Native American Stereotyping

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“Rod Serling used fiction to explore negative consequences of the labels we attach to ourselves and others” {Facing History and Culture 2013). For many Native Americans this kind of discrimination is a part of daily life. The film industry has for many years stereotyping Native Americans to extremes. Only our own Government knew the film industries for a time in history as the second greatest enemy of Native Americans. The first greatest enemies of Native Americans during this same time our own Government. The earliest film stereotyping the Native Americans by Thomas Edison (1894) a movie titled “Ghost Dance,” one movie in a series of short films in Kinectoscopes about the Pueblo People. The poorly done editing depicted a demeaning, negative stereotyping of the Indian Nations. This opened up how the film industry would traditionally portray the Native Americans for many years. “Last of the Mohicans” by James Fenmore Cooper in the 1920 film version, depicted two brothers, Hawkeye, white being raised by the Mohicans. Hawkeye’s character in the classic doing everything better, and smarter, than his Mohican brother does. Last of the Mohicans 1920 film debuts Twenty-six years after Edison’s “Ghost Dance, “ debuts , shows stereotyping continuing then as it does now. Imagery used as another form of stereotyping the Native Americans by the film industry. Following along by commercialization of Native made merchandise, buckskin clothing, such as moccasins, coats, and hats. The film industry from the 1920s through the 1950s have a habit portraying the Native Americans in negative ways, and producers like John Ford compounding this way of thinking in his movies “Stagecoach” and “The Searchers”. John Wayne starred in both of the Ford “Classics.” Wayne’s role in “The Searchers “as “Ethan returns to his Brothers homestead (after a

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