Stereotypes of Native Americans in Film

we recently asked to indian filmmakers to sit down and watch movies about native americans with us one of the films we watch is smoke signals written by indian novelist sherman alexi in this scene a nerdy indian kid is getting instructions from a hip friend and how to be a quote we still think what you have here in a very obvious case has internalized oppression rex harrison is a little screen right not one idiot has internalized hollywood media representation of indian and trying to teach another idiom that sarah's is also a novelist as well as chairman of the great and arranger retried in northern california he says alexi's film has fun with stereotypes that have a long history in america

watching the melissa harris is a law ucla professor and film producer that was a very very clear presentation of a stereotype the physical gestures to the speech there the war bonnet so on the staccato on gray's lawyer speak it was an obvious way that that audiences could hear the end and sunny primitive sounds savage when sarah says quinn store colbert mail makes it is crazy or as one

dimensional never do you get to see isis complicated people are as people who have relationships and have families who care about memory you see somebody pick up a woman carrier across the threshold or have desire any of those things are of course white people according to say or as they're primarily two types of indians in most film and literature this savage indian and the noble indian here in this film what's interesting is you get the whole process you get that was why give readers unlimited defeated women feel sorry for them on what role and they get omar says most filmmakers haven't bothered to learn much about native people and have been content to recycle the stereotypes the demise skyline he grew up in oklahoma but not on a reservation he says as a child in the fifties many of his ideas about indians came from westerns they can transform that passage it we saw the screen into our own life situations in southern marginalizing with the poorest people that we work were treated with disrespect that we were that and not given any kind of equal status

it enforced those notions that we were worth the whole law it now says in recent years hollywood has favored noble indians these romanticize depictions he says had little to do with real indians what they did did was that they did it a backward flip over and began to know they mobilized in this and started selling equipping them with without their own values like an environmentalist an end and spirituality and star gazing an irony great sarah's agrees the indian has become the toddler us for everybody else's fantasies about what they want the indian to be a good example he says his dances with wolves where kevin costner befriends indians and ends up wanting to be won near the end of the film costner speaking in moscow that tells military officers his name is cancer big drop she managed

to go to your you know occasionally iris says the film's it's indeed more authentic but there's still just a backdrop the white men are still out front of the white men discovered the unions and unions have to tell you that the success and there's a lot of hollywood to take greater interest in indian stories and how sarah's get his foot in the door they still he says the industry continues to favor films about historical indians written by non indians and a good ally has co produced a couple of films about contemporary indians the nineteen eighty seven film how our highway and lakota woman released in nineteen ninety four he says the non native writers and directors were well intentioned but didn't know enough about indian life as a result he says the stories don't quite ring true according to get emma the first time a realistic story about contemporary indians were shown to a large audience was greg's harris's nineteen ninety six hbo mini series grand avenue that was the

first thing on the mass media that was about intercepted have any further song they'd have any boats gets worn in a jeep is they would do people that were trying to make a living trying to get by trying to survivors of family services a growing up near santa rosa near the beginning of this story forced off the reservation after her common law husband dies be are now homeless and what about a grand ave is ahead becoming hbo second highest rated mini series that year afterwards sarah's was flooded with screenwriting offers but he held out for a project where he could have more control by serving as executive producer as well as writer anything in

hollywood that had to do with movie stars horses nature that washed up on my doorstep to re write or to somehow make politically correct i took me none of those opportunities and struggled and fought until today when jus this warning that faction heard earlier was my sign completed contracted showtime to do a twenty two hour weekly series about a tribe that gets a casino greg sarah says forthcoming showtime series is currently called paradise city and is scheduled to debut later this year alone all those movies you never saw john wayne steve i think there's something wrong when you don't see a guy say oh it also sets deal in lausanne yesterday

they read