Analysis Of The Film Reel Injun
“Because My Father Always Said He Was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Woodstock,” Sherman Alexie, the author, depicts a very rare, but normal image of a Native American family. Victor, the narrator, father beat a National Guard solider during an anti-Vietnam war rally. The incident was documented, seeing that his father a Native American. In result of this incident, Victor’s father was imprisoned for two years. After being released from being imprisoned, the first thing his father did was go back to Woodstock, where he says he was he was the only Indian to see Jimi Hendrix’s famous performance of the “Star-Spangled Banner”.
Trudell asks the audience to recount an ugly period in U.S history in order to gain a better understanding of the devastation that took place. For centuries, the Government has built an image of the Native people as one of uncivilized savages and though the years has portrayed them as the cause of the average American’s suffering in order to bring genocide against them with minimal resistance for the public. When a culture or race is villainized based solely on that criteria it create a climate of hate that entrenches itself in the minds of the people and is passed down through the generations. People are no longer driven by facts, but instead feed into the racial rhetoric of which they have become accustomed. The film highlights the need for change to the way the people are treated by their Government.
In the documentary, Reel Injun: On the Trail of the Hollywood Indian, directed by Neil Diamond, he investigates the progression of how cinema has portrayed the Native American. They begin with the early classic films that first were made up until recent times. The image of the Indian has been portrayed in several ways and films had typically created misleading depictions of the Indians. What was created in these films are often stereotypical and what many people today believe to be true. Throughout the documentary, we see many themes being presented and these are themes of how the image of Native Americans were viewed as the “bad guys” during some early films and how they evolved to show how they were really just human beings.
Neil Diamond 's documentary “Reel Injun” depicts the historical portrayal of the treatment of the First Nations in America. It brings awareness to the truth behind not only First Nations, but other stereotyped groups. For example, that many people often mistake all members of the Muslim community as Extremists who commit inhumane acts of terrorism. Small percentages of the population who fit the stereotyped criteria may often unintentionally represent their background negatively and as a whole. These are then misinterpreted by society ultimately having a biased view on groups of people.
Jay Rosentein took a look at the long time practice of honoring Native American’s as mascots and team names in sports whether professional levels or college teams. He gives us insight that it is not only about using the natives as mascots but the issue at hand of racism, minority representation and stereotypes. This film is more than the practice of utilizing Indians as mascots, it is about culture identity and how we should all change to make a difference. In this documentary we follow Charlene Teters, the leader some have called her the Rosa Parks of Native Americans and her struggles to protect her identity and cultural symbols.
Native Americans who traveled with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show used the press to make social and political statements as well as communicate their opinions of white society. According to memoirs, some Native Americans accepted to travel with a show that portrayed them stereotypically in order to understand “‘the white man’s beliefs about God’s will, and how they act according to it.”’ Although the only way for this goal to be achieved was through the noble savage stereotype, the performance of the stereotype gave Native Americans some control over the ways in which tourism and religion intersect. The tourist gaze is therefore symbiotic because the tourist gains access to the authenticity he or she desires while the Native Americans gather knowledge to better protect their religion and culture against the encroaching white world. Thus, self-commodification can be utilized as a method to adapt but not necessarily resolve a problematic history of colonialism.
Walsh’s quote implies that Monument Valley holds two different meanings, one for the Navajos and one for John Ford’s films. It is “a living link” (43) to the Navajos’ culture, but in the Western films, it only serves as a visual spectacle. The Valley’s significance to the Navajos is completely absent from Ford’s Westerns, which is why Walsh states that it’s “quite separate” (43) from them. He literally means that the cultural link is not present in the films, because the Valley is strictly the setting, the beautiful location where the stories take place. To the audience, Monument Valley’s significance is that it’s a staple of Western cinema.
“Such battle images reflect longstanding stereotypes of United States-Native American interaction) in which battles over land and cultural values historically favored the more powerful invader” (Coleman, 1998, p.190). This statement directly relates to the last paper we had to write. The last paper we talked about the stereotypes and generalization of Native Americans. As of today, we still use stereotypes for the native populations. Nobody will ever truly be able to understand the indian people completely, and by generalizing and stereotyping them, it will just make it harder.
Even today, movies and cartoons that depict Native Americans in any way are most often being portrayed in the same fashion as they have been for hundreds of years: through the eyes of the earliest white settlers. When Disney’s Pocahontas came out, the brutal song “Savages!” devastated Native American children.
A popular theme in the Reel Injun was the portrayal of Native Americans as savages. In addition to the cinematic examples of this, the idea of “Cowboys and Indians” comes to mind. A simple childhood game where the two sides are depicted in battle over territory. Now I 'm not sure if this is just my own personal connotation of the game, but as a child I remember the Indians always being the “bad guys,” and the goal was to protect your land from them. In reality it was the entire opposite way around, the Native Americans were trying to protect their land from the settlers.
The following line from The Florida Project best sums up the film: “You know why this is my favourite tree? Cause it’s tipped over and it’s still growing.” Spoken by Moonee while eating jelly sandwiches with Jancey on the trunk of a lush, collapsed tree, the line draws a perfect similarity between the fallen tree’s continued growth and the motel residents’ efforts to trudge through poverty despite their representations in society. Sean Baker’s The Florida Project depicts Moonee, a six-year old living at the Magic Castle (a dilapidated motel just outside Walt Disney World) with her unemployed mother Halley.
Once European men stepped foot onto what is now known as North America, the lives of the Native Americans were forever changed. The Indians suffered centuries of torment and ridicule from the settlers in America. Despite the reservations made for the Natives, there are still cultural issues occurring within America. In Sherman Alexie’s, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, the tragic lives of Native Americans in modern society are depicted in a collection of short stories taking place in the Spokane Reservation in Washington state. Throughout the collection, a prominent and reoccurring melancholic theme of racism against Native Americans and their struggle to cope with such behavior from their counterpart in this modern day and age is shown.
Dunbar’s involvement in the tribe and the relationships he forms with the people teach him and the viewer the value of intercultural communication and acceptance. Additionally, this is displayed in the recurring acts of gift giving throughout the film. Despite the friendly mood of the film and endearing way of portraying this
The final concern in which needs to be addressed is the fact that these negative stereotypes of Native Americans make it very dangerous for them because of the rise of crime rates against the Natives. The rates for crimes against the Natives has increased and puts many of them in danger. These crimes are classified as hate crimes because of the fact that these crimes are done in hatred of them as a people and not a personal cause. According to Department of Justice analysis, "American Indians are more likely than people of other races to experience violence at the hands of someone of a different race." These factors only show that we need to take serious actions soon in order to prevent this violence to continue before its too
Even though America has become quite the diverse place with diverse cultures, the cultural appropriation found within the American society contributes to the loss of multiple minority culture’s identity. Native Americans are one of the minority groups most heavily impacted by cultural appropriation. From offensive sports, many American Indians feel as though their cultural identities are lost in the mass of stereotypes and false representations of them in popular culture. In literature and film, Indians are too often portrayed as some variation of “the Noble or Ignoble Savage” (Gordon, 30), violent and uneducated, and it is easy to imagine how this negative representation inspires resentment in the Native American community, who have no interest in having their cultures and peoples being reduced to mere savages,
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