The
attached review accurately represents my perspective on the film Reel Injun. It explains how Reel Injun is revealing the inaccurate—and
sometimes negative—portrayal of Native American in films and television shows. Mr.
Marcus, the man who wrote the review, has also written another article on
Native Americans concerning how the use of Native Americans as sport mascots is
disrespectful. “I was astounded at how many people couldn’t get their heads
around the fact that a race of people would be offended by being equated with
the San Diego Chicken or other figures of ridicule that dress up in costume and
generally run around making fools of themselves at public events”. I applied
this thought to the portrayal of Native Americans in films mentioned in Reel Injun. Native Americans were
repeatedly portrayed as villains or depicted as savages or reduced to the
static role of “the stoic Indian”. Why are these portrayals seen as bad? This
is because at best, it is a one-dimensional portrayal of Native Americans and
at worst, a gross misrepresentation of Native Americans. Mr. Marcus nicely summarizes
this “… when you reduce a people to one characteristic they lose their humanity
as we ignore every other aspect of their culture”.
After
watching Reel Injun, I have been encouraged
to question how people of all races are portrayed in film. It is not that I
believed the portrayal of people in film to be accurate, but I never thought about
what was being hinted at or even blatantly stated about a certain race. For
instance, after seeing the Bugs Bunny scene in Reel Injun, I watched some other shows from when I was younger and realized
how many negative stereotypes were indirectly inserted to children shows. This
film has encouraged me to not accept films at first glance and to question what
the underlying message is behind the characters.
Good observations Kiara, I had some of the same exact ones. The whole thing about watching films from when we were younger is astonsihshing to me too because I have also noticed the same thing. Its surprising how many things we actually catch now that we are older and understand the world better.After watching the film I also feel encouraged to question how cultures and races are showcased. We really need to become more aware of these things and try to be educated in the way society influences our minds.
ReplyDeleteGood comments, Kiara. It's helpful to remember the three rules of hermeneutics here: context, context, context. The reason Native Americans needed to be depicted as "savage" and "other" was so that European settlers could justify taking their land and, in the end, killing them. To a large degree, I think Native American portrayals in film are often a continuation of this "otherization" in an effort to gloss over our nation's unpleasant past.
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