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What Is Stereotypes In Smoke Signals

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The movie Smoke Signals is an liberated film which was directed and co-produced by Chris Eyre and with a screenplay by Sherman Alexie, based on the short story "This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona" from his book ‘The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven’. Receiving a number of awards, it is highly recognized for its plot on ethnicity. The film enriches awareness of the modern Native American cultural experience. It illuminates the nature of forgiveness in a lesson applicable to all. Smoke Signals is the first movie written, produced and co-directed by Native Americans and as such, it helps viewers to see Native American culture through the eyes of people from that culture. Smoke Signals is the first real movie in today's society …show more content…

What happens when you use stereotypes is you draw on predetermined notions about certain racial or ethnic groups to define a person or group of people. These prejudiced views may not be entirely true based on our readings. An example of stereotypes is taking Latin Americans to be drug addicts as we discussed in class. Stereotypes of indigenous peoples are prevalent in the media like our ‘Ethnic Notions’ documentary in class of African Americans being perceived in film and media. Most often, the stereotypes that we formulate in our minds are what we decode from the media. People wonder whether American films of the past two decades that feature Indian subjects, accurately represent Indians realistically or simply ideological needs of "non-Indians”. Native Americans may experience biased categorizing treatment throughout the media, politics, and society. The Native American characters in Smoke Signals portray through stereotypes in a similar manner that various other Native American characters are throughout media. Throughout the film, Native Americans appear as a minority group live in a world of their own, full of poverty and despair. However, Thomas and Victor are able to overcome the ways of their Indian society, their beliefs in the end parallel stereotypical Native American attitudes. Victor’s willingness to forgive his father reflects the lifestyle of the Native Americans who live on the reservation. Because of Victor’s actions they are able to renew their spirituality and continue living their life, but in a new direction. However, Smoke Signals redeems its use of stereotypes by using satire. For example, the “it’s a good day to die” line pokes fun at Indian stereotypes that Hollywood has always seemed to

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The misrepsentation of Indians in modern culture can make you believe that victors is going to be all hard and try to get his dad back, but that is not the case, throughout their mission of self-discovery they learn a lot about themselves and how they are perceived in the real world. While on their trip they got in a heated argument over two white man stealing their seats on a bus, but all Thomas did was smile like he was happy with it. Victor saw things different, so he put on the face of a warrior and a true fighter but that still didn’t make the white men moves. They sat in the back of the bus and started singing about John Wayne’s teeth because he was a warrior and never showed his smile. As the story continued victor found out a lot about his dad and why he left and never came back, being Indian and having your dad leave you is like your whole world because you don’t get to grow up like a traditional hard headed warrior.

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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.

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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.

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Redford McAlister was nicknamed by the media as the ‘“Casino Chief,’ the one responsible for bringing his tribe into the twentieth century” because he was thought to have given away millions to his community from the profits of the casino (Howe chapter 3). Due to these sensationalist headlines, the Choctaws were perceived to be extremely prosperous, but it was not the case since many of the profits were taken from the Choctaw nation through the corruption of upper Choctaw officials such as Redford McAlister (Howe chapter 3). The Choctaw’s wealth was produced from rumors which have become stereotypes about Native Americans. While it might be true that one Choctaw person has come to benefit from the wealth offered by the casino it is not true for the other members of the Choctaw nation. Howe seeks to fix these stereotypes through pointing out these errors in assumptions and educating her readers about the effects that their stereotypes may have on a specific society (Shaawano).

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Stereotypes can be harmful to those they pertain to, as they can contain false negative connotations that have the power to demonize entire groups of people. The formation of a negative stereotype could result from the events at the powwow near the novel’s conclusion, as the acts of violence and robbery committed by Native people against other Native people could reflect negatively on the entire community. The acts committed by a small number of the population could make the entire community appear to be unsympathetic and violent to an outsider who will not take the time to understand the community as a whole. Evidence of this lack of interest in other cultures can be seen when Tony talks to a white woman on the train. He invites her to attend the powwow, but she makes an excuse, and he stops listening to her speak because he knows that, “People don’t want any more than a little story they can bring back with them, to tell their friends and family around the dinner table, to talk about how they saw a real Native American boy on a train, that they still exist” (Orange 235).

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For it allows “white viewers as a chance it imagine whiteness “from the outside.” Overall, all the characters in the film are “true” they’re not over exaggerated stereotypes. Lee presents this movie in a common-like situation. Where frustration can bring the worse in people no matter if they are not openly racist. It is difficult to determine Sal’s true persona as his actions spoke for him.

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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.

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The Author explores this cultural irregularity in an attempt to shed light on how stereotypes and true Indian experiences have constantly competed for dominance in the aftermath of the military subjugation of Native America

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The film speaks to those anxieties through the victimization of whites at the hands of brutal Native Americans. John Ford depicts the Comanche as bloodthirsty savages

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All Asians are good at math, all blondes are dumb, all Muslims are terrorists - these are all common stereotypes. Without even realizing it, stereotypes have undeniably played an enormous role in individual lives. Minds seem to already set a certain image in them based on the people they encounter. People judge others by their skin tone, ethnicity, and physical appearance unconsciously, and this have been proven by many social experiments. Of course, though these stereotypes might be accurate at times, there are situations where they are completely defied.

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Single Perceptive “The Danger of a Single Story” written and performed by Chimamanda Adichie addresses stereotypes of a culture based on a singular view of a culture. “Show people as one thing over and over again, and that’s what they become,” argues Adichie. Adichie presents the effects of stereotypes through multiple literary devices throughout her speech; her argument is convincing based on her honesty, humor, and mirrored perceptive. Chimamanda Adichie’s honesty throughout her speech allows the reader to see the effects of a singular view of a culture. Therefore, Adichie uses her honest personal experiences to present the negative results that a singular view creates.

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