The Hollywood Indian

By Amrit Bains

Stereotypical representations in media of Aboriginal peoples and their cultures have been comprehensive and systematic since the 1880s. The aim of this stereotyping has been to dehumanize the peoples depicted to, amongst other things, justify the genocidal expropriation of their land and resource base.

Many of the Indian stereotypes were formed during the era of silent movies. During this period there was still some diversity in the kinds of Indian societies portrayed and the role of Indians in the stories. Yet John A. Price points out: "They are usually characterized as riding horses, hunting buffalos with bows and arrows or guns, and wearing tailored leather clothing and feathers in their hair or in headdresses. They are seen as consistently been cheated by whites and therefore as consistently as against whites. They are portrayed as persistently involved with warfare, fighting as tribal units under a chief, and taking the scalps or their enemies as war trophies. In more racist terms they are stereotyped as sexually desiring white women and therefore abducting them, being more adversely affected by alcohol than whites, and being humourless, taciturn, and speaking simple languages." (The Pretend Indians, p. 75).

D.W. Griffiths's The Massacre (1913) was the first of what would eventually be 42 different renditions of General Custer, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn.


He was certainly not the last to emphasize the alleged sneakiness of the Indians, and the valour of the American settlers, thus providing rationales as to why it was appropriate to slaughter Indians by the village full. The Massacre contained all the elements that would come to define Aboriginal images in mainstream media for decades to come, including: an emphasis on Plains Indians, and especially the Sioux; living in tipis; wearing feathered headdresses; riding on horseback; always either stoic or stealthful; and locked into the 1850-1890 period. -- Ted Palys


However, as western films became part of the culture, writers and directors built their stories with symbols that had been established in earlier motion pictures. The genre became gradually removed from real history to become a kind of allegorical history. The Western became a milieu of fictional history with symbols for such former concepts as freedom, pragmatism, equality, agrarianism and brutalization. In a typical scene, the white man is presented as the unblemished hero and is always photographed in such a manner as to make him dominate the scene.

All major Indian roles used to be played by white or Hispanic actors (from Anthony Quinn to Dustin Hoffman). They were played according to very static images which have virtually nothing to do with real life. Michael Hilger points out that "generally, film-stereotyped Indian men and women have childlike, primitive emotions: if treated well they are capable of powerful love, loyalty and gratitude; if treated badly, of tenacious, fierce vengeance. Their goodness or badness is always measured by their reaction to whites, never by their intrinsic nature as American Indians, except in some recent films."

Phillip French says that we are shown "the redskin" as one of the "hazards facing those bent on taming a continent and winning the West. At best, he was the noble savage of James Fenimore Cooper, sharing the same qualities of primitive grandeur that resided in the challenge of the wild terrain and harsh climate. At worst he followed a tradition established by early Victorian melodrama: he was treacherous; bloodthirsty, uncompromising; threatening rape, mutilation and death" -- that is, savage.

While it is generally acknowledged that since the 1960s and 1970s some independent film-makers have attempted to portray Aboriginal peoples in a friendly light, the stereotypes have remained and the true portrayals of Indians are no more true to who they really are as individuals, peoples or tribes than they have been in the past.

French points out that in the United States the stereotype of the Native Indian is often used to handle sensitive issues. Arrowhead, for example, is described by French as an "ultra-right wing allegory of the McCarthy period in which the Indians … do service for communists and the whites … for those red-blooded patriots bent on rooting out the Communist conspiracy at home and standing up to its menace abroad." In more recent films, he offers comparisons with America's counterculture and parallels Soldier Blue and Little Big Man (1970) with

Vietnam and My Lai. What French and others see in the contemporary films is a manipulation of the Indian image to present the political ideologies of the film-makers.


Indeed, for Ted Palys, a major element of anti-Indian ideology is the idea that aboriginality is something belonging in the past, that somehow being "aboriginal" is sullied if one chooses to drive a car. This worldview undermines the defence of treaty settlements or the realization of self-determination to the extent that it promotes scepticism about the legitimacy of historical rights, "old" treaties and land claim settlements. Films showing the thriving of aboriginal identity in the present, an identity which thus has every right to choose its future, are too rare.

The stereotyped portraits of Aboriginal peoples have been so all-pervasive and significant that, over the years, millions of people all over the world have acquired their views about Native peoples through the way they are portrayed in the movies. In fact, one of the problems which faces Aboriginal youth today is that these same movies have influenced the manner in which they see themselves.

Amrit Bains recently graduated from York University in anthropology and mass communications.