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Cultural Differences In Native American Movies

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People have alwaysed used art, music, literature, television and film to trace some issues in our society. Since the invention of moving images in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, film has been a particularly powerful medium in the United States. Films have served as escapist fantasies, allowing audiences to enter astonishing worlds inside the creators head and encounter wild and colorful characters and plots. Movies have also been used to convey truths about society that are more easily digested in a fictional format to the audience. Difficult topics such as the nature of humanity, love, and war have all been explored with film as the tool that disseminates these themes into the consciousness of the masses that the audience …show more content…

As with any minority population, the Native American population’s challenges, struggles and progressive strides are reflected in popular culture. Hollywood and the American film industry have long represented Indians unfavorably in film and television.(Thought pg.1) This is not meaning that they have not been represented in film and television. They have been minor characters displaying stereotypical, historically inaccurate behavior. On the contrary, they existed as staple characters for a large portion of the twentieth century, especially in the popular Western genre. This marginalizing of the population of Native Americans has been manifested in the creation of harmful and one-dimensional stereotypes. Soon Native American culture will be buried by stereotypes. People must stop and think what it would be like if it was turned around on us Americans who create and support these films. Native americans are the punching bag for stereotypes. The portrayal of Native Americans in film and television has been fed by stereotypes of violence, juxtaposition next to a respectable white hero, and that of an uncivilized

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834 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout the history of the film industry, Indians have been misread and attacked by racial stereotypes. Although many people only see indigenous peoples as one group there are in fact many different nations with many different values. In the film “Reel Injun” by Niel Diamond, he shows many various misrepresentations towards indigenous groups which are both shown as inferential and overt. When children begin to grow up, watching kids' movies, watching shows with their parents, and cartoons becomes a massive part of their life. All kids started to watch shows with their parents but for Indians, it was a bit different.

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703 Words | 3 Pages

Stereotypical portrayals of First Nations, Metis and Inuit people in movies always remain to be a money making formula for Filmmakers. Even from the very early days, FNMI people have always been portrayed negatively because of the roles that they are casted for. Often, FNMI actor’s roles would primarily be based off of stereotypes such as “Beautiful Maidens” or “Stoic Indians”. Older films, and even newer films that are released recently, still continue to demonstrate these common stereotypes about FNMI people. The problem is that, the non FNMI audience has seen these stereotypes being repeated several times and majority of these stereotypes are very similar to each other.

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1480 Words | 6 Pages

The film, Reel Injun reveals a distortion of the way Hollywood sees Native American life through comedy and the real way Native Americans live which changes according to the current times. Neil Diamond sets out on a journey across America to figure out where the incorrect image of Natives arose from, all signs pointing towards Hollywood. Dozens of films recreate the way Americans believe Natives live as savages and wear costumes and decorated headpieces with feathers, but Hollywood does not show the true spiritual side and the meaning of why they live the way they do as true to their own culture and assimilated to the American culture as well. US history negatively affects Native American live which lead to the image of Natives to be clouded by imagination through film, changed the way Natives viewed themselves and expect to live, and misshaped the view we now have for Natives.

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553 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout the history of film production, the Indigenous community has been subjected to various stereotypes that have influenced people’s views on the Indigenous way of life and culture. This is true in Reel Injun by Neil Diamond. Individuals apart of the Indigenous community are subjected to highly problematic stereotypes that are false and problematic. The speaker states, “Natives were becoming the villains of these Western movies. They were being portrayed as savages and society accepted it”.

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1811 Words | 8 Pages

Adeline Draper Sarah American Inidian’s 1-18-2023 Racist Things about Native Americans in Movies We have all seen movies like Peter Pan or Pocahontas or we have at least heard of them and know the main idea of the movies. But while they may appear fine, take a closer look at it and there are many flaws and racist things in them. In fact when someone looks close enough in a lot of movies there will be many flaws and racist things inside of them about Native Americans. Movies have had racist things about Native Americans in them for a long time and still do.

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644 Words | 3 Pages

Pocahontas Assignment 1. Why does Pewewardy believe that misrepresentation of American Indians in films can be harmful to this community? Pewewardy stresses the damaging effects that stereotypes Native Americans face in films pose to the children of Native American communities. These children see themselves as less than human not only thanks to films, but also because of the image of the Native American being used as mascots and logos.

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358 Words | 2 Pages

The excerpts “I Hated Tonto (Still Do)” by Sherman Alexie and “An Open Letter to Johnny Depp’s Tonto” by Natanya Ann Pulley, critique the cultural depictions of cinematic characters through remarks of personal dissatisfaction and experiences. In both their excerpts, Alexie and Pulley address their dislike with the belittlement of the Native American identity that the character Tonto contributes to. In the excerpt “I Hated Tonto (Still D0)” Alexie states, “When it came to the movies, Indians had learned to be happy with less. We didn’t mind that cinematic Indians never had jobs.

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700 Words | 3 Pages

During this period of time, American Indians were amazing navigators and could speak multiple languages, contradicting the theory that they had low mental capacities portrayed through their actions in the film (Kilpatrick, 1999). Another stereotype portrayed in this film was the American Indians' shaved heads and over exaggerated makeup. Both of these stereotypes

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499 Words | 2 Pages

Suhavani Arora Ms. Rajitharan NBE3U1-6 April 08, 2024 Stereotypes: Misrepresentation of Indigenous Identity Many forms of media take inspiration from Indigenous cultures, but sometimes, they oversimplify the cultures by overlooking the diversity and complexity. For example, the movie Avatar, which positions the local species, the Na’vi, as ‘Ecological Indians’ through a simplistic narrative, reinforces misrepresentations. In the movie, one of the main characters Neytiri says, “We are all children of Eywa. She is the goddess of all Pandora. Everything we know, everything we are, comes from her” (Cameron 2009).

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684 Words | 3 Pages

Changing perception of the Native American can be accomplished through media such as television and movies. Changing the roles played by Native Americans is one example of passively challenging these perceptions. Doing this confronts the stereotypes given, providing greater depth to their people than twenty years ago. The usual roles offered at the time were often one dimensional, the wise man, noble savage, or the Indian princes. If the actors or actresses are truly powerful like Chief Dan George in “The Outlaw Josey Wales”undoing a lot of the problems in a single role”(Diamond, 2010).

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235 Words | 1 Pages

Regardless of the passage of time, typically speaking, people’s vision of Native Americans remains wrapped up in powerful stereotypes. This is why some images we see of Indians can be surprising and perhaps confusing. What would Geronimo be doing sitting in a Cadillac? Why is an Indian woman in traditional native wear, in a salon, getting her hair done? Images such as this cause us to think and challenge our outdated visions, even as the latter continues to dominate relations between non-Native Americans and Native Americans.

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623 Words | 3 Pages

In most films they barely have speaking roles and they rarely have complex histories. In “Dead Man” Jarmusch portrays Native Americans as intelligent, kind and civilized people, this is contrary to the unrealistic portrayals in common western films. One way Jarmush subverts the savage portrayal of native americans is that, “Jarmusch reworks the meanders of cultural memory of the Western genre to recuperate those voices that had been silenced—most remarkably the natives’ voices—but refuses to pigeonhole them in a straight factual fashion.” (Ortega). The use of Nobody to be the voice of the Native Americans reveals the point of view that is rarely ever seen in western movies.

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946 Words | 4 Pages

The invisibility of Native peoples and lack of positive images of Native cultures may not register as a problem for many Americans, but it poses a significant challenge for Native youth who want to maintain a foundation in their culture and language. " - NCAI President Brian Cladoosby (April 2014 - Washington Post

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1494 Words | 6 Pages

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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1058 Words | 5 Pages

The media today consists of a huge diversity of different things. This is because the United States is known as the melting pot country and today 's society doesn 't understand the real history of the Native American people. They are easily one of the top most underrepresented cultures and people in the media in today’s world. This is why there are stereotypes of them throughout the media. Native Americans are stereotyped in many ways such as in movies, tv shows, books, etc.

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