Re: The Portrayal of American Indians in Popular Media

Diane, my point was that the lack of responses on other threads may not have been the subject per se, but how the question was asked. "What do you know" is very broad indeed -- I don't know much but it's still daunting to me to think of getting some or even a percentage of what I do know down, to the point where I'd tend to just move on without trying even though it's a subject I am very interested in.

Answering the media portrayal part, which is more narrow, is much easier.

That's a typical pattern with the life or death of threads, and doesn't necessarily have to do much with the subject.

Piffka, thanks for the other recommendations, they look interesting.

Diane, yes we've had differences but that does not make us enemies. Just people with opposing views on some topics.

We try, where possible, to try to teach them of their cultural heritage. We can do that through research on the internet to give us the tools to help them. We have contacted local agencies that can help with their heritage information. Last year, we enrolled them in an Indian dance program where they could learn the dance, the drum and Indian throat singing.

Before you go thinking that I am more noble than I deserve. The boy is our grandson and the girl is his half sister with no relationship to us. They have the same mother. When situations arose where the CAS stepped in and put them in separate foster homes 5 years ago, my wife and I got involved as soon as we heard about it. It took several months of lawyers, interviews and such but we were finally able to have them live with us as of August 16, 2000. The do not see their mother and only see the boy's father occasionally. We have no regrets.

Neither of the children have any prejudice in them at all. The girl is dark and the boy is white skinned. When asked why he was not the same colour as his sister. He replied. "Because God made us that way".

BTW,,, Tonto and the Lone Ranger was mentioned by someone. Tonto was Jay Silverheels who was from the same reserve that our little girl's mother came from.

repeating myself, intrepid, but in case you missed it, i second diane & commend you for doing something terrific.

I third the motion.

I know how hard it is to take on the responsiblitly of one child with a complicated history.

Two kids?

Wow!

Diane, I'm aware of old media sterotypes but I was trying to recall something newer.

The only Native American character I can recall in the last five years is the guy in the movie "Joe Dirt".

In the last 10 years.... that guy and the kid in the Barbara Kingslover book "The Bean Trees" and "Animal Dreams".

It is hard to come up with examples of Native Americans represented in movies/books/TV.

Their absence is weird and I've never really thought about it.

They ought to make a movie of Tom Threepersons.


Okay, everybody run google Threepersons.

Louise Erdrich is another good author, closer + further from my experience than Alexie -- she's Minnesota-based, but she's of a different generation than most of the people I know and a little more reverent.

Was "Dances with Wolves" less than 10 years ago? That's the biggest one I think of.

Then the Tony Hillerman books -- Alexie doesn't like those much. ;-) (He's written a book with a very Hillerman-like villain.)

Will read up in a minute...

Has anyone watched Smoke Signals or On The Rez (is that the title?)? Produced by and about Native Americans with Native American actors. Good stuff. Tony Hillerman had a book (or maybe more than 1) made into a movie. Was there a tv series, too?

smoke signals is entertaining. i especially liked the line about John Wayne's teeth.

PBS has done several episodes of the Mystery series based on Hillerman novels. they're alright, except they totally changed my favorite Hllerman character, Joe Leaphorn. by the way, the same actor, Adam Beech, plays Victor in Smoke Signals & Jim Chee in the Hillerman episodes.

The song? Ayyayhaya John Wayne's teeth... was there a line in the dialogue, too? I don't remember.

Oh yeah, Northern Exposure had some decent native stuff in it.

"On the Rez" isn't a movie, apparently. I dunno what the movie I saw was called, it came out well before smoke signals..... ah well.

Most of my experiences with native americans is first hand experience with friends that are Nez Perce and Colville. There are 3 tribal Casino's here of various tribes around here and do alot of tv commercials using native americans.

I started a Hillerman book years ago and shut it again after the first page, for the grammar - sorry, folks.
Read one since and liked it okay, but as an addicted police procedural reader, I'll say it was mildly interesting for setting and not very re the rest of it.

I read almost all police procedurals to learn about their environments... some seem to tune me in more than others.
I might want to like his books, but - eh...

Piffka, thank you for those links--I'll soon be searching on Amazon for those films. Even if Amazon doesn't have them, usually the used films contain more obscure titles.

Soz, I havne't started most of the American Indian threads. If they didn't have the correct titles or if they didn't pull people in, I doubt that the title had much to do with it. There were some fine examples of the treatment and history of American Indians. For example, on this thread, did anyone read my link on the Sand Creek Massacre?

They are invisible to most of us; in fact, Europeans quite often know more than most Americans about American Indian history, culture and art than we do.

People will read threads that they have some interest in, regardless of the title. I will try in the future to make the subject line catchier.

Sorry, that was unfair to Soz. I will, in the future, try to make the subject line more specific.

How timely Diane...Abramoff and Indian casinos are news items today.

Grandma Builds-the-Fire: You saved Thomas. You did a good thing.
Arnold Joseph: I didn't mean to.

Since there aren't a lot of Indian actors, you'll see the same faces in many of the films. For example, the lead in Smoke Signals (Evan Adams -a Coast Salish from British Columbia) who plays Thomas Builds-The-Fire -- the nerdy one, also plays the gay poet lead in This Business of Fancy Dancing.



Good luck finding the films, Diane. Medicine River is especially hard to find... and I think I loaned out my copy (to my Athabaskan friend). Don't read the reviews... almost all of them have spoilers. This guy plays the lead... Graham Greene (checking out his filmography will give you a lot of ideas about other Indian-made films):


Diane -- I read the link to the Sand Creek Massacre. Horrible stuff and no, I hadn't heard about it. I've heard about others though. There's been so many ugly acts by Americans... it boggles the mind, however that one is so reprehensible that I cannot believe Col. Whats-his-Name <spit, spit> never was tried & sentenced.

I'm still burned up about the Nez Perce not being allowed to get to Canada. (They were sooooo close.) Is it worse to be quickly killed & mutilated or live the slow death, far from your homeland in some god-forsaken reservation?

sorry

im deleting my tangent..

why'd ya do that, shewolf?
it was interesting reading - I wasn't done yet - refreshed the page and pfffffft

~~~

in any case, if anyone's interested in some really interesting innu-related tv programming, I'd recommend looking for North of 60. It was running while I lived in northern Ontario and spent a lot of time in innu communities - rang true to my ear/eye and to many of the people I was meeting with then.

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/N/htmlN/northof60/northof60.htm



Television in Canada has often reflected on aboriginal issues. Given how little original programming we have, the representation/reflection of the aboriginal/innu community is hmmmm almost adequate.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106087/

I enjoy programming available on this channel

http://www.aptn.ca/

a bit of the history

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/aboriginal_people/aboriginal_broadcasting.cfm

I'm sorry you did that. It was a heartfelt post. In fact I was trying to come up with an observation when it disappeared