Response and Analysis to “Cowboys and Indians: Perceptions of Western Films Among Indians and Anglos,” “Hollywood’s Muslim Arabs,” and the film Smoke Signals
...n been treated as bogeymen in television shows like JAG and The West Wing, and even “cartoon characters such as Popeye, Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, Daffy Duck, Superman, and Batman have ridiculed and trounced Arabs” (Shaheen 308). An extremely telling excerpt from the essay is a conversation that Shaheen had with James Baerg, the Director of Program Practices for CBS-TV in New York: “I think,” [Baerg] remarked, “the Arab stereotype is attractive to a number of people. It is an easy thing to do. It is the thing that is going to be most readily accepted by a large number of the audience. It is not the same as throwing in sex and violence when an episode is slow.” (Shaheen 297) As Shaheen notes, “Not much has changed since then” (Shaheen 297). Smoke Signals is an innovative film that has the added weight of actually being a Native American production. Native Americans not only wrote and produced the film, but they starred in it. The film is about two young men, Victor and Thomas, and how they deal with various problems and situations in their lives. However, the film also reflects the humor and humanity of these two young Native Americans on a personal level, not from a “white man’s perspective” or from a “white man’s narration,” as too many films on Native Americans often have. The characters in the film are not the stereotypical Indian of 1940s cinema—they do not have feathers in their hair or war paint on their faces. They are certainly fluent speakers of the English language. As the film starts, we see the remnants of a party that could anywhere. Arnold Joseph is dressed in denim and a western shirt—not stereotypical Native American garb. Although he is drunk, he is alert enough to save Thomas, who is a baby at the time and is thrown out of a window of the burning house. Though the image of alcoholism in the film initially reinforces the negative stereotype that all Indians are “drunks,” it is the reaction to his alcoholism by other Native Americans around him, like his wife and children, which breaks down the negative stereotype. They simply do not put up with it. Victor is the protagonist of the story, and is on a trip to retrieve his father’s ashes. Much of the film focuses on the lingering “demons” that surround Victor and the relationship with his father. He is joined along the way by a boyhood friend, Thomas, whom Victor tries to “assimilate” into being a “true” Native American (according to stereotypes): “warrior-like,” “stoic,” with long hair instead of braided hair, and definitely not wearing a suit, as Thomas often does. As the narrator of the film, Thomas relates the story in his own feelings and words, which is again truly different than other films focused on Native Americans where persons of a different race tell the story, such as Kevin Costner’s character, Lt. John Dunbar, in the film Dances with Wolves. Analysis The common thread between “Cowboys and Indians: Perceptions of Western Films Among American Indians and Anglos,” “Hollywood’s Muslim Arabs,” and Smoke Signals, is that each essay or film deals with the undeniable prevalence of stereotypes in our culture. In “Cowboys and Indians,” the results of Shively’s research mirrors the conclusions of W.E.B. DuBois’ “double consciousness” theory and “veil” metaphor in his book, "The Souls of Black Folk." Initially, both Indians and Anglos enjoyed the film that Shively used in her research, The Searchers, primarily because all viewers “find a fantasy in the cowboy story in which the important parts of their ways of life triumph and are morally good” (Shively 212). However, Shively notes that Indian college students were able to see the film through a “different lens” (Shively 212), thus allowing them to see the films’ “false representation of their ancestry and history.” This mirrors DuBois’ statement that, as long as one is behind the “veil,” one is part of the “world which yields him no self-consciousness but only lets him see himself through the revelation...