Singing Redface Essay

For decades, Native Americans have been misrepresented in our society by the government and media. Hollywood is the main form of misrepresentation and cause of cultural confusion, concerning Native Americans. However, music plays a large role in misguiding society’s view of the Nations.
From a young age, Americans are taught the “true” way Native Americans live and have lived since before Columbus landed in the Caribbean. I can vividly remember being in a Thanksgiving play when I was in fourth grade, dressed as an Indian and standing off to one side of the stage, pretending to look on fiercely as my people approached the pilgrims. I also remember playing cowboys and Indians regularly with my cousins and toy guns. I was playing Indian. We

Singing redface is the act of preforming, through song or dance, to replicate a Native American. Usually, singing redface is meant to as way to honor a Nation or a person’s Native American background, but singing redface almost always comes across as defamatory and an untrue stereotype. We, as a society, have been ingrained with the stereotypical Native American for so long that we do not know what true Native American culture is, much less if someone is singing

The music video is no better. Through his video, McGraw turns what was once savage Indians into a modern day outlaw. He does this by riding an Indian motorcycle and wearing a leather jacket with the Avirex Choctaw football team logo which, I believe is supposed to be a Native American shield or perhaps dream catcher, and an Indian chief in full headdress on the back (Casey, 2017). Motorcycles and leather jackets are heavily associated with outlaw biker gangs, so in using these visuals McGraw wants to enforce the idea that his character is a really bad outlaw. The official music video can be found on YouTube at,