Dreamae10

Introduction

Native Americans are popular characters in film. Even many children’s films have Native Americans as characters. Traditionally, especially in western films, they are portrayed as the uncivilized villains; however, there are also many films that show that they are peaceful and gentle people.

Popular Films with Native American Characters

The Moffitt Library at University of California Berkeley has a list of popular films made with Native American characters. Annie Get Your Gun (1950), Apaches (Apachen) (1973), At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1991), Battle at Elderbush Gulch (1914), Big Bear (1998), Big Heel-Watha (1942), Billy Jack (1971), Black Robe (1991), Blazing Saddles (1974), Broken Arrow (1950), Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or, Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976), Chato's Land (1971), Cheyenne Autumn (1964), Chingachgook, the Great Snake (Chingachgook, die Grosse Schlange) (1967), Clearcut (1991), Coyote Waits (2003), Crazy Horse (1996), Dance Me Outside (1994), Dances with Wolves (1990), Davy Crockett (1950s), Dead Man (1995), The Doe Boy (2001), Dreamkeeper (2003), Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), Duel in the Sun (1946), The Egg and I (1947), The Fast Runner (Atanarjuat) (Canada, 2001), A Feather in His Hare (1948), Flags of Our Fathers (2006), Flaming Star (1960), Fort Apache (1948), Frigid Hare (1949), Frozen River (2008), Geronimo: An American Legend (1993), Grey Owl (1999), Heart of an Indian (aka The Indian Massacre) (1912), Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt (1941), I Will Fight No More Forever (1975), In MacArthur Park (1977), The Indian in the Cupboard (1995), Into the West (TV, 2005), Lakota Woman (1994), In the Land of the War Canoes: Kwakiutl Indian Life on the Northwest Coast (aka In the Land of the Headhunters) (1914), The Last of His Tribe (TV, 1992), Last of the Dogmen (1995), The Last of the Mohicans (1920, silent), The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Little Big Man (1970), Little Hiawatha (1937), Ma and Pa Kettle (1949), A Man Called Horse (1970), Medicine River (1993), The Mended Lute: A Stirring Romance of the Dakotas (1909), The Mission (1986), Molly Moo-Cow and the Indians (1935), Naturally Native (1998), The New World (2006), The Old Pioneer (1933), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Out West(1918), Paddle to the Sea (Canada, 1966), Paleface (Silent, 1921), Peter Pan (1953), Pocahontas (Disney, 1995), PowWow Highway (1989), Ramona: A Story of the White Man's Injustice to the Indian(1910), The Redman's View (1909), Redskin(1929), Return of the Country (1984), Rhythm on the Reservation(1939), Romance of the Western Hills(1912), Rose-Marie (1936), Searchers (1956), Sergeant Rutledge (1960), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), Silent Enemy: An Epic of the American Indian (1930), Sioux City (1994), Skinwalkers (TV, 2002), Smoke Signals (1998), Soldier Blue (1970), Sons of the Great Bear (Die Sohne der Grossen Barin) (1966), Spirit Rider (1993), The Squaw Man (1914), The Squaw's Love (silent, 1911), Stagecoach (1939), Susannah of the Mounties (1939), Sweet Sioux (1937), Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969), They Died with Their Boots On (1981), A Thief of Time (2004), Thunderheart (1992), Vanishing American (1925), War Party (TV, 1989), White Fawn's Devotion: A Play Acted by a Tribe of Red Indians in America (1910), Windtalkers (2002). This is not an exclusive list and includes movies, television shows, and independent films. Some of these films portray Native Americans in a good light, and some have a negative viewpoint.

Children’s Film

Peter Pan is a classic children’s movie that involves Native Americans. A major scene in Peter Pan involves the Lost Boys and Peter Pan going to the Native American Powwow. While they are there they sing “What Makes the Red Man Red?” Why does he ask you, ‘how?’ Why does he ask you, ‘how?’ Once the injun didn’t know all the things that he know now, But the injun he sure learn a lot, and it’s all from asking ‘how?’ Hana Mana Ganda, Hana Mana Ganda We translate for you. Hana means what Mana means and Ganda means that too. Squaw no dance, squaw get um firewood. When did he first say, ‘ugh’? When did he first say, ‘ugh’? In the Injun book it say when the first brave married squaw, He gave out with a big ‘ugh’ when he saw his mother-in-law. What made the red man red? What made the red man red? Let’s go back a million years to the very first Injun prince. He’d kiss a maid and start to blush and we’ve all been blushin’ since. You got it right from the headman The real true story of the red man No matter what’s been written or said Now you know why the red man’s red.

Another classic children’s movie is Pocahontas. It is about Europeans that come to the Americas looking for gold. When they arrive they come across a Native American tribe that is already living on that land. There is conflict between the two groups, both hating the other. The Europeans want gold and the Native Americans want their land and their livelihoods. Just before a battle between the two groups begins, Pocahontas, a young Native American woman, saves the life of a European man, and prevents the war from happening. Pocahontas portrays Native Americans and Europeans with just as much guile. One scene involves both the Europeans and the Native Americans singing “Savages” about the other group. Europeans: What can you expect, from filthy little heathens? Here’s what you get when races are diverse. Their skins are hellish red, They’re only good when dead, They’re vermin as I said and worse. They’re savages, savages, barely even human, Savages, savages, drive them from our shores. They’re not like you and me, which means they must be evil, We must sound the drums of war. They’re savages, savages, dirty stinking devils, Now we sound the drums of war. Native Americans: This is what we feared. The pale face is a demon, The only thing they feel at all is greed. Beneath that milky hide, there’s emptiness inside. I wonder if they even bleed. They’re savages, savages, barely even human, Savages, savages, killers at the core. They’re different from us, which means they can’t be trusted, We must sound the drums of war. They’re savages, savages, first we deal with this one, Then we sound the drums of war. Together: Savages, savages, now it’s up to you men, Savages, savages, barely even human. Now we sound the drums of war.

Negative Viewpoint

Traditionally, Native Americans have been portrayed as the uncivilized villains in film. According to Beverly R. Singer, Despite the fact that a diversity of indigenous peoples had a legal and historical significance in the formation of every new country founded in the western hemisphere, in the United States and Canada the term "Indians" became a hegemonic designation implying that they were all the same in regards to culture, behavior, language, and social organization. The view of Indians as savage and uncivilized was repeated in early films and crystallized the image of "Indians" as dangerous and unacceptable to the normative lives of European immigrants whose lives appeared in films to be more valuable than those of the indigenous people they were colonizing.

In most films involving Native Americans, they wear clothes made from animal skins, carry spears, and enjoy fighting with most strangers who come onto their land. The warriors fight with arrowhead knives and brute strength. The settlers carry guns and weapons with them wherever they go in self-defense. One example of a film where they are portrayed as this is The Last of the Mohicans (1992). The European settlers are on Native American lands. They become captured by the Native American tribe. The tribe swarms around the settlers and decide to burn Cora, one of the white women, at the stake for religious reasons. They allow one of the white men, Heyward, to take her place, and they strap him to a post and burn him alive. The whole time this is happening the tribe is standing around him shouting and cheering. They look angry and serious throughout the whole movie, until this scene when they are killing a white man.

Positive Viewpoint

In some films, Native Americans are viewed as intelligent and spiritual. They are the innocent victims of what the white settlers are doing to them. One example movie of this is ''Dances with Wolves''. One scene shows the U.S. soldiers capturing the protagonist of the film, John Dunbar, and taking him as a prisoner away from the Native American land. Out of nowhere, the Native Americans race onto the scene and kill all of the U.S. soldiers while none of the Native Americans get killed. Some of them receive injuries, but they just ignore the pain and do not seem to even realize that they have been hurt. They are strong and immune to the pain. The final credits of the film explain what happens after the movie. It describes the history of the Sioux people after the film takes place. Thirteen years later, their homes destroyed, their buffalo gone, the last band of free Sioux submitted to white authority at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. The great horse culture of the plains was gone and the American frontier was soon to pass into history. The Sioux people had been fighting to keep control of their land and to continue to live in peace for hundreds of years. They gave everything they had, including their lives, to keep their way of life, but the white settlers came in and took that all away from them. Eventually, there was nothing else they could do except give in to the white settlers and lose their way of life.

The film The New World is another movie about Native Americans. It is the fictitious story of Pocahontas and John Smith. John Smith arrives with the European settlers and gets captured by a Native American tribe. While there, he gets accepted by the Native Americans and falls in love with one of the young women, Pocahontas. When John Smith is describing the Native American tribe that his is with he says, “They are gentle, loving, faithful, lacking in all guile and trickery. The words denoting lying, deceit, greed, envy, slander, and forgiveness have never been heard. They have no jealousy, or sense of possession.” The Native Americans portrayed in this film were peaceful and gentle people. They were not evil; they were just different than the white settlers.