Hollywood's Indian: The Portrayal of the Native American in Film

266 Pages·2003·24.41 MB·English

by  Peter C. Rollins, John E. O'Connor

HOLLYWOOD'S
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The Portrayal of the Native American in Film
Edited by Peter C Rollins and fohn E. O'Connor
EXPAN DE D E lliTION
Hollywood's Indian
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Hollywood's Indian
The Portrayal of the
Native American in Film
Expanded Edition
Edited by Peter C. Rollins and John E. O'Connor
THE UNNERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY
Publication of this volume was made possible in part
by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Copyright © 1998 by The University Press of Kentucky
Paperback edition 1999
Chapter 13 © 2003 by The University Press of Kentucky
Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth,
serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre
College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University,
The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College,
Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University,
Morehead State UniverSity, Murray State University,
Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania UniverSity,
University of Kentucky, University of Louisville,
and Western Kentucky University.
All rights reserved.
Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky
663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008
www.kentuckypress.com
13 12 11 10 09 9 8 7 6 5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hollywood's Indian: the portrayal of the Native American in film I
Peter C. Rollins and John E. O'Connor, editors.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-lO: 0-8131-2044-6 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN-lO: 0-8131-9077-0 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Indians in motion pictures. I. Rollins, Peter C. II. O'Connor, John E.
PN1995.9.I48H66 1998
791.43'6520397-dc21
ISBN-13: 978-0-8131-9077-8 (pbk: alk. paper)
This book is printed on acid-free recycled paper meeting
the requirements of the American National Standard
for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials.
€9*
Manufactured in the United States of America.
~~.~'.~ Member of the Association of
'I~ - American University Presses
To Ray and Pat Browne
pioneers in the study
of the popular-culture images
that shape our lives

Contents
Foreword WILCOMB E. WASHBURN ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction. The Study of Hollywood's Indian:
Still on a Scholarly Frontier?
PETER C. ROLLINS AND JOHN E. O'CONNOR 1
1. Absurd Reality II: Hollywood Goes to the Indians
TED JOJOLA 12
2. The White Man's Indian: An Institutional Approach
JOHN E. O'CONNOR 27
3. The Indian of the North: Western Traditions and
Finnish Indians
HANNU SALMI 39
4. Trapped in the History of Film: The Vanishing American
MICHAEL J. RILEY 58
5. The Representation of Conquest: John Ford and the
Hollywood Indian (1939-1964)
KEN NOLLEY 73
6. Cultural Confusion: Broken Arrow
FRANK MANCHEL 91
7. The Hollywood Indian versus Native Americans:
Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here
JAMES A. SANDOS AND LARRY E. BURGESS 107
viii I Contents
8. Native Americans in a Revisionist Western: Little Big Man
MARGO KASDAN AND SUSAN TAVERNETII 121
9. Driving the Red Road: Powwow Highway
ERIC GARY ANDERSON 137
10. "Going Indian": Dances With Wolves
ROBERT BAIRD 153
11. Deconstructing an American Myth: The Last of the Mohicans
J
EFFREY WALKER 170
12. Playing Indian in the 1990s: Pocahontas and The Indian in the
Cupboard
PAULINE TURNER STRONG 187
13. This Is What It Means to Say Srrwke Signals: Native American
Cultural Sovereignty
J.
AMANDA COBB 206
Bibliography. Western Films: The Context for Hollywood's Indian
STEVEN MINTZ 229
Contributors 234
Index 239
Foreword
The image of the American Indian, more than that of any other ethnic
group, has been shaped by films. Why? Because the characteristics that
define the American Indian are dramatically conveyed by this powerful
twentieth-century medium. All American ethnic groups, of course, are
defined-stereotyped, if you will-by Hollywood, but no other provides
the opportunity to convey that image in a narrative form in terms of rapid
physical movement, exotic appearance, violent confrontation, and a spiri
tuality rooted in the natural environment.
Such characteristics attracted European and American observers long
before the advent of film. The image of the Indian in dramatic, violent,
and exotic terms was incorporated in the reports of missionaries and sol
diers, in philosophiC treatises, in histories, and in the first American
bestsellers, the captivity narratives of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. Although the image of the Indian varied in these early deSCrip
tions, one is struck by the tone of admiration and frequent references to
honor and nobility even in the context of cruelty and savagery.
The present collection of essays illustrates the widely varying trends
and depictions of the American Indian in films. Among those trends are
the change from the Indian's being portrayed as savage opponent to that
of being portrayed as wronged victim or generous host. More recently
there has been a dramatic shift from white actors portraying Indians to
Indian actors (finally) portraying Indians. How much better for us all
Indians and whites-that the Indian activist Russell Means has finally
found his metier as an actor (as Chingachgook) in The Last oft he Mohicans
and as the narrator in Disney's Pocahontas. Means' Sioux continue, as in
history, to lord it over their traditional enemies (as in Dances With Wolves,
in which Wes Studi provides a stunning image of the evil Pawnee in con
trast to the idylliC and peace-loving Sioux).
I believe that the film industry, because of its ability to define the
Indian past in dramatic cinematic terms, helped promote the recovery of
the contemporary Indian in the early and mid-twentieth century and the