Introduction/Thesis Statement
The study aims at critically evaluating the role that has been played by the filming industry in creating the American history. The paper contrast the coverage the industry has given the white Americans with that of the Native Americans. The paper will identify how the white Americans have corrupted the Native American’ culture and then draw a conclusion from this study.
The misrepresentation of the Native American culture in the commercial cinemas in the United States has occurred on the basis of context and motivation. In so many cinemas, the Native Americans culture has been filmed, but the scenes are devoid of the true Native American spirit.
The scenes negate the actual practices of the Native Americans. This is because the films are produced to relay the cultural practices of the Native Americans, but they are watched by people who don’t understand them. Therefore, this leaves the audience to come up with individual judgments concerning the themes that the film makers desire to convey to them.
Over the years, Hollywood and other film producers have used the film industry as the yard stick of corrupting the Native American culture. This has been achieved through the continued effort by film directors’ attempt to implant the Euro-American values and practices into the natives.
They have continuously used white actors as the leading characters in narrating storylines meant to illustrate the lives to the natives. In their ideas, the movie-makers purport to give an accurate lifestyle of the natives, but in the actual sense they coerce their own ideas and cultural practices to the Indian people. For instance, in the movie “A Man Called a Horse” Richard Harris through the cultural initiation process that is deemed primitive by a majority of the Euro Americans endures the “pain” like the Native Americans.
He takes part in all the cultural practices of the natives Americans in the film after which he will be accepted as one of them. This illustrates the European egocentric views that they are better than the Native Americans even in their own cultural practices. These egocentric ideologies are of the opinion that the Native Americans should adopt the Euro-American monolithic culture.
The Statement that brings the author’s opinion on the relational roles of the Native Americans and the Euro-Americans in the country’s history completely reverses the role. Those who stole the North American continent in the films are illustrated as the victims of phantom aggression from the Native Americans.
This statement by the author connotes that the Native Americans are leading players in the film industry in the US and therefore, the white Americans have relentlessly discerned to ape the natives in making films to bring out the cultural practices of the natives. In this case, the natives ironically are the leading key players and they have trumped over their captors and masters.
Summary
It is evident that the filming industry has played a key role in perpetuating the wrong impression in regard to the cultural practices of the Native Americans. Through its actors and directors, the industry has played a role in trying to undermine the Native Americans. Therefore, it is prudent to conclude that the filming industry has been a major of creator of the perceptions affixed to perceived primitivism of the Indian-American culture in the eyes of the rest of America.