question four

In the movie where they show an "indian" summer camp and talk to a leader of the camp who says he knows everything about indians and their native mentality from a few movies he saw. This is how most people would describe their knowledge of Native Americans. In school usually all we learn about is a few tribes that we pushed into reservations, we do not learn about those Native Americans now. Media is where most of us learn about their culture and it isn't even coming from real Native Americans. Until recently the only thing I knew about Native Americans was what I saw from movies like Dances with Wolves or that movie about the Indian in the cupboard. As I got older I knew they sold cigarettes on the reservation and had casinos, I didn't really think there was a modern Indian culture. Until I met people that lived in Gowanda and had Native American friends I really thought all Native Americans had horses and wore traditional headdresses. I also never really thought about Indians in New York, even though there was a reservation. I think camps like the one we saw in the movie are very harmful to the way we think because there are no Indians telling us that is how we really are and it's giving people the wrong idea about
"Native mentality" if there really is such a thing. Movies should not be a trusted source for anything, they are there for entertainment and when people say that they "learned" stuff from movies they just sound like idiots. Just because you saw a movie about two irish brothers who go around killing mobsters and drug dealers doesn't mean you know everything about Irish mentality or culture.