Films are the lenses through which one could look at the world and explore the way other people think and see it however, there became a time in which films stopped being just lenses, they became an entire world that is full of mistakes as much as it is full of virtues. New kinds of filmmaking appeared as a response to the works of film production companies, such as Hollywood, and it is called Independent filmmaking. This response aimed to show the gaps Hollywood films contained, and to show that Hollywood movies do not reflect the truth, for as sherry B. Ortner, An American anthropologist and professor at UCLA states “independent producers and filmmakers can get quite angry about what Hollywood films are doing and saying. When they are explicit …show more content…
Dead Man was a response that shocked the world, as It is an independent that aimed to mock the way Native Americans’ life and cultures are portrayed by the Hollywood movies. Dead Man earned a lot of attention when was first released. Although Dead man might seem a normal movie, the implicit purposes of releasing it are way more complicated than they might appear, for it is a critical film that contained a lot of mocking elements, techniques and strategies. The importance of Dead Man comes not only from the fact that it is the first to mock the Western American films but, as its director states in one of his interviews with Scott Macaulay, a Canadian film producer, “Dead man is a very simple story on the surface, but there are so many things the film is about – history, language, America, indigenous culture, violence, industrialization” (Macaulay, 1), this movie is very comprehensive, for despite the purposes of producing it, it is a thorough …show more content…
As the film starts, William Blake mentions that he has come to the “town of machine” to work, after a man asks him about the reason he came to the “hell town”. when the name “hell” strikes the audience ears, it makes them build an image about the town he is travelling to, which leads them to desire to watch more in order to know if what they have built in their minds is matching with it or not, also, this name shows how the western towns are portrayed by the directors of Hollywood movies, for they are hell in Jarmusch’ eyes. As for the name “town of machine”, it refers to people that live inside that hell, who stopped being human long time ago, and were turned into machines controlled by the guns they own, or this is the way Hollywood movies portray western Americans. When Blake asks the Indian man about his name, he answers “I’m Nobody”, this was done to show how American movies always give useless roles to the Indians, and they view them as nothing. Even the name of the movie itself was to mock the western American culture, and it meant that every man that enters the town of machine is a definitely a
The way that they are represented in the novel provides an insight into modern day native American culture unparalleled by any history book. The way women, children, men, religious figures, and senior citizens are represented in the book allow readers to see the way native Americans interact with others. These interactions allow us to see how native
Concerning the 2012 film “Crooked Arrows” and its use of natives and native culture, the film features an unexpected yet flawed representation of the natives role in the modern world and the noble savage archetype. The film achieves these representations through the use of music, shot selection, and editing. The film “Crooked Arrows” presents natives as a people that are more than able to survive and live in modern society, however it also chooses to embrace the noble savage archetype and the idea that natives are in tune with nature. The native lacrosse team featured in the film are presented in a way that is unexpected.
Trudell asks the audience to recount an ugly period in U.S history in order to gain a better understanding of the devastation that took place. For centuries, the Government has built an image of the Native people as one of uncivilized savages and though the years has portrayed them as the cause of the average American’s suffering in order to bring genocide against them with minimal resistance for the public. When a culture or race is villainized based solely on that criteria it create a climate of hate that entrenches itself in the minds of the people and is passed down through the generations. People are no longer driven by facts, but instead feed into the racial rhetoric of which they have become accustomed. The film highlights the need for change to the way the people are treated by their Government.
Smoke Signals is one of the most touching films of the 1990’s, based on Sherman Alexie’s short story, This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona. Although it is not a standard Western film, but one can learn much about American Indians’ life as it is a film created and acted by them. The indigenous characters of the film are not represented as the typical Western film’s American Indians, but the story represents indigenous life in a natural way, and gives a contemporary image to the viewer of them as the new generation American Indians, who grew up in Native American boarding schools, speak the English language well, and white people started to convert them into the Christian religion. The well-known stereotypes about their roots and lifestyle appear in a hidden, humorous way with the help of symbols that usually refers to their past; and do not appear in an easy, clear way, as it is hard to understand without any background information about Native Americans. In this paper I would like to search for the symbols of the film, analyse them, and try to understand the historical or even political background of these motifs, which pervades American Indian’s life, and can help us understand their spirituality that is deeply rooted in their culture.
Once European men stepped foot onto what is now known as North America, the lives of the Native Americans were forever changed. The Indians suffered centuries of torment and ridicule from the settlers in America. Despite the reservations made for the Natives, there are still cultural issues occurring within America. In Sherman Alexie’s, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, the tragic lives of Native Americans in modern society are depicted in a collection of short stories taking place in the Spokane Reservation in Washington state. Throughout the collection, a prominent and reoccurring melancholic theme of racism against Native Americans and their struggle to cope with such behavior from their counterpart in this modern day and age is shown.
As they set out to locate the tribe, Ethan and Martin come across a Comanche burial ground, where a warrior rests in the ground covered by a sheet and rocks. However, while Martin remains respectful of his presence on the site, Ethan intentionally desecrates the body of the dead Comanche and shoots his eyes, contently stating that if he "ain’t got no eyes, he can’t enter the spirit land" (Ford 00:26:54). This scene in particular can be analyzed to demonstrate deeper meaning through the present ideologies of racism and disrespectful portrayal of Indigenous people in American cinema. In this case, Ethan’s disregard for the burial ground is indicative of his racist ideology, which reinforces his belief that Indigenous people are undeserving of human dignity and respect, even in instances of death. Interestingly, in a film like The Searchers, it can be argued that Ford implemented an ideological approach in this scene that reinforces and upholds the discriminatory view of Indigenous people and overall social relations between Americans and Indigenous people (White 61-62).
Due to her book "Hollywood: The Dream Factory. An Anthropologist Looks at the Movie Makers" Hortense Powdermaker is regarded as one of the pioneers of ethnography. Published in 1951 by Secker & Warburg in London, Powdermaker here aims to demystify the affect of movies on the audience and establishes the hypothesis "that the social system in which they are made significantly influences their content and meaning" (Powdermaker, 1951, p.3). After living in Hollywood for one year she concludes that the internal structures resemble those of a totalitarian system in which the struggle between business and art is reflected in the meaning of its movies. It suggests that the values of studio bosses and producers dominate while the artistic values of directors and writers are strongly restricted.
Throughout history, there have been many literary studies that focused on the culture and traditions of Native Americans. Native writers have worked painstakingly on tribal histories, and their works have made us realize that we have not learned the full story of the Native American tribes. Deborah Miranda has written a collective tribal memoir, “Bad Indians”, drawing on ancestral memory that revealed aspects of an indigenous worldview and contributed to update our understanding of the mission system, settler colonialism and histories of American Indians about how they underwent cruel violence and exploitation. Her memoir successfully addressed past grievances of colonialism and also recognized and honored indigenous knowledge and identity.
Writer Sherman Alexie has a knack of intertwining his own problematic biographical experience with his unique stories and no more than “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” demonstrates that. Alexie laced a story about an Indian man living in Spokane who reflects back on his struggles in life from a previous relationship, alcoholism, racism and even the isolation he’s dealt with by living off the reservation. Alexie has the ability to use symbolism throughout his tale by associating the title’s infamy of two different ethnic characters and interlinking it with the narrator experience between trying to fit into a more society apart from his own cultural background. However, within the words themselves, Alexie has created themes that surround despair around his character however he illuminates on resilience and alcoholism throughout this tale.
Get your hands on the latest Denzel Washington Pictures Very few actors are able to make an impact in a movie, however, those that can do the job tend to immortalize the characters that they played on the silver screen with a slew of emotions to follow with everything from rage, hate or even love from the people that watch the movies. Such actor are very rare to come by who do the movie and the role a lot of justice by acting it. Some actors ascend higher and become icons of the nation and Denzel Washington is no exception in this case, having played groundbreaking roles in major franchise films, every tabloid just craves to have Denzel Washington Pictures posted all over its pages every single time a new movie of his becomes a major hit.
In all the different tribes, none of the women are seen as less than the men, however in European culture at the time, the women were seen as weak and lesser beings. Gunn Allen tackles this issue using ethos logos and pathos by appealing to the readers through logic, emotion and her personal experiences. With Ethos Gunn Allen makes herself a credible source by mentioning that she is a “half breed American Indian woman. ”(83) making her story worth paying attention to rather than if it were a story by an outsider who truly has nothing to do with the American Indian women.
In the novel A Paunch Full of Pesos by Norman Crane and the Film The Quick and the Dead, the protagonists are on a quest to exact revenge on individuals who have harmed them by taking everything that they value away. An analysis of both pieces of literature will show examples of how social norms within societies in the Wild West explore how individuals perceive and react to situations bestowed upon them. The pieces of media show how society impacts the decisions on individuals despite the socially accepted decisions contradicting the morals of the character where the struggle of what is expected and what one feels right is explored.
There is no doubt that Hollywood has many influences on society especially on young age. The term “Hollywood” refers to the film industry where located to the west and northwest of downtown Los Angeles, California (“Where is Hollywood,” n.d.). Not only in Los Angeles that television shows and movies of Hollywood are popular but also all around the country and worldwide. The audiences of Hollywood’s products are in various age starting from little kids to elders. Hollywood has incredible ability to spread believes, cultures, morals and even political influence on society.
Case Question 1: Most aspects of foreign culture, like languages, religion, gender roles, and problem solving strategies, are hard for a casual observer to understand. In what ways do do Hollywood movies affect national culture outside the United States? What aspect of U.S culture do Hollywood films promote around the world ? Can you observe any positive effects of Hollywood movies on world culture?
Why did Hollywood become the dominant film industry with audiences inside and outside America by the end of the 1930s? Hollywood became the dominant film industry with audiences inside and outside America by the end of the 1930’s due to the implications of World War II Hollywood rose to become the dominant film industry with audiences inside and outside America by the end of the 1930’s due to the implications caused by World War II. The Hollywood era of the 1930’s, which is also known as the Golden Age, was filled with great benefits for the film studios of Hollywood. The main factors that, enabled Hollywood to become the dominant film industry by the end of the 1930’s included a combination of factors including: the rise of the five major studios, the Great Depression, and technological developments.