272 Chapter 7 INVESTIGATING POSTSCRIPT ON THE WRITING PROCESS While the process of writing an investigative essay is still fresh in your mind, answer the following questions in your journal. ** We are all apprentices at a craft where no one ever becomes a master. ++ ERNEST HEMINGWAY, NOVELIST 1. What sources of information (articles, books, interviews, surveys) were most helpful in your investigation? Explain. 2. Most researchers discover that the more they learn, the more they still need to know about their subjects. If you had more time to work on this essay, which sources would you investigate further? 3. What was the most difficult problem you had to solve during your collecting, shaping, drafting, and revising? What helped you most as you tried to solve this problem (further reading, additional writing, advice from peers)? Explain. 4. What was the single most important thing you learned about investigating as you wrote this paper? 5. What do you like best about the final version of your investigative report? STUDENT WRITING LAUREN STRAIN STUDENT WRITING The Hollywood Indian As the granddaughter of a Cherokee Indian, Lauren Strain decided to investigate how Native Americans have been portrayed in Hollywood films. How accurately have films such as Dances with Wolves, The Last of the Mohicans, and Disneys Pocahontas portrayed American Indians? What stereotypes are presented in these films? Which Native American actors have helped change these stereotypes? In order to answer these questions, Strain watched old films, interviewed her grandfather, and researched several popular films about American Indians. INVESTIGATING PAPER PROPOSAL Being a quarter Indian,I have grown up with only a few Indian images in my life. Those images come from my grandfather, a Cherokee, and from the Indians in movies and on television. I have always been curious about Hollywood s portrayal of Indians. My grandfather, being adopted, did not grow up with any traditional Indian beliefs or values, so I heard of none.so I won-
der if my perceptions about Indian culture and value systems are correct. I would like to look into that more for my paper. Using sources from movies, TV, photos and articles, I would like to go into the Native American resource center and speak to a full-blood Indian who has experienced some of the traditional ways and values. Using my grandfather as a resource will also be an option. I would like to ask him how he felt seeing the images of Indians on television, and if he thought that they truly reflected how he saw himself as an Indian. I would start out my paper with the perception of Tonto in The Lone Ranger. Using Sherman Alexie s story, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven as one view of Tonto, I would continue with written accounts of the actor who played Tonto in the TV show. Next, I would look at Hollywood s perceptions of Indians on reservations. I could use Smoke Signals and other movies for those images. I will also look for movie reviews in journals in the library s database for any articles on Indians in Hollywood. I will finish my paper with the perception of the traditional soak Indian in Hollywood I mean when Indians had just been taken over by the white man. For this I will use old westerns and the written and visual accounts of the movies Dances with Wolves and The Last of the Mohicans. I am looking forward to this assignment, although it will be challenging to collect all of the information. It will, however, give me the chance to talk with other Indians and perhaps I will be able to grow as a person as well as a Cherokee Indian. I will also have a reason to ask my grandfather all of the questions that I have had for him ever since I was a child. I would like to direct this paper to all white and red people to help them see that although many of us believe almost everything we see on television and in movies, some of that information might be false. It will be a journey to find out what is true and what is false about some of the first people to inhabit America. OUTLINE: THE HOLLYWOOD INDIAN I. Introduce Topic A. How are Indians portrayed in Hollywood? B. Grandfather Cherokee and how I grew up with the TV and movie Indians as my models. C. Introduce movies like Dances with Wolves and The Last of the Mohicans. II. Movie portrayal of Native Americans A. The accurate portrayal and inaccurate portrayal of Dances with Wolves. B. The Last of the Mohicans are they really gone? C. Pocahontas an inaccurate portrayal of true women? INVESTIGATING: THE WRITING PROCESS 273
274 Chapter 7 INVESTIGATING...continued The Hollywood Indian, Lauren Strain D. Jack Strain s account of Indians on the reservation in the movie theaters. E. Tonto. III. Indian actors and their movies A. Outlaw Josey Wales (Chief Dan George) B. Maverick (Graham Green) C. Last of the Mohicans (Russell Means) IV. Movies and ideals of Native Americans throughout history A. The early movie portrayal of Native Americans B. President Ulysses S. Grant s quote and ideal C. John Ford s Stagecoach interprets Indians as enemies V. Conclusions A. My own beliefs of how Native Americans are portrayed in Hollywood B. Interview with a Native American student at CSU and what his or her views are about Native Americans in movies THE HOLLYWOOD INDIAN I am the granddaughter of an adopted Cherokee who grew up knowing only 1 the ways of the white man. Not knowing much about the traditional American Indian, my only perceptions of them were through movies and Hollywood. Now that I am older, I stop and ask myself: What is the perception of Indians in Hollywood movies? Some of the most popular movies portraying Indians came out in my younger years (late 1980 s early 1990 s). I remember sneaking in to watch Dances with Wolves with my parents in the movie theater, which is a source of my perceptions of Indians. I even watched Last of the Mohicans in my freshman history class. Not only do I wonder how accurate movies like these are, I am very curious about the actors who play the Indians. During this research I want to answer certain questions. Are recent movies historically correct and do they eliminate stereotypes that people have given to Native Americans? What Native American actors have helped to portray their people accurately? And lastly, how has history helped to portray Native Americans better? Three films that, despite historical inaccuracies, helped to popularize the life and culture of Native Americans were Dances with Wolves, Last 2 of the Mohicans, and Pocahontas. Dances with Wolves has been the most critically acclaimed movie that portrays the correct Indian. When asking my grandfather about whether or not he thought this movie was a correct portrayal, he said, Yes, except for one thing. He told me that at the end of the movie, you see a winter camp deep in the mountains. The Indians would never keep their camp that deep in the mountains during
the winter; they would move on to a warmer place. This was a detail that I had never known about. In Armando J. Prats essay about the comparison between the two cinematic versions of Dances with Wolves, he states that there was a normal film version shown in the theaters and the one released in a TV miniseries that added scenes. He brings up a very valid point: even though, in this movie, the Indians are portrayed in a valid way, the story s main character is a white man. This title is even the white man s given Indian name (6). Watching the movie myself, I noticed that the portrayal of the Sioux Indians was very human and realistic to tradition. The film showed strong bonds between family and tribesmen. I too as well as many others I know also have strong bonds with family and friends. The Indian characters even had a sense of humor, which also helped me connect to them easier. The movie Last of the Mohicans is also a very realistic film but it has some historical misrepresentations. It takes place during the French and Indian War in 1757. This movie was shown to me in my freshman history class to illustrate brutalities of the war itself. Those details of the movie were portrayed very clearly. In one scene, an Indian from the Mohawk tribe eats the heart of a British general. I am not quite sure whether or not this type of brutality actually happened but I do know that scalpings were regular occurrences during the French and Indian War. Just like humans today, people kill people in savage ways. And although there are many accurate historical details about the war itself, like the Mohegan tribe helping out the settlers in Canada, there are misrepresentations about the details concerning the Mohegan tribe. One plot point that is incorrect is that the Mohegan tribe is extinct, as the movie suggests. Melissa Sayet, in her essay The Lasting of the Mohegans, tells us [I am] a Mohegan Indian, alive and well in 1993 (55). The Mohegan tribe still exists, although it is very small, in Uncasville, Connecticut. The small tribe has a church, museum and an all-indian run institution that has existed for sixty-two years to help show their history. Sayet tells us that the media is responsible for putting the thought into people s heads that the tribe has been dead for a long time. The myth was actually created by Lydia Howard Sigourney. Sayet writes, It seems that it was far easier for Lydia to romanticize dead Mohegans than to deal with the realities of alcoholism and poverty among living ones (56). A well-known poet that knew of the Mohegan tribe, Sigourney wrote of their extinction anyway. An additional inaccuracy in The Last of the Mohicans, although it may be small, is that the spelling of the tribe s name is different in the movie compared to the spelling that the tribe uses (Mohican vs. Mohegan). According to Sayet, this was because of the miscommunication between the tribe and Europeans during first contact. The Mohegan tribe did not have an alphabet to help convey the correct spelling (56). Another reason for the misspelling is the fact that there are two tribes with INVESTIGATING: THE WRITING PROCESS 275 3 4 5
276 Chapter 7 INVESTIGATING...continued The Hollywood Indian, Lauren Strain the same name spelled differently. One tribe comes from Connecticut and the other from the Hudson Valley in New York. The author of The Last of the Mohicans just accidentally switched the names unknowingly, according to the First Nations Web Site (First Nations). When I watched the movie, I saw the romantic reasons for saying that the tribe was extinct at the end. The Mohegan men were very stoic, smart, athletic and heroic. I have never met a Mohegan Indian, so I am not sure how they carry themselves. I do know that not all the Indians were known heroes. It was hard not to fall in love with these characters, though. The movie was designed to pull at your heart. In the end, when the character Changachook, the father of Uncas and the second-to-last Mohegan, tells us he is the only remaining Mohegan, it is very convincing and sad. This is how Hollywood wants us to feel. If movies did not leave people with any type of feeling, whether humor, sadness or happiness, then there would be no reason to watch. In contrast to the more accurate portrayals of Native Americans in Dances with Wolves and Last of the Mohicans, a third popular Native American film, Pocahontas, is very inaccurate historically speaking. Disney s version of Pocahontas focuses on a very historic American Indian. This movie is very factually inaccurate, however. The Indians were portrayed as very peaceful and loving in this film. Pocahontas is an Indian princess who falls in love with the handsome John Smith, an English soldier looking for land in the New World. She ends up saving his life, and he asks her to come with him back to England to be his wife. She declines his offer, saying she could never leave her family and her land. The true story of Pocahontas is different in many ways. The age of the character in the Disney movie seems to be in her early twenties. The real Pocahontas was sixteen years old. She did save the life of John Smith, but she fell in love with his friend, John Rolfe. She also ended up leaving America and going to England to marry him. Shortly upon her arrival, she died of smallpox. Although the film is historically inaccurate, telling children the real story of Pocahontas would not have been a wise decision on the part of Disney. They like to show a happy story that promotes values. A sixteen-year-old girl marrying an older man is not a common thing these days. Plus, the main character never dies in Disney movies. I can see why Disney changed the story. They did, however, keep the happy and peaceful image of the Indians, thus promoting them; but they didn t tell the story in a historically correct manner. The second question that I had was who were/are the Native American actors who have helped Hollywood portray a historically unstereotypical Indian? Three of the most recognized Indian actors in Hollywood who have portrayed historically accurate Indian characters are Graham Green, Russell Means, and Chief Dan George. 6 7 8 9
Graham Green is best known for his portrayal of Kicking Bird in Dances with Wolves. He received an Academy Award Nomination for best supporting actor for that role. Green is also a well-known draftsman, steel worker, civil technologist, and sound engineer. He graduated from a Native American theater school, where his comedy skills shined (Green). We see Green s comic acting shine through in the movie Maverick. In this movie, his character, Joseph, is earning money for his tribe by running around in war paint and having his tribe beat their drums for a European who wants to experience the real west. When we see him encounter the European, he begins to speak the man s native language. When the European tells Joseph to speak as they do in the movies, Joseph says How, white man, a stereotypical greeting. Joseph tells his friend Maverick how stupid he feels acting as if he is foolish and savage when in fact we see he is a very intellectual person (Maverick). I believe that Graham Green chose this role because he was able to show people how inaccurate and stupid the stereotypical Indian can be, when in reality Indians can be intellectual, caring people. Russell Means is known more for his work outside Hollywood, but he is still praised for the roles he has taken in movies. He has been involved in civil rights for Native Americans since the 1960s. He has also done work with the United Nations for over twelve years. His most recent spot in the public eye was not in a movie, but rather in the demonstration against Columbus Day celebrations. Means got involved in acting in 1991. His most recognizable role was in Last of the Mohicans, where he plays the eldest Mohegan, a wise and brave man. His character was the leader of the family of Mohegans in this movie and he never strayed and helped to keep the spirit of the tribe alive when it was lost with the passing of his son. Chief Dan George (1899 1981) also helped to show film viewers that American Indians were intelligent and civilized and not the typical savages. George was the chief of the Salish Band in the Burrard Inlet, in British Columbia, Canada. He was a very gifted actor and the author of many books, such as My Heart Soars and My Spirit Soars. George was also nominated for an Academy Award for his role in Little Big Man. He was also in the TV miniseries Centennial (Chief Dan George). In the movie The Outlaw Josey Wales, Chief Dan George s character, Lone Watie, explains to Josey Wales how he was part of the tribe the white man called the civilized tribe, or the Cherokee. His character is wearing a top hat and a suit when we first see him in the film. He tells Wales that he dressed up as Abe Lincoln to impress Lincoln when he met him. Later we see Watie burning his clothes, wearing less casual traveling garments. He tells Wales how he forgot things and lost his way when he became civilized (The Outlaw Josie Wales). The clothes Chief Dan George wore in that movie were very symbolic in the story that he told. Although these INVESTIGATING: THE WRITING PROCESS 277 10 11 12 13 14
278 Chapter 7 INVESTIGATING...continued The Hollywood Indian, Lauren Strain were the words of a fictional character, I believe that they helped reflect the struggle of a Native American to be accepted as civilized. Because of Hollywood, these struggles and lifestyles were able to get out to movie watchers. The final question I was curious about was when and if historical events helped to change the portrayal of Native Americans in Hollywood. The change from the savage enemy Indian came with World War II because the Nazis became the enemy rather than Native Americans. Angela Aleiss writes, Previous images of menacing warriors who blocked Westward expansion gradually began to fade into one in which Indians stood as allies rather than enemies alongside America s frontier heroes (25). Most movies changed stereotypes, but there were still some that had inaccurate portrayals like Geronimo (1939) and They Died With Their Boots On (1941). In addition to the change brought on by World War II, Aleiss tells us that there were three other contributions. The first one was to keep the relations between America, the United Kingdom, and Canada on good terms. Puritanical leaders wanted a good portrayal of Americans with other races. The second contribution, Alesiss says, is the pro-interventionist politics of Hollywood studios [that] helped to create a mindset that would reshape the Indians image at least two years before Americas entry into the war (26). Hollywood executives were trying to rid the movie industry of fascist ideals. The final element was that the image of the ally Indian was not a fad, but rather a gateway for other Western movie themes. My grandfather grew up next to a reservation before World War II, so I asked him in my interview how Native Americans reacted to the westerns depicting them as the enemy. He told me that most of them went to the movies for the cartoons before the movie itself. They did not show any emotional reaction to it, he said. I found it interesting that they would even go to the movies at all. When telling my grandfather this, he told me that, It was a way for the Indians to break into the western culture. That helped me to understand their reasons for going. When conducting my survey of students in my class, three out of ten thought that movies still portray Indians in a stereotypically savage manner. Two of them thought that Hollywood was doing a good job in the portrayal of the correct Native American. One person wrote, Hollywood is more worried about offending anybody who is not white. Because people today are very sensitive, everyone, including Hollywood, watches what they say and do. Throughout my research, I have found that Native Americans are portrayed in a very positive light. The negative stereotypical Indian has slowly faded with images of the true west. Although there are still few 15 16 17 18 19
exceptions, one aspect that I see in movies with Native Americans is historical details being left out. For example, the Mohegan tribe still existing and the movie Last of the Mohicans portraying their extinction. Also, the Indians in the last scene of Dances with Wolves, who use an incorrect stopping ground during the winter. I believe that Hollywood is concerned about offending Native Americans, but historical context comes into play in what they write and put in movies. Hollywood has a duty to add accurate historical context to the films; movies are taken very seriously in today s culture. Children learn from what they see in movies and on TV. But should Hollywood risk a good story just for entertainment value? I believe that the film industry can mix fact and fiction while still pulling off a good story. They should learn the correct history of America and all its people. Works Cited Aleiss, Angela. Prelude to World War II: Racial Unity and the Hollywood Indian. Journal of American Culture 18. 2 (1995): 25 34. Print. Chief Dan George. Indigenous Peoples Literature. American Indian Heritage Foundation, 14 Dec. 1998. Web. 7 May 2001. First Nations. Ed. Jordan S. Dill. 2000. Web. 23 Apr. 2001. Green, Graham. Home page. 16 Jan. 2000. Web. 6 May 2001. <http://www.geocities/ Hollywood/guild/9621/grahamgreen.html> The Last of the Mohicans. Dir. Michael Mann. Perf. Russell Means and Daniel Day- Lewis. Twentieth Century Fox, 1992. DVD. Maverick. Dir. Richard Donner. Perf. Graham Green and Mel Gibson. Warner Brothers, 1994. Videocassette. The Outlaw Josey Wales. Dir. Clint Eastwood. Perf. Clint Eastwood and Chief Dan George. Warner Brothers, 1976. DVD. Prats, Armando J. The Image of the Other and the Other Dances with Wolves : The Refigured Indian and the Textual Supplement. Journal of Film and Video 50.1 (1998): 3 19. Print. Sayet, Melissa F. The Lasting of the Mohegan. Essence 23.11 (March 1993): 55 57. Print. Strain, Jack. Phone interview. 11 April 2001. Strain, Lauren. Personal survey. 3 May 2001. INVESTIGATING: THE WRITING PROCESS 279 vo cab u lar y In your journal, write down the meanings of the italicized words in the following sentences. some historical misrepresentations (3) the romantic reasons (6) pro-interventionist politics of Hollywood studios (16) rid the movie industry of fascist ideals (16)
280 Chapter 7 INVESTIGATING QUESTIONS FOR WRITING AND DISCUSSION * Make a list of films you have seen that have Native American characters. Choose two of those films one older, one more recent. Which characters in both films seemed most realistic and which most stereotypical? Describe the changes you notice between these two films representations of Native American culture, language, politics, or heritage. + At the end of her essay, Strain says that Hollywood can mix fact and fiction while still creating a good story. Would you agree with that statement, or do you think historical accuracy should come first and entertainment values second? Choose a film about Native Americans or any ethnic group and explain what that film loses or gains by placing entertainment values over historical and cultural accuracy (or, conversely, by giving historical/cultural accuracy much more importance than entertainment values)., Strain conducts both a short survey and an interview which she reports on at the end of her paper. Assume you are in a peer-response group, giving her feedback on her essay. Would you advise her to integrate the information in paragraphs 17 and 18 earlier in her essay rather than tacking them on at the end? Where might that information fit? (How do you plan to integrate any interview or survey information in your own essay?) - Read the essay by Margaret Lazarus in Chapter 9, titled All s Not Well in Land of The Lion King. Rent Pocahontas from a video store and watch it. Are there racist or sexist scenes or images in Disney s version of Pocahontas? Does the film ultimately promote Native American cultural values or mainstream white American values? Explain. STUDENT WRITING BRIDGID STONE My Friend Michelle, an Alcoholic Bridgid Stone, a student at Southeast Missouri State University, decided to write her investigative essay on alcoholism. In the library, she was able to find quite a lot of information and statistics about alcohol. In her friend, Michelle, she had a living example of the consequences of alcohol abuse. The question, however, was how to combine the two. As you read her essay, notice how she interweaves description and dialogue with facts and statistics. Five million teenagers are problem drinkers, according to Group magazine s article Sex, Drugs, and Alcohol. One of these five million teenagers is my friend, Michelle. 1