Reel Injun Reflections

Reel Injun follows Neil Diamond (not the singer) as he traces the history of Native American portrayal in film. My initial response was positive, although the high note at the end rang slightly false. Diamond’s quest to end positively left the declared salvation of Native American film feeling hasty, and required omitting any mention of reservation conditions, which were dropped after being discussed earlier in the film.

Since movies have existed for over a century, and Diamond includes many other historical events and background details, there is more content to cover than could be comfortably fit into an hour and a half documentary. A valiant effort is attempted, and indeed I hardly noticed the rush until further reflection prompted by Andrew Schenker’s review. In mentioning the hurried speed of the film, he touched on several car trip stops that I had forgotten even occurred. For example, he shows young Native American children a Western movie from his own childhood, wondering at their reactions, but then moves on before interviewing any of the children.

Overall, however, I was left with a strong sense of how poorly white Americans have portrayed Native Americans in film, swinging from stereotype to stereotype, infusing American society with the same perfunctory impressions. Through showing clips of old and new movies and then discussing or revealing their prejudiced assumptions, Diamond instilled in me an awareness of how erroneously different people groups are portrayed by Hollywood. A John Wayne film isn’t so harmless after all, and I can’t imagine Hollywood does a much better job accurately portraying Chinese or Indian people. Thus this documentary has stimulated me to more closely analyze multiethnic movies, distinguishing between the good and the bad, the Kingdom and the Empire, instead of just swallowing it all.