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Stereotypes In The Film 'Reel Injun' By Niel Diamond

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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. Some of the movies and cartoons being aired had an Indian character but it was the stereotypical version of an Indian not what a true Indian was. The stereotypical version of the Indians gave children the wrong idea of a true Native. One of the Bugs Bunny episodes was actually extremely racist when he was …show more content…

When Sacheen Littlefeather moved to Haight-Ashbury people were surprised by the way she dressed when they knew she was Native, when she saw the way hippies looked she knew she didn’t look like that but that was the way others saw her. Sacheen Littlefether was asked to collect an award for Marlon Brando for the best actor in “Godfather”, but when she was accepting the award the crowd was shocked because she didn’t look like a “true Indian”. The way Indians looked on the streets compared to in the movies was very different. The Indians on the streets would wear indigenous headbands for the look but not knowing it was to keep the wigs on during the movies. The hippies would wear headbands for the look of Indians was extremely disrespectful towards Indians without even realizing it was disrespectful. After Sacheen Littlefeather made an appearance, Indians started to be treated as people of all shades and were treated no differently from

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When compared to a movie like Do The Right Thing by Spike Lee, Goddard uses the actors-looking-at-the-camera shot in a way that not only sometimes draws your attention to the fact you’re watching a movie, but it also puts the audience into the movie as a character in a way. For example, when Patricia looks into the camera both times that were mentioned above, you do (or atleast I do) feel like her eyes address the audience members. Meanwhile, in DTRT by Spike Lee there is a hilarious scene where Mookie, Pino, Gary Long, and the latino dude all look into the camera and spout those stereotypes and racial slurs, however they’re not directed at the audience, but serve as a first person POV shot, as if the subject they’re talking about were actually

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Times have changed and so is the presence of their history. When I was young it was okay to dress up as an Indian. I did once for Halloween. We did not think about the way Indians would

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One of the earlier examples of cultural imperialism and marginalization is when Saul is kicked off of the town hockey team, “‘It's because I'm Indian isn't it?’ [...] ‘Yes.’ He said. ‘Do they hate me?’ , ‘They don't hate you Saul’, ‘Well, what then?’

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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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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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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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The subject matter of the film “Reel Injun” was an especially intriguing and surprising concept to me. The idea that an entire race of people could be so severely underrepresented in popular media is terrifying, and goes to show just how easy it is to cast an imprecise portrait of an unknown culture. What really fascinated me was the segment on Iron Eyes Cody. How could one of the most popular depictions of a Native American actually be a second generation Sicilian immigrant? What other lies have I been told about these people?

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Stereotypes in media have been around since the earliest cartoons were drawn. The media gives supposedly identifying traits with images of the stingy Jewish man, the single Hispanic woman cleaning homes to raise her three children, and the “butch” lesbian falling for the beautiful blonde who just happens to glance at her every day in the hallway. These portrayals make up general knowledge about minorities for a lot of people, but their accuracy is questionable at best. While production companies have been making strides towards the better, insufficient representation in the media tends to portray minorities as their negative stereotypes rather than as people.

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Indian Boarding schools were created in the 1800s to “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.” They achieved this by transforming the natives looks, culture, language, and teaching them a certain way so they would be able to function in a “european society”. Indian boarding schools taught students both academic and “real world” skills, but they did so while ripping the indians from their culture. Most indian boarding schools were the same with their tactics in transforming the native man into a white one.

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Motifs are recurring elements that assist in developing and identifying the films major themes. In this sense motifs are quintessential in conveying a major theme and expressing ideas a filmmaker may want the audience to identify or evaluate. In the film I want to repeat the idea of stereotypes or labeling a culture and race. The film will challenge the use of stereotypes insuring to represent the limits and cruelty of labels on a culture and why stereotyping should be eliminated from social culture. Dan will identify different cultures and races, and label the people in these categories with the respected stereotype.

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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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Stereotyping is an issue that affects all ages, genders, and races. Not all stereotypes are bad, but when you maliciously stereotype it becomes a problem. In S.E. Hinton’s young adult novel The Outsiders, stereotyping is a significant issue. There are two gangs in this novel, the “greasers”, and the “Socs”. The greasers live on the east side and are known as “hoods”.

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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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Indian Education Stereotypes can affect people in many ways some negative and some positive. Some positive ways stereotypes can affect people is they could make them stronger or make them wanna be a better person. Some negative ways stereotypes affect people is they can bring them down and make them feel bad about themselves. In “ Indian Education” by Sherman Alexie there are many stereotypes about Native Americans for example alcoholics,dumb and fighters. One stereotype that many people give Native Americans is that they are alcoholics.

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