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Stereotypes In The Film 'Reel Injun' By Niel Diamond

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Throughout the history of the film industry, Indians have been misread and attacked by racial stereotypes. Although many people only see indigenous peoples as one group there are in fact many different nations with many different values. In the film “Reel Injun” by Niel Diamond, he shows many various misrepresentations towards indigenous groups which are both shown as inferential and overt. When children begin to grow up, watching kids' movies, watching shows with their parents, and cartoons becomes a massive part of their life. All kids started to watch shows with their parents but for Indians, it was a bit different. Some of the movies and cartoons being aired had an Indian character but it was the stereotypical version of an Indian not what a true Indian was. The stereotypical version of the Indians gave children the wrong idea of a true Native. One of the Bugs Bunny episodes was actually extremely racist when he was …show more content…

When Sacheen Littlefeather moved to Haight-Ashbury people were surprised by the way she dressed when they knew she was Native, when she saw the way hippies looked she knew she didn’t look like that but that was the way others saw her. Sacheen Littlefether was asked to collect an award for Marlon Brando for the best actor in “Godfather”, but when she was accepting the award the crowd was shocked because she didn’t look like a “true Indian”. The way Indians looked on the streets compared to in the movies was very different. The Indians on the streets would wear indigenous headbands for the look but not knowing it was to keep the wigs on during the movies. The hippies would wear headbands for the look of Indians was extremely disrespectful towards Indians without even realizing it was disrespectful. After Sacheen Littlefeather made an appearance, Indians started to be treated as people of all shades and were treated no differently from

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