Reel Injun Thoughts

I thought the film showed how skewed the representation of native Americans in media is. The typical warrior/ spiritual depection was used in nearly all of the movies shown. The persona of Crazy Horse is a perfect example of this. All Indians are grouped together as one race, when really there is a lot of differences between tribes. One of the best fighting tribes in history was shown as incapable of yielding weapons, and they had to be taught how to use them. This disrespect was taken to heart by some of the natives that were interviewed. Also, the natives are always portrayed as trying to stop Westerners from settling a certain area, and they were at fault for this. It was their land in the first place, and they were just defending it. We were the real bad guys. With many native Americans being white washed with western culture, this idea will soon be lost in history and that is a shame really. The comedian they kept showing clips of did a nice job of injecting humor into all these stereotypes while pointing out that they are wrong.