Native Americans and Their Portrayal in the Western Film Genre

The Western Film Genre

And It’s Portrayal of

Native Americans

            Throughout American cinema history, there has been an emphasis on the good vs. bad guy, the protagonist vs. the antagonist, a desire to achieve greatness, and goals that the characters have in order to achieve greatness. However, the Western film genre, although following these emphases, differs a little from other genres in that it has left a historical impact on American history. Through Western films, there will be an attempt to explain how the field of Native American history has changed throughout the decades. There will also be a discussion of how Euro-Americans and Native Americans view the portrayals of Native Americans in films because it is one that has come under recent scrutiny.

            To begin with, the Western movies were inspired by the early dime novels and pulp magazines that were present throughout American society in the late 19^th Century. For example, some of the first Western movies were of Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show, and Cody was discovered by the popular novelist Ned Buntline.[1] However, it was also these popular reads that took their inspiration from James Fenimore Cooper’s characters in the 1820s. It was his frontiersmen that provided the structure for characters of Western films. The Western movies would often show a Euro-American’s fight for accomplishment by distinguishing himself from the Eastern men, defeating the enemy that stood in their way, and/or having a struggle of becoming Westernized.

            It would not be until Jim Kitses till the Western film genre could begin to be analyzed on a larger scale, for he proposed a structural analysis of the films by comparing the wilderness to civilization.[2] Belton states,

For Kitses, it is possible to understand all Westerns as articulating a national mythology; the deep structure that informs that mythology reveals basic contradictions that lie at the core of the American psyche.[3]

Because of Kitses is possible to explain two of the important different subgenres within the Western film genres. For example, the first often showed how the Easterner would move West, meet the divide between nature and culture, adopt the ways of the West, build small cabins that often resembled Native American dwellings, and then learned like an Indian to survive off the land. An example of this type of film would be the film Dances With Wolves, where the Caucasian abandons his way of life that he knew to survive in a new land and culture. On the contrast, there is also the second subgenre of Western films where the Easterners would move Westward, adapt to the new way of life, but then at the same time retain some of the Eastern traits.[4] An example of this type of film would be Western Union, where an Eastern tenderfoot (someone who is naïve to the way of life, but will be transformed through guidance of a mentor-like character) exchanges his cityslicker appearance for western boots, chaps, vest, and learns to survive throughout the movie. This being one of the most common types of Western films, there is often a scene where a tenderfoot is taught a shooting lesson by an experienced gunfighter as in movies like Red River or The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

            One of the chief conflicts of Western movies is that between nature and culture, and a conflict that comes in a close tie is the conflict between two cultures. The conflict between two cultures is where there have been many stereotypical portrayals of Native Americans. On this topic, Belton states,

In many of these films, Native Americans are stereotypically portrayed as violent savages. In fact, only a handful of Westerns portray them as superficial concern for accuracy in costume and artifacts, to the particulars of Indian culture. Even in the films that are most sympathetic to them, Indians are not presented as Indians, but as romantic, Rousseauesque noble savages living in implicit defiance of a decadent European civilization.[5]

The portrayal of Native Americans as violent savages or nobel savages is one that has impacted American history in several ways throughout the decades.

            Native Americans in American Western films often shed a negative light on the tribe that is mentioned. There is also the point that some portrayals of Native Americans in films have even been played by white men such as Burt Lancaster in the film Apache. It has been rare for Native Americans to establish a prominence in the Western film genre, and in really any American film genre. However, the few that have include Chief Thundercloud who starred in Ramona and Chief Yowlachie who starred in Red River. It is the fact that many Native Americans have been incorrectly viewed through history in films that upsets several tribes. This is largely due to a wish that the correct and historical significance of Native Americans be shown through films, not necessarily a fictionalized and mythic story that is incorrect.

            For example, films as famous as Walt Disney’s Pocahontas even show an aspect of Native American history and American history falsely. The classic “princess” Indian was shown as being almost mythic-like in appearance, always approached the Europeans with an open arm, and even marrying John Smith whom she saved. However, this is the legend that has been taught to generations that is untrue. The Powhatan Indians (the tribe in which Pocahontas belonged) were hesitant towards the newcomers on their soil. Also, Pocahontas’ real name was Matoaka, which is failed to be mentioned in movies as well as classrooms. Even more astonishing that is contradicting to the myth of a noble savage that is often portrayed in films is that she was not married to John Smith, she was married to John Rolfe, and when he took her to England she was presented to the society as a model of savagery that has been civilized. This is just the most common example that is thought of when analyzing a film’s historical significance. 

            In conclusion, Native Americans throughout film history have had a distorted representation that falsifies and mystifies American history as a whole. It is a topic that Native Americans in present day are attempting to correct, or at least voice their concerns and corrections about the past representations. Below are clips from movies with brief descriptions of the type of Native American portrayals.

In this film clip (Dances With Wolves), one can see how a Western film has a conflict between the two cultures. It shows how a Caucasian attempts to discover his place in the Western frontier before it is destroyed by mankind. The clip is also filled with other scenes that could be labeled as incorrect. For example, the herd of buffalo would have most likely been smaller due to the demise of the animal for its coat on the European trade markets. 

The Last of the Mohicans also shows the conflicts between two different cultures. Some of the historical wrongs within this movie is that it takes place in early colonial America. Therefore, looking at the geographical location and the tribes that were present, their costume should be different. Instead of the Indians being shown in warpaint, and ponytails with shaved heads, which were the images of Great Plain Indians, the early colonists were more likely to encounter the tribes that would later be known as the Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, and Seminole), Iroquois, Montauk, Narraganset, Delaware, Powhatan, and others that are along the Eastern sea border. Although some of these tribes did indeed have shaven heads, hair was often valued as a religious and an important and sacred cultural part of their heritage. However, the British often used Native American guides throughout their journeys in the new land. 

In The Return of a Man Called Horse, shows how there are some films that are sympathetic, but portray the image of noble savagery.

Works Cited

Belton, John. American Cinema/American Culture. 3^rd ed. Boston: McGraw Hill Higher
          Education. 2009.

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[1] John Belton, American Cinema/American Culture. 3^rd ed. (Boston: McGraw Hill Higher Education, 2009), 246.

[2] Ibid., 248.

[3] Ibid., 248-249.

[4] Ibid., 249.

[5] Ibid., 255.