The portrayal of Native Americans in films concerns Native Americans' roles in cinema, particularly their depiction in Hollywood productions, as well as television and videos. While Native Americans have directed and produced films since the 1910s, a resurgence in the 1990s led by Native American filmmakers began a movement of producing independent films that work to represent the depth and complexity of Indigenous peoples as people and provide a realistic account of their culture. In the turn of the century, the rise of Native American and Indigenous filmmakers has allowed for greater representation in Hollywood and in mainstream media. Contemporary Native filmmakers have employed the use of visual sovereignty, defined by scholar Michelle H. Raheja (Seneca descent) as "a way of reimagining Native-centered articulations of self-representation and autonomy that engage the powerful ideologies of mass media," to take back the right to tell their own stories.Raheja, Michelle H. "Visual Sovereignty." Native Studies Keywords, pp. 25–34., .
Prominent Native American Filmmakers
Native American Actors and Actresses
Lily Gladstone (1986 –) Zahn McClarnon (1966 –) Will Sampson (1933 – 1987) John Trudell (1946 – 2014) Irene Bedard (1967 –) Graham Greene (1952 – 2025) Dallas Goldtooth (1983 –) Jana Schmieding (1981 –) Will Rogers (1879 – 1935)
Directors, Producers, and Filmmakers
Chris Eyre (1968 –) director and producer Sterlin Harjo (1979 –) director, producer, and screenwriter Wesley Studi (1947 –) actor and producer Billy Luther writer and director Sydney Freeland (1980 –) director James Young Deer (1876 – April 6, 1946) Considered first Native American director Additionally an early film actor, director, writer, and producer
History
The portrayal of Native Americans in cinema has, since the beginning of the motion picture industry, employed harmful stereotypes, especially the archetypes of Native Americans as violent barbarians or noble savages. During the 1930s, negative images dominated Westerns. In 1950, the watershed film Broken Arrow appeared, which many credit as the first postwar Western to depict Native Americans sympathetically.
Origins Circa the 1860s, stories involving heroic American Indian figures were proliferated in dime novels.
From the 1870s to the 1910s, Wild West shows such as Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show popularized conflict between cowboys and Indians. These stage performances toured America and Europe, presenting romanticized fiction about the American frontier which some audiences misunderstood as history. In 1912, Buffalo Bill Cody produced a three-minute silent film titled The Life of Buffalo Bill, starring himself.
In his 1917 novel, Cody identified himself as an "Indian fighter," and his wild west shows led to widespread misrepresentation of Native Americans, despite involvement with Native American actors. Some Native actors chose to portray the shows' chiefs as belligerent, while others portrayed their roles with humble dignity - possibly creating the bloodthirsty savage & noble Indian dichotomy, or "double stereotype."
Silent film era In 1908, D.W. Griffith released The Red Man and the Child. The film featured a sympathetic depiction of Native American characters; however, critics describe their portrayal as a "helpless Indian race...forced to recede before the advancing white."Thomas Cripps, Hollywood's High Noon: Moviemaking and Society Before Television, JHU Press, 1997, p. 27 Similar depictions included The Indian Runner's Romance (1909) and The Red Man's View (1909).
Native Americans were the center of these pictures, but they were only able to play extras in the backgrounds. Films such as The Covered Wagon (1923) were produced near and on reservations with Native Americans not given the lead roles. They would be forced to play unrealistic stereotypes of themselves while being treated as just a part of the setting. The stereotypes ranged from "princess" to "squaw" for woman and men were portrayed as savages to their white counterparts.
The "Princess" stereotype showed Native women being devoted to her white lover which is seen as negative to her tribe. The Indian Squaw's Sacrifice (1910) shows a Native woman nursing a wounded white man, marrying him, and then finding that he loves another woman which leads to her demise. Whereas the "Squaw" stereotype is known for being shameful about her sexuality and seen as hostile to her white counterparts.
By 1910, one-fifth of American films were Westerns.
The stories of these Silent Westerns were affected by the Indian boarding-school policy because of the tales of children being separated from their families. The narratives inspired by the impacts of the U.S. Indian Policy showcased interracial romance, adoption, and mistaken identity. The cross-racial couples within these silent westerns had stories of assimilating an "Other" into their world through teachings.
Circa 1910, Nanticoke film director James Young DeerJames Young Deer, Registration Card, World War I Draft Registration, Los Angeles, CA, September 12, 1918, Ancestrylibrary.com. Sources vary on Young Deer's birthdate. His military records indicate April 2, 1877 and his headstone says April 1, 1878. was hired by Pathé to produce accurate Native American silent films with positive portrayals. Deer, an actor, writer, and director, was involved in the production of over 150 movies, an example being White Fawn's Devotion: A Play Acted by a Tribe of Red Indians in America.
In 1912, D. W. Griffith released A Pueblo Legend and The Massacre, which both failed to show Native Americans in a positive light. The Massacre romanticized Custer's roles in the Indian Wars, with recurring scenes of white mother struggling to protect her infant, while a Native American mother is killed and collapses offscreen. Griffith would later become infamous for his creation of The Birth of a Nation, a racist propaganda film that portrayed the KKK as heroic.
Griffith would create several documentaries centering on Native Americans from a sympathetic view. Griffith's films were different from westerns because they focused on "nostalgia for lost paradises" rather than the battles. These short films provoke sympathy for the Native Americans who were often seen in a negative light.
In 1914, Theodore Wharton directed The Indian War Refought: The Wars for Civilization in America which romanticized multiple battles including the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre, wherein U.S. Army soldiers killed over 250 Lakota Indians, including men, women, and children, and buried them in a mass grave. This film depicted the massacre as a battle; it was directed by the War Department and approved by the United States government. It can be therefore considered a propaganda film, with the goal of rationalizing the government's actions. Despite its historical inaccuracies, a 1914 Moving Picture World advertisement claims, This most realistic film of the age...has been APPROVED BY THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT and made under the DIRECTION OF THE WAR DEPARTMENT...Historically Correct and all scenes TAKEN ON THE EXACT LOCATION of the original battles.In 1914, ethnologist Edward S. Curtis directed silent film In the Land of the Head Hunters, a fictionalized documentary about the lives and culture of Kwakwakaʼwakw people of the Queen Charlotte Strait in Canada. Although Curtis wrote and directed the film, all of its actors were entirely Kwakwakaʼwakw.
The 1930 silent film The Silent Enemy is an example of a film that focuses on Native American characters prior to colonization. The film dramatizes a famine experienced by the Ojibwe during the post-classical era and incorporates folklore, spiritual visions, and religious elements. The film begins with a sound-synchronized speech in English by Ojibwe chief and activist Chauncey Yellow Robe who stars in the film.
Early films featuring Native characters varied in their depictions. Some of these characters were often shown wearing leather clothing with feathers in their hair or with elaborate feather headdresses. Authors have argued that Native communities were often depicted as cruel societies that sought out constant warfare and vengeance against white characters. But while some individual Native characters appeared as drunkards, cruel, or unintelligent, others, like those in The Red Man and the Child (1908), A Mohawk's Way (1910), and The Red Girl and the Child (1910), were friends or allies to white settlers. These depictions however were often one-dimensional and perpetuated the idea that the only good Native is one that helps white settlers.Green, Rayna. "The Pocahontas Perplex: The Image of Indian Women in American Culture." Intercultural and Interracial Relations, 1993, pp. 150–166., . A few successful Indian/white marriages did occur in film during these early years, such as A Cry from the Wilderness (1909), A Leap for Life (1910) and The Indian Land Grab (1911). Other depictions were generalized stereotypes and used largely for aesthetic purposes and many tribes were represented. Feather headdresses were culturally and historically correct for approximately two dozen Plains tribes, and those of the American southwest were often wearing traditional clothing. Angela Aleiss, Making the White Man's Indian" Native Americans and Hollywood Movies, (2005), Praeger Publishers. This was done to create a more recognizable character for white audiences to view as "indian". Many directors did not care about accuracy when it came to language either, with Native actors being asked to speak in their native language no matter what tribe they are supposed to be from in the film. These discrepancies worked to create the Hollywood Indian stereotype prevalent within the Western genre.Diamond, Neil, director. Reel Injun. 19 Feb. 2010.King, Thomas. The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative. House of Anansi Press Inc., 2010.
Beverly R. Singer argues that "Despite the fact that a diversity of indigenous peoples had a legal and historical significance in the formation of every new country founded in the Western Hemisphere, in the United States and Canada the term 'Indians' became a hegemonic designation implying that they were all the same in regards to culture, behavior, language, and social organization". Other scholars argued these films in fact showed a wide range of depictions of Native people from noble to sympathetic.Beverly R. Singer: Native Americans and Cinema. In: Barry Keith Grant (ed. in chief): Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film: Volume 3: Independent Film–Road Movies. Farmington Hills, MI: Schirmer Reference, 2007, pp. 211–214, . Angela Aleiss, Making the White Man's Indian" Native Americans and Hollywood Movies, (2005), Praeger Publishers.
Later films The revisionist Western, also known as a Modern Western or an anti-Western, is a subgenre of Western films that began circa 1960. This subgenre is characterized by a darker and more cynical tone that was generally not present in earlier Western films.
Revisionist Westerns featuring Native characters Two Rode Together (1961) The Deadly Companions (1961) Bitter Wind (1963) Navajo Joe (1966) Hombre (1967) Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969) Soldier Blue (1970) Little Big Man (1970) Chato's Land (1972) Jeremiah Johnson (1972) Buffalo Bill and the Indians (1976) The Missouri Breaks (1976) Dances with Wolves (1990) Thunderheart (1992) Dead Man (1995) The Missing (2003) The Only Good Indian (2009)