On May 19, 1883, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show held its first performance in Omaha, Nebraska. The show was famous for its theatrical depictions of frontier life, and infamous for its portrayal of Native Americans. According to Nabb Research Center, “Various scenes that were performed in a way that a settler could be seen riding by, traveling with his families and the Native Americans would pass by on their horses and attack them[…],this communicated the idea that the Native Americans were violent, had no compassion.”
Soon, these portrayals made their way to the big screen, as seen in the English short film “Kidnapping by Indians” in 1899, which was widely considered the first western ever created. Notably, in these staples of early media in both American performance and cinema, Native Americans play the roles of drunkards, cruel, unintelligent, or in rare cases assistants to the white protagonists. “These misrepresentations are not only offensive, but they reinforce ignorant ideals, fuel discrimination, and justify violence against Indian peoples,” according to Nabb Research Center.
These issues continue to influence how Native culture is presented in the media today through tokenism, underrepresentation, and misappropriation. Perfection may be impossible, at least for now, but it is crucial to reflect on the media’s long lasting reliance on Native people, characters, and stories.
Even films that attempted “positive” depictions of Native characters, such as seen in “Broken Arrow” (1950), every Native role was still portrayed by white actors using explicitly racist make up. As recently as Rooney Mara in “Pan” (2015) and Johnny Depp in “The Lone Ranger” (2013) have blatant uses of red face.
Miscasting continues in less explicit ways. In 2022, actor Kelsey Asbillie, who played a Native character in the TV series “Yellowstone,” Claimed Cherokee ancestry. However, The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), issued a formal letter denying she was a descendant or a member of their tribe. The erasure of Native culture through stereotypes has caused generations of stereotypes in the media that continues to make the average American unaware of all the ways they are faced with culturally incisive propaganda on a day to day basis.
The way many interact with culture is through shared experiences, and this culture is founded on profiting off of the consumer and their opinion of a product. History has sold the average American the Native American stereotype, and now, over 100 years later many are unable to perceive the expansive cultural tapestries of Native American culture because of what it has been rendered down to.
Years of trials and tribulations have come from Native peoples working hard to keep their cultural voices alive. From the formation of the American Indian Movement in the 60s and their public broadcasts to the formation of the Institute of American Indian Arts, these gave a platform to Native film makers like Sandra Osawa (Makah), Victor Masayesva Jr. (Hopi), and Harriet Skye (Standing Rock Sioux). These people were pivotal in changing the view of Native stories.
“[Hollywood] movies have been quite effective in freezing us in time, perpetuating the idea that for us to be authentic we must look and act and dress and speak exactly the way we were . . . when the Pilgrims met us. If we deviate from that then we are not authentic. We seem to be the only people stuck in this time warp where to be Indian we have to look a certain way and play a certain role that America wants us to play,” said Osawa.
Recent years have brought extreme change to the approach of native representation. According to W magazine, “We’re witnessing an undeniable Native American awakening right now. From Washington, D.C. to Hollywood, centuries of historic erasure and exploitation are slowly being righted with a focus on honest Indigenous stories and discussions.”
“I think the more that we can educate people about different cultures, not just Native American culture, but by different cultures in this melting pot of the United States, the better we’re all going to be, and the more that we understand and accept and try to learn about various cultures, the better off we’re gonna be,” said Riordan’s film appreciation teacher Michael O’Brien.
“Smoke Signals” (1998) was the first major film to be written, directed, and acted by Native Americans. Its legacy continues in shows like “Reservation Dogs” (2021–2023) and “Rutherford Falls” (2021), both of which have properly casted and represented Native characters created by Native film makers. “I think that [“Killers of the Flower Moon” is] a good example in modern film, where we see that as opposed to the [“Custer’s Last Stand”] or something like that, which was a completely different portrayal of Native Americans,” said O’Brien.
House Made of Dawn” (1968) by N. Scott Momaday won the Pulitzer Prize and helped Native authors to get their stories told and published, like Dee Brown, author of “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” (1970) and Louise Erdrich author of “Love Medicine” (1984). Other names such as Joy Harjo, first Native U.S. Poet Laureate, Sterlin Harjo and Zahn McClarnon, award winning Native film makers, and Deb Haaland, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, have all worked to “decolonize” the media surrounding Native peoples.
Nabb said, “With more indigenous peoples in control of their own visual representation, things are slowly starting to progress in Native Americans in film and media.”
