Similarities Between European And Asian Films

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

This paper was prepared for Introduction to Film History, Module 1 Homework Assignment, taught by Professor Stephanie Sandifer.

The American western frontier, still arguably existent today, has presented a standard of living and characteristics which, for a time, where all its own. Several authors of various works regarding these characteristics and the obvious border set up along the western and eastern sections have discussed their opinions of the west. In addition to these literary works by renowned authors, one rather convenient cinematic reference has also been influenced by these well-known, well-discussed practices of this American frontier. “True Grit”, a film recently remade in 2010 by the Cohen Brothers, crosses the boundaries of the west allowing all movie-goers to capture one idea of the western world. The movie, along with a few scholarly sources

For my at home movie I watched Hang em’ High directed by Ted Post. It is considered a spaghetti western that was made in America. In comparison to the film we watched in class, High Noon directed by Fred Zinnemann. These two westerns had many similarities and differences. From differences in how the movie was actually shot, to the similarity of how both of the main characters are loners, these two movies connect all over on many different levels.

According to the film critic, Phillip French, “The Western has always been about America rewriting and reinterpreting her own past,” if this is indeed the case, then the two most popular Westerns of the early 1990s reveal that many Americans had rejected the traditional interpretation of the Old West. The critically and commercially successful, Dances with Wolves and Unforgiven, repudiated the patriotic frontier myth that had characterised the Western when it was the preeminent genre in American cinema. Informed by new Western historiography, itself an expression of political concerns that had been moving into the American mainstream since the 1960s, the movies display a complex and nuanced understanding of the frontier experience. Dances with Wolves rejected the traditional narrative of the inherent superiority of the Anglo-American hero conquering both Native Americans and the wilderness, and also focused on the environmental destruction that accompanied the ideology of Manifest Destiny. Unforgiven would similarly reject the frontier myth, replacing the democratic, civilised frontier town, with a brutal regime in which white men’s property rights prevail over any sense of justice. The film is noted for its self-reflexive nature, with a writer documenting and embellishing the tales of the Old West before the viewer’s eyes. This self-reflexion indicates that Americans were re-evaluating the myths of the frontier, and seeing them for what they were, creations by the

Stagecoach represents Native Americans as noble savages, a typical Hollywood Indian in western movies. A noble savage is a racist term used to describe a character as a wild person who symbolizes the goodness of humanity. They are an outsider who has not been civilized yet. This representation of Indians is completely stereotyped and is completely inaccurate but was created for the entertainment of white audiences who watch western films. The film Stagecoach is a complete western style film with scenes of cowboys versus Indians, in which the Indians are helpless, and cowboys seem to come out of the middle of the desert (Ford, 1939). These types of western films portray the American Indians through basic stereotypes such as riding horses with bows and arrows, they are always outnumbered, and they are portrayed in a dehumanizing style. These films act as if Indians are wild animals and not as actual people. The cowboys always are the heroes and the Indians always are incapable of surviving. Due to western movies, America now has the image of the Hollywood Indian that some people still believe Indians are in today's society. The representation of Indians in Stagecoach creates a visual that Indians are impotent and not humane. American Indians are always seen as the bad guys in western films which allows today's society to use the image of Indians as costumes for Halloween and allows people to see Indians as an object and not

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, cowboys in the Wild West were depicted as tall white handsome men, when in truth, white men as well as African Americans and Mexicans were cowboys. In photographs of the West during this time period, there were numerous African American men doing the laborious work of cowboys (Document D). In fact, in some cases, the best workers in round-ups were of half-caste races, like mulattos. Also, many of the cowboys were Mexican, who did much of the same work as white cowboys but were looked down upon by the white men (Document E). While romanticized views of the cowboy are limited to a handsome white male, actual cowboys in the West were quite often African American or Mexican, completely different from the inaccurate romanticized version. Movies and television shows about the Wild West often portray cowboys as tall, handsome white men doing heroic deeds and leading glamorous lives out on the wild range. However, lives of real western cowboys, being either white, African American, or Mexican, were far from glamorous, for they toiled away daily as they performed the dangerous, and sometimes deadly, job of moving cattle.

By conquering the frontier, characters in western films portray how they, as well as society at this

Development and adaptation of the western genre has occurred throughout the twentieth century in relation to the shift in context, this is still relevant. Stereotypes of a western genre and the context are determined by the time in which the film is being produced. The time in which they were produced determine how social construction, gender ideas, values and attitudes, the setting and SWAT codes are demonstrated. I have chosen to present this speech by looking at the film studied in class, and a film of my choice and how the difference in context has changed in the tie of these two films.

He was the academy winning Western legend, recognized as one of the best filmmakers of all time, his name was John Ford. He started out his career in film in July 1914 as an assistant, labourman and actor for his brother Francis Ford. It was not until 1917 where he made his debut as a director with the lost film, The Tornado and ended his career in the early 1970s with his last film Chesty: A Tribute to a Legend. During his early years, he was making silent films where Westerns were very popular during the time. When the introduction of sound came and the birth of Talkies came, however, the genre started losing its popularity. Yet, that did not stop the director from working on the genre, eventually to the point where he is now credited today as the man who played a huge role in bringing the westerns back to popularity. So, in this video essay, I will be talking about John Ford’s take on Westerns and how he revolutionized the genre.

     Asian Americans only make up a small percent of the American population. Even more significant is that this percentage live mostly on the west and east coasts of mainland United States and Hawaii; leaving the rest of the American population to most likely get their exposures to Asians through television and movies. However the exposure they have receive throughout the history of cinematography has been hardly flattering. Throughout the course of history Asians in film have been portrayed as evil or the "yellow peril" as described by others. If Asians are not being classified as evil in this picture then they are most likely the comic relief, with their lack of coordination or grasp of the English

The Western genre tended to portray Native Americans stereotypically; males were often shown as barbaric and the antagonist to the masculine Western cowboy. This links back to the savage stereotype, and how Westerners are often shown in a positive and heroic light whereas other ethnicities are demoralized and shown as negative characters. There are a select few stereotypical representations of Native Americans which are highly common in film, for example Native Americans typically speak “with a broken dialect of ‘baby’ English. They are not able to fully understand or express thoughts in the English language” (“The role of Native Americans in film, n.d.). This representation has changed in recent years with the

In a traditional Western film the clothing for the hero is usually a white hat, (this is to show purity). The hero would also wear a brightly coloured shirt , a pair of jeans and cowboy boots with spurs on the back of them. The hero is also very clean and also normally tall and good looking. A traditional Western includes things like white settlers living in a town

Hess and Zimmermann mention that conventional categories have blurred and there’s demands for new political and aesthetic responses in transnational cinema (John Hess 2006). These transnational films I believe would be growing significantly in the film industry as a part of film history.