. Lastly, I will demonstrate that the negative and

Media can often misrepresent and stereotype groups of people. Neil Diamond wants to show in his documentary "Reel Injun", that Hollywood films have portrayed a negative image of Native Americans, they have been treated unfair and misrepresented. The documentary explains how these false portrayals influenced our misunderstanding of Natives. They were always shown on the losing side. The Movies have also shown how Native people have been compared with White Americans and how White Americans have robbed their culture and identity which has a negative impact on their society.

How the West was Won, Dances with Wolves, and Avatar can be looked at the same. The focus of this assignment is to examine how their storylines of love and racial conflict does change the media attitude towards the groups from 1960-2010. In order to fully analyze the media’s portrayal of racial conflict between Native Americans and Whites let’s start with a brief synopsis about each film. During the Civil Rights Movement, we are introduced to How the West Was Won, a movie about western expansian.

Throughout history, American society has famously taken advantage of non-European cultures and traditions for their own entertainment. Major media companies, colleges, and athletic organizations have famously exploited the cultures and stereotypes of Native American’s and African Americans for the sole purpose of profit and increased entertainment value. In American society, there has been the era of “Blaxploitation films” in which African American’s society was shown through raunchy and low budget films. Sports teams, colleges, and public schools have turned Native Americans into an irresponsible excuse of a mascot the can offend and can be considered disrespectful by those in their society while being called an honor by those who use it. In some cases though, it can be seen that when members of the respective societies that are being depicted within the media are allowed to have some creative decision with it, that some real issues can be addressed and shown to an audience that otherwise would have never thought about it. This was popularly down through Dave Chappelle’s, “Chappelle’s Show,” and through rap music.

I did not know the extent to how disrespectful and entirely inaccurate the images of Indigenous Americans that are portrayed in the media are. For instance, I found it interesting that the Native costume model was placed right next to the pilgrim costume model when they would never be so friendly and close to each other, as they were on opposing sides in the past. Plus, the Victoria’s Secret outfit on the runway is entirely disrespectful, as Native Americans would never wear such revealing clothing, and the headdress should not have been worn, as it is to be worn for the purposes of war; the model was clearly not getting ready to head out to war. Furthermore, Native Americans uphold the belief that all nature is alive and filled with spirits.

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.