The Native Oppression and lies..

So, after the previous weeks readings, I still feel like I would like to cover some more issues with Native Americans and brush up on natives on film. I always had a deep respect and appreciation to the Natives and I feel very connected with them in some form. I have a small amount of native blood myself, but I do pride myself on that. I always wondered why it is natives have been so oppressed and not very noticed in our society. I feel we still do not give them the freedoms and the respect they truly deserve. What would have happened if it was the Natives that sailed to the Americas while being greeted by the whites? Would they be at the same position they are today? I I know this is a bit far fetch of a question, but I do think this at times if the table was turned in many different situations in life. How is it for many years U.S. filmmakers looked at the Natives as the “other” and show them as savages. What have they done wrong other than maybe in the beginning try to protect their land?

U.S. policies toward natives as stated in the text during the nineteenth century were to relocate them onto reservations to contain them. I picture cowboys herding cattle. The Native Americans did not seem to be looked at any higher of respect as that cattle either. In fact, the cattle probably got treated better. The natives were stripped from their homes and those who tried to fight back for their property caused the Government to go to war against them even though in my opinion, the U.S. was at wrong here and the natives did nothing that anyone else would not do in this situation. The text also mentions some less obvious tactics against the natives was delivering small-pox infected blankets as a charity front and they would hunt buffalo to near extinction which was means of clothing and food.

Many movies you seen and film even portrayed Natives as animalistic savages. Even today, in the film Apocalypto, they show them being beyond savages. They show two sides however. In the book it mentions that the Mayan culture found itself in war with itself. The movie shows a very peaceful tribes being wiped out by the more violent ones to be used as human sacrifices. I feel this film regardless of showing the better side as well, puts in the heads of our young who may not know the difference and maybe some of the less educated that this is a norm for natives. When a movie shows the Natives to be on a more positive side, much of the time it is because they are to help the white man as we mentioned in class. Tonto being an example was the “dumb,” but loyal Native sidekick to the Lone Ranger. In the text, it even says that Tonto in Spanish means “crazy.” Another way to take the positive image and still give the native a bad name.

More often than not, the Indian was shown in a negative light on film as the bloodthirsty savage that has no education and will come rape and kill. For example, the text mentioned that whenever Hollywood Westerns distinguished a specific Indian nation, they would name and depict the tribes that fought back against the white encroachment. This is one way the Sioux and Apache tribes were seen as violent heathens. The Hollywood Indian is what we see as an image with the native having a headband. This has become a major trademark for natives even though the headband is not Native American at all in the real world. The headband was branded as native because in the Hollywood films, actors needed to keep their wigs on. Every Native American carried a bow and arrow, wore feathered headdresses and smoked peace pipes in their tee-pee. How many Native Americans do you see walking around the street or in a store with a headdress and a bow and arrow in hand? I do not think you will ever know, and much of the time you would not even pick them out from a crowd today .

Whale Rider, AOF Chapter 5, and Indigenous stories overview....Quiz alternative

While watching the movie "Whale Rider" I noticed a few things in this film. For one, I know its not important, but I noticed that Pai wore a head band. This I would possibly consider what we may call a "Hollywood Indian" image since I remember that the headband is actually a white mans addition to the Indian image due to the fact that they needed something to keep their wigs on. I was kind of wondering why they would have the character Pai wear one for her traditional showcase of her people in front of them.

I also notice how women are looked as inferior to men in their culture from how grandpa would treat Pai. No matter how much she would prove herself to her grandpa and show that what the boys could do, she could do better. The scene were she beat out the boy fighting and grandpa seen that, that boy who was originally looked as the top prospect to become the next chief or leader of the tribe all of a sudden was looked down to as an inferior man and a failure. He was casted away from the trails and could no longer become the leader if he was to win out the spot. Grandpa still over looked Pai because she was a female. He never seemed to accept her and seemed he wished it was her rather than the boy that died when she was born , so he could make him the new leader when he grew up. Pai had to risk her life and nearly die to prove herself to her grandpa.

I do connect this story as more of an Indian Story since it portrays the Native (who is of New Zealand) as actual real people and not these uneducated savages out to scalp their enemies. Just an observation. They were not seen as the "other." You can compare this to a Native American Story teller, that speaks to the people and really brings you into the Maori culture. I truly felt I had a peak into their life and their history. We seen a lot of traditions of their old ways that they still hold on to.

I did notice that they seemed to be segregated from the rest of the world or their country of New Zealand. I am not sure if this is because they chose to keep away from the rest of the world to maintain their more traditional ways so they do not assimilate. You may think maybe because they are seen as the "other" and they have been segregated, but this is hard to believe being that New Zealand is very supportive and has embraced its indigenous culture. If it was here in the United states were only about 1% of the population is native, you can believe it would be because of the "other" image. We have as a nation oppressed the natives to were they are today. In New Zealand were the population is 15% they have really grasped the idea and they are teaching some Maori language in many schools there. This makes you think that, what if the native population here in the states were the same breakdown as they are in New Zealand . Would the U.S. population be more supporting and embrace the Native culture as they did in New Zealand, or would we still be were we are today?

Rebel or lost?

When I watched Rebel Without a Cause, I could not help, but notice the rolls of masculinity of men in this film kind of lacked in the characters. It really seemed that majority of the men roles were showing softer aspects in personality. As we know, our society seems to hold this idea of man and masculinity were man should be tough, not cry, show little to no emotions, etc. I Rebel Without a Cause you can see the man not being the society "norm" for masculinity.

You see this early on in the movie were Jim Stark (Dean) is in tears about how his father is more or less being pushed around by his mother hinting that his dad Frank Stark has no spine and needs to "man up" as some would say. He wishes his dad would just stand up for himself once at least. During this, Jim is in tears and showing a lot of personal feelings and emotions about this matter which if he was a "true man" in society standards, this would not have happened and he would not be so emotional about the situation, at least in public.

Jim seems to be very disappointed with his father and wants to see his father be the "man" for once and the father he needs in his life to show him how to be a "man." We see a scene were Jim walks in on his father just after his father dropped a tray that he was bringing to Jim's mom and the father almost seemed to fear his own wife while picking up the food hoping the mom would not find out while at the same time wearing a very feminine flowery apron. I feel honestly, the only masculine male role in the film is the Juvenile detective. He even asks Jim to go to him if he ever needs to just talk to someone. The detective shows all the typical signs of masculinity and has a very alpha male feel to him compared to the others.

You later get introduced to Pluto who by all means shows everything that goes against the male gender role. He has emotion, attachment towards Jim, seems very dependent, emotional, and I can not help but feel that this character may have a very feminine personality and I wondered if he may possibly be gay. He seems way to comfortable hanging on Jim in a sense and seems to want to spend every waking moment with him just after knowing Jim for a few minutes even. He has very delicate features about him as well. I feel that all in all, this film challenges the society standards of femininity and masculinity in many ways.

Body image, or illusion

Looking into how our society looks at what is the perfect body image makes me wonder. I wonder if majority of the "perfect" body or image is something that was set as a standard since the beginning of time, or are we mostly influenced by what we see through the media? Thinking about this for some time, I have definitely come to believe the media has way more influence on what we think is acceptable. I do wonder however, were did the media get the idea of this image it portrays. Was this from one particular person who got their Joly's off on a particular look that had a big influence on the industry, or was it maybe a trend that grew in years of movies, TV shows, Advertisements, Etc. that was ingrained in our heads and our children's heads since adolescence? I do have to ask if this idea image is healthy for our children to see. After all, how many women and even men that we see in the media are actually healthy. Look at how sickly skinny most of the runway models look that we see and also many of the "bombshell" Hollywood actresses we see on the television. Personally, I do not think this is healthy for anyone. You have to look at many of the young kids already starting to diet at a young age due to this "perfect" body image that we see in the media. There is no escape from these images and we need to teach our kids from Early on and monitor them. They need to be taught the truth and they need to be taught that this look is not normal and is not healthy. Sure, obesity is no better, but we need to know the happy medium. We all are different and our bodies all react different. The children need to be educated by us before they get their ideas of the "perfect acceptable" image.
I have lived through this side of dieting to have the perfect body. I was surrounded in this since childhood as a competitive ice dancer. It never seemed to matter how in shape and unhealthily skinny you were, you were always still a bit big. My ex-wife for instance is a sad story due to the fact that this idea of the perfect body for her profession nearly killed her. She started seeing her teeth crack and her nails were frail. She was about 5'4 weighing 100 lbs and still had to diet. She ended up becoming a bulimic and it ended up putting her to the hospital. She would treat herself during this time of her life to a dessert, but instead of swallowing it, she would chew it up good and spit it down the sink. She hid this from all of us for years. She would eat and then go and throw up her food shortly after so she would not gain the weigh.
Here as you can see is a horrible lifestyle to maintain that "perfect" body image we are shown everyday and many are influenced by and even told this is the way it is from people we think we can trust. Some of these same people are influenced perhaps to believe this is the acceptable body image and influence people at a young age. It seems to me this is a down hill spiral and can trickle down from the media to the watcher to whoever they have an influence on and so on.
I don't know, these are just some thoughts and some questions as well as a few beliefs I personally have. How many people do you really know "in person" that look like some of these models and actors/actresses we see. Much of the time, what we see is not even their body, but what am I to say what is acceptable and not. I am just saying though, I know myself when finding women attractive, I do not generally find the skinny rib and hip bone showing sickly looking that attractive. I want a real woman and I am sure there are others who feel the same both men and women.