Portrayal of Native Americans in film
Encyclopedia
The portrayal of Native Americans
in film has been contentious, raising allegations of racism. Traditionally, the Native American archetype has been that of a violent, uncivilized villain, juxtaposed next to the archetypal hero: the virtuous, white Anglo-Saxon
settler. However, a growing number of pictures in the latter half of the Twentieth century and beyond have portrayed indigenous peoples in a more historically accurate light.
is a classic children’s movie that involves Native Americans. A major scene in Peter Pan involves the Lost Boys and Peter Pan celebrating at the Native Americans' camp after Peter rescues Tiger Lily, the daughter of the chief, from Captain Hook. While they are there they sing “What Makes the Red Man Red?”
Another classic children’s movie is Pocahontas
. It is about Europeans that come to the Americas looking for gold. When they arrive they come across a Native American tribe that is already living on that land. There is conflict between the two groups, both hating the other. The Europeans want gold and the Native Americans want their land and their livelihoods. Just before a battle between the two groups begins, Pocahontas, a young Native American woman, saves the life of a European man, and prevents the war from happening. Pocahontas portrays Native Americans and Europeans with just as much guile. One scene involves both the Europeans and the Native Americans singing “Savages” about the other group.
Europeans:
Native Americans:
Together:
Despite the fact that a diversity of indigenous peoples had a legal and historical significance in the formation of every new country founded in the western hemisphere, in the United States and Canada the term "Indians" became a hegemonic designation implying that they were all the same in regards to culture, behavior, language, and social organization. The view of Indians as savage and uncivilized was repeated in early films and crystallized the image of "Indians" as dangerous and unacceptable to the normative lives of European immigrants whose lives appeared in films to be more valuable than those of the indigenous people they were colonizing.
In most films involving Native Americans, they wear clothes made from animal skins, carry spears, and enjoy fighting with most strangers who come onto their land. The warrior
s fight with arrowhead
knives and brute strength. The settlers carry guns and weapons with them wherever they go in self-defense
. One example of a film where they are portrayed as this is The Last of the Mohicans
(1992). The European settlers are on Native American lands. They become captured by the Native American tribe. The tribe swarms around the settlers and decide to burn Cora, one of the white women, at the stake for religious reasons. They allow one of the white men, Heyward, to take her place, and they strap him to a post and burn him alive. The whole time this is happening the tribe is standing around him shouting and cheering. They look angry and serious throughout the whole movie, until this scene when they are killing a white man.
. One scene shows the U.S. soldiers capturing the protagonist of the film, John Dunbar, and taking him as a prisoner away from the Native American land. Out of nowhere, the Native Americans race onto the scene and kill all of the U.S. soldiers while none of the Native Americans get killed. Some of them receive injuries, but they just ignore the pain and do not seem to even realize that they have been hurt. They are strong and immune to the pain.
The final credits of the film explain what happens after the movie. It describes the history of the Sioux
people after the film takes place.
Thirteen years later, their homes destroyed, their buffalo gone, the last band of free Sioux submitted to white authority at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. The great horse culture of the plains was gone and the American frontier was soon to pass into history.
The Sioux people had been fighting to keep control of their land and to continue to live in peace for hundreds of years. They gave everything they had, including their lives, to keep their way of life, but the white settlers came in and took that all away from them. Eventually, there was nothing else they could do except give in to the white settlers and lose their way of life.
The film The New World is another movie about Native Americans. It is the fictitious story of Pocahontas
and John Smith. John Smith arrives with the European settlers and gets captured by a Native American tribe. While there, he gets accepted by the Native Americans and falls in love with one of the young women, Pocahontas. When John Smith is describing the Native American tribe that his is with he says, “They are gentle, loving, faithful, lacking in all guile and trickery. The words denoting lying, deceit, greed, envy, slander, and forgiveness have never been heard. They have no jealousy, or sense of possession.” The Native Americans portrayed in this film were peaceful and gentle people. They were not evil; they were just different than the white settlers.
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
in film has been contentious, raising allegations of racism. Traditionally, the Native American archetype has been that of a violent, uncivilized villain, juxtaposed next to the archetypal hero: the virtuous, white Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon may refer to:* Anglo-Saxons, a group that invaded Britain** Old English, their language** Anglo-Saxon England, their history, one of various ships* White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, an ethnicity* Anglo-Saxon economy, modern macroeconomic term...
settler. However, a growing number of pictures in the latter half of the Twentieth century and beyond have portrayed indigenous peoples in a more historically accurate light.
Children’s film
Peter PanPeter Pan (1953 film)
Peter Pan is a 1953 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and based on the play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up by J. M. Barrie. It is the fourteenth film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series and was originally released on February 5, 1953 by RKO Pictures...
is a classic children’s movie that involves Native Americans. A major scene in Peter Pan involves the Lost Boys and Peter Pan celebrating at the Native Americans' camp after Peter rescues Tiger Lily, the daughter of the chief, from Captain Hook. While they are there they sing “What Makes the Red Man Red?”
- Why does he ask you, ‘how?’
- Why does he ask you, ‘how?’
- Once the injun didn’t know all the things that he know now,
- But the injun he sure learn a lot, and it’s all from asking ‘how?’
- Hana Mana Ganda, Hana Mana Ganda
- We translate for you.
- Hana means what Mana means and Ganda means that too.
- Squaw no dance, squaw get um firewood. :
- When did he first say, ‘ugh’?
- When did he first say, ‘ugh’?
- In the Injun book it say when the first brave married squaw,
- He gave out with a big ‘ugh’ when he saw his mother-in-law.
- What made the red man red?
- What made the red man red?
- Let’s go back a million years to the very first Injun prince.
- He’d kiss a maid and start to blush and we’ve all been blushin’ since.
- You got it right from the headman
- The real true story of the red man
- No matter what’s been written or said
- Now you know why the red man’s red.
Another classic children’s movie is Pocahontas
Pocahontas (1995 film)
Pocahontas is the 33rd animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. It was produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and was originally released to selected theaters on June 16, 1995 by Walt Disney Pictures...
. It is about Europeans that come to the Americas looking for gold. When they arrive they come across a Native American tribe that is already living on that land. There is conflict between the two groups, both hating the other. The Europeans want gold and the Native Americans want their land and their livelihoods. Just before a battle between the two groups begins, Pocahontas, a young Native American woman, saves the life of a European man, and prevents the war from happening. Pocahontas portrays Native Americans and Europeans with just as much guile. One scene involves both the Europeans and the Native Americans singing “Savages” about the other group.
Europeans:
- What can you expect, from filthy little heathens?
- Here’s what you get when races are diverse.
- Their skins are hellish red,
- They’re only good when dead,
- They’re vermin as I said and worse.
- They’re savages, savages, barely even human,
- Savages, savages, drive them from our shores.
- They’re not like you and me, which means they must be evil,
- We must sound the drums of war.
- They’re savages, savages, dirty stinking devils,
- Now we sound the drums of war.
Native Americans:
- This is what we feared.
- The pale face is a demon,
- The only thing they feel at all is greed.
- Beneath that milky hide, there’s emptiness inside.
- I wonder if they even bleed.
- They’re savages, savages, barely even human,
- Savages, savages, killers at the core.
- They’re different from us, which means they can’t be trusted,
- We must sound the drums of war.
- They’re savages, savages, first we deal with this one,
- Then we sound the drums of war.
Together:
- Savages, savages, now it’s up to you men,
- Savages, savages, barely even human.
- Now we sound the drums of war.
Negative portrayals
Traditionally, Native Americans have been portrayed as the uncivilized villains in film. According to Beverly R. Singer,Despite the fact that a diversity of indigenous peoples had a legal and historical significance in the formation of every new country founded in the western hemisphere, in the United States and Canada the term "Indians" became a hegemonic designation implying that they were all the same in regards to culture, behavior, language, and social organization. The view of Indians as savage and uncivilized was repeated in early films and crystallized the image of "Indians" as dangerous and unacceptable to the normative lives of European immigrants whose lives appeared in films to be more valuable than those of the indigenous people they were colonizing.
In most films involving Native Americans, they wear clothes made from animal skins, carry spears, and enjoy fighting with most strangers who come onto their land. The warrior
Warrior
A warrior is a person skilled in combat or warfare, especially within the context of a tribal or clan-based society that recognizes a separate warrior class.-Warrior classes in tribal culture:...
s fight with arrowhead
Arrowhead
An arrowhead is a tip, usually sharpened, added to an arrow to make it more deadly or to fulfill some special purpose. Historically arrowheads were made of stone and of organic materials; as human civilization progressed other materials were used...
knives and brute strength. The settlers carry guns and weapons with them wherever they go in self-defense
Self-defense
Self-defense, self-defence or private defense is a countermeasure that involves defending oneself, one's property or the well-being of another from physical harm. The use of the right of self-defense as a legal justification for the use of force in times of danger is available in many...
. One example of a film where they are portrayed as this is The Last of the Mohicans
The Last of the Mohicans (1992 film)
The Last of the Mohicans is a 1992 historical epic film set in 1757 during the French and Indian War and produced by Morgan Creek Pictures. It was directed by Michael Mann and based on James Fenimore Cooper's novel of the same name, although it owes more to George B. Seitz's 1936 film adaptation...
(1992). The European settlers are on Native American lands. They become captured by the Native American tribe. The tribe swarms around the settlers and decide to burn Cora, one of the white women, at the stake for religious reasons. They allow one of the white men, Heyward, to take her place, and they strap him to a post and burn him alive. The whole time this is happening the tribe is standing around him shouting and cheering. They look angry and serious throughout the whole movie, until this scene when they are killing a white man.
Positive portrayals
In some films, Native Americans are viewed as intelligent and spiritual. They are the innocent victims of what the white settlers are doing to them. One example movie of this is Dances with WolvesDances with Wolves
Dances with Wolves is a 1990 epic western film directed by and starring Kevin Costner. It is a film adaptation of the 1988 book of the same name by Michael Blake and tells the story of a Union Army Lieutenant who travels to the American frontier to find a military post, and his dealings with a...
. One scene shows the U.S. soldiers capturing the protagonist of the film, John Dunbar, and taking him as a prisoner away from the Native American land. Out of nowhere, the Native Americans race onto the scene and kill all of the U.S. soldiers while none of the Native Americans get killed. Some of them receive injuries, but they just ignore the pain and do not seem to even realize that they have been hurt. They are strong and immune to the pain.
The final credits of the film explain what happens after the movie. It describes the history of the Sioux
Sioux
The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...
people after the film takes place.
Thirteen years later, their homes destroyed, their buffalo gone, the last band of free Sioux submitted to white authority at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. The great horse culture of the plains was gone and the American frontier was soon to pass into history.
The Sioux people had been fighting to keep control of their land and to continue to live in peace for hundreds of years. They gave everything they had, including their lives, to keep their way of life, but the white settlers came in and took that all away from them. Eventually, there was nothing else they could do except give in to the white settlers and lose their way of life.
The film The New World is another movie about Native Americans. It is the fictitious story of Pocahontas
Pocahontas
Pocahontas was a Virginia Indian notable for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. She was the daughter of Chief Powhatan, the head of a network of tributary tribal nations in Tidewater Virginia...
and John Smith. John Smith arrives with the European settlers and gets captured by a Native American tribe. While there, he gets accepted by the Native Americans and falls in love with one of the young women, Pocahontas. When John Smith is describing the Native American tribe that his is with he says, “They are gentle, loving, faithful, lacking in all guile and trickery. The words denoting lying, deceit, greed, envy, slander, and forgiveness have never been heard. They have no jealousy, or sense of possession.” The Native Americans portrayed in this film were peaceful and gentle people. They were not evil; they were just different than the white settlers.
See also
- Early film racism in the United StatesEarly film racism in the United StatesEarly film racism in the United States has existed since the beginning of the film industry of the United States. An early example of this includes The Birth of a Nation, which promoted white supremacy, amongst other things...
- Revisionist WesternRevisionist WesternThe Revisionist Western, Modern Western or Anti-Western traces to the mid 1960s and early 1970s as a sub-genre of the Western movie....
- Reel InjunReel InjunReel Injun is a 2009 Canadian documentary film directed by Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond, Catherine Bainbridge and , that explores the portrayal of Native Americans in film...
- Imagining IndiansImagining IndiansImagining Indians is a 1992 documentary film produced and directed by Native American filmmaker, Victor Masayesva, Jr. . The documentary attempts to reveal the misrepresentation of Indigenous Native American culture and tradition in Classical Hollywood films by interviews with different Indigenous...
- Native Americans in popular cultureNative Americans in popular cultureThe portrayal of Native Americans in popular culture has traditionally oscillated between the fascination with the noble savage who lives in harmony with nature and their depiction as uncivilized "bad guys" in the traditional Western genre....
- Native Americans in children's literatureNative Americans in children's literatureNative Americans have been featured in numerous volumes of children's literature. Some have been authored by non-indigenous writers, while others have been written or contributed to by native authors.-Children’s literature about American Indians:...