Stereotypes of Native Americans in Modern Films

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Stereotypes of Native Americans in Modern Films

There are many stereotypes about Native Americans which are promoted in today's films. Since the beginnings of the westward settlement people have been saying things about the Native Americans that are not necessarily true. They were depicted as savages and thieves. Like all peoples this is true about some, but not for all. In fact, it was the Native Americans which helped the pilgrims settle in this country in the first place. This never stopped whites from stereotyping the way we have. Early films and TV shows gave Native Americans a bad image. Old western films are a good example of this. In these the cowboys were always the good guys and the Native Americans were the bad guys. More recent films and TV shows give a different picture of the Native American. Since the start of television the Americans view of the culture of the Native American has slowly changed from being a ruthless savage to an honored race of people.

Stereotypes of Native Americans were first taught to us by our parents. Almost all of us can remember playing cowboys and Indians when we were little kids. The cowboy would always be the good guy and he would chase the Indian and shoot him with his gun. When we are taught this as little children it is hard to give this idea up as adults. People still commonly call Native Americans Indians which is wrong since that name was given to them by Columbus when he thought he was in India. It also makes for exciting action in films to have the cowboy chasing the Native American around and shooting him. This could be a major reason why so many cowboy and Indian movies were made.

Television also promotes many stereotypes about Native Americans. Television has such ...

... middle of paper ...

... good guys. In the film Kostner begins with the picture that all Native Americans are bad and they would eventually attack him. But as the film goes on he learn that they are not bad people and adopts their ways. Then the white people are made out as the bad guys in the end of the film when they capture Kostner and treat him bad.

Why is it that many films have taken on the drastic change of making the Native Americans go from bad guys to good guys? Probably one of the biggest reasons is that people are better educated about the history of Native Americans now then they were before. People are now realizing that we treated Native Americans poorly. This gives people a sense of guilt about how their ancestors treated Native Americans.

Works Cited

AAP Commitee on Communications. "Television Issues." http://www.cybergate.com/~simonian/tv.html (23 April. 1997).

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