First People Film Analysis

Hollywood Cinema is a major contributor to the stereotypes that have plagued the First Peoples all over the world. Over the past three decades, First Peoples Cinema has experienced a rebirth that has reclaimed their identity and also combated the negative “Imaginary Indian” depiction of First Peoples in Hollywood. The Imaginary Indian depiction can be seen in films such as John Ford’s Stagecoach (1939), which portrayed Native Americans as a savage group of humans that were holding back the notion of Manifest Destiny in the United States. Also there are films like James Cameron Avatar (2009) and Kevin Costner’s Dances with Wolves (1990) that portray Native Peoples in a positive manner, but ultimately centralizes their themes around the rebirth

It praises the heritage of the Inuk people and was fully developed and filmed by Indigenous peoples on Indigenous land. In contrast to Smoke Signals, Atanarjuat is film that was intended for the indigenous audience and non-indigenous audiences will be unfamiliar with much if not all of the details in Atanarjuat because of the extensive background information of the film. Atanarjuat and Smoke Signals both employ an entirely indigenous cast and crew. However, Atanarjuat preserves the culture of specifically the Inuk people of Canada. The second strategy is Survivance, which is defined by “tactics that go beyond mere survival and that re-articulate Native Cultures in dynamic, creative, enduring ways, even when faced when erasing tremendous power of dominant cultures” (Vizenor, Anishinaabe). Atanarjuat acts as an example of Survivance, the film was created through the collaboration of different Inuk Elders in the telling of an Inuk

Smoke Signals holds many of the similar characteristics of famous plotlines in American Film, (Road Trip, Friendship, Jock and Nerd, and discovering one’s self). This film takes advantage of the Native American stereotypes and combats these stereotypes by mixing them in with this genre of Hollywood film. The film takes advantage of American movie stereotypes that have developed over time. The first example was of the basketball scene, it portrayed the protagonist Victor as the Jock and his friend Thomas as the Geek of the their high school. This relates to Visual Sovereignty by representing the topics of film in a familiar fashion that a majority of the audience would be accustomed to, the