Native American Portrayal in Film

Ever since movies were first premiered in the late 1800s people around the world have loved indulging in the entertaining form of media. Film makers have since the beginning tackled topics of race, gender, sexuality, religion, adversity and so much more. The film industry is one that dominates the world. As Americans our pop culture and our society in many way revolves around the film industry. Everyday objects are promoted on film commercials, politics are streamed by film productions on tv, and students are often educated through the use of educational and historic films. For many movies are a fun pastime, a hobby, entertainment, educational, a lifestyle but at the same time for some people movies have been a struggle to hold on to traditional values, retain historic value, and overcome stereotypes. The Native Americans are one of many groups of people who feel they have been betrayed by the movie industry.

Ever since movies were invented Native Americans have been depicted on screen. After extensive research I have come to the conclusion that the depiction of Native Americans on film has changed because of both politics and the development of acting methods since the birth of film. The Colorado college argues that there has been 3 waves of ways that Native American Indians have been portrayed on film. The first (1900-1979) being that Native Americans  were originally portrayed as savage, mysterious, and war-like, the second (1980-1999) being that they were more accurately depicted as peaceful and wise beings but still stereotypical, and the third (2000-present) being that in the past decade Native Americans are depicted realistically and as real people with real struggles. In most ways I agree with this three part argument. However, I still believe that today Native Americans will still run into stereotypes in their portrayal in film considering white modernized actors are still being cast in indian roles. The performances by white actors as Native Americans is more accurate today than performances from the past because of the popularity of a new modern method of acting: method acting.

At first, whether or not race was significant to the film, characters in movies were played by white actors altered to look Native American with stereotypical attire and broken speech patterns. This was largely due to the industry supplying movies with actors from the theater, something in which very few natives took part in within the American society. Another reason these stereotypes existed is because white actors used a technique called "personality acting" in which they made it obvious the audience that they were playing natives and also they didn't do much research to prepare them for realistic roles (realistic roles weren't even called for anyway). As film strove to become more realistic a few directors chose to cast real natives in small stereotypical parts. An actress by the name of Red Wing is considered by many to be the first Native American movie actress. She appeared in over 35 silent films between 1908-1921. For a long period of time Natives were outraged by the way they were depicted in film as uneducated, malicious, and mysterious. It would be very similar to the reaction of Americans if they saw a movie made by a foreign country in which all the ethnic actors were painted white to look like Americans and said "would you like fries with that?" every other line. These stereotypical depictions often appeared in early westerns such as Davy Crockett.
A major change occurred during  the late 50s when Hollywood was booming and Native Americans had the ability to become actors due to the decreased racism and increasing liberalism of the film industry. The major progress at this point was rather than having white actors play stereotypical indians, Native American actors were used to portray stereotypical indians. At this time actors such as Eddie Little Sky and Chief Dan George were making their way into television series as stereotypical Native American Indians.  They were in a society where film began to be taken so seriously and racism toward Native Americans was quickly fading that many opportunities opened up for native actors.

Since the 80s movies have seen an increase in Native Americans in film. The 90s was also home to one of the most controversial Native American movies ever made, Pocahontas.  Many tribes were upset when the film came out because the historical story of Pocahontas was heavily altered in order to make it appealing to younger audiences. In fact, during the process of making the movie the Rankokus Indian Reservation made efforts to collaborate with Disney to prevent stereotypes and historical errors but were denied any attempts to help. The 80's is also when acting teachers began popularizing an acting technique created by Stanislavski which is now referred to as Method Acting. With this new technique spreading throughout Hollywood white actors continued to play Native Americans. And though at this point racism was practically non existent toward the Native Americans, stereotypes still remained due to the demands of the industry itself revolving around making profit through entertainment. Among the list of white actors who have played Native Americans in movies includes Audrey Hepburn, Mel Brooks, , and Johnny Depp. Both Daniel Day-Lewis and Johnny Depp have gone through great lengths of preparation  avoid stereotyping Indians. Daniel Day-Lewis spent months living in the woods in the same way a native would to prepare for his role in The Last of the Mohicans. Johnny Depp visited tribes and learned their customs in preparation for The Lone Ranger and while many considered it to be accurate in the portrayal many tribes feared that the character Tonto would be an offensive parody of Native cultures. .
The general consensus can be made that although movies have largely improved over time as far as accurately attempting to portray Native American Indians, many stereotypes still exist. Honestly Native Americans aren't even a hot topic for film today and when they are used in film their culture is either a plot moving device or general inspiration so it makes sense that there may be many errors in depicting culture accurately because at the end of the day movie makers are going to do what makes money, not what pleases a very small percentage of a large demographic. If Native Americans want to see their culture depicted accurately in film the best thing they can do is watch a documentary based on their culture and lives.

 White actors as Native Americans (Audrey Hepburn as Rachel and Johnny Depp as Tonto)

 Hollywood's Best Known Native American Actors Wes Studi and Russell Means 

The Most Stereo-typically Controversial Image from Pocahontas   

Sites used

1.  http://sites.coloradocollege.edu/indigenoustraditions/6-%E2%80%A2-independent-projects/native-americans-in-cinema/ -provided thesis of 3 waves of ways American Indians portrayed in film in which inspired the main structure for my essay therefore being an essential and significant source

2.  http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31749_162-57479572-10391698/native-americans-worried-about-stereotypes-in-new-lone-ranger-film/-  This article about Natives concerned about portrayal in The Lone Ranger gave me a controversial topic to use to highlight the general opposition by Native Americans toward their portarayal in film. 

3.  http://www.uc.edu/news/NR.aspx?id=18092 –  I used this just for a small snippet of my post where I mention college researches to prove lone ranger as accurate.

4.  http://www.methodactingstrasberg.com/history - I used this to provide additional knowledge to a topic I already knew a much about to my statements about acting techniques and how they influenced the film industry.

5.  http://www.powhatan.org/pocc.html - This was a very important source that provided direct opinions of a Native American reservation regarding the popular Disney film, Pocahontas. It also helped me prove that Natives still feel stereotyped in movies modern day.

6. http://www.imdb.com/?ref_=nv_home- This source was very helpful to me and gave insight to how certain  white actors prepared for Native roles which I briefly mention and also gave a dated list of films in which Native actors appeared,

7.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Wing_(actress)- I only used Wikipedia to link to a photo of the actress.