Masaryk University
Faculty of Arts
Department of English
and American Studies
English Language and Literature
Maja Predovan
Representation of African Americans and
Native Americans in Film
Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis
Supervisor: Jeffrey Alan Vanderziel, B.A.
2016
2
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my supervisor, Jeffrey Alan Vanderziel, B.A., for his kindness and patience. I would
also like to thank my family and friends for their invaluable support.
3
I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.
……………………………………………..
4
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ...... 6
2. The Significance of Film, Stereotypes and Racism ...... 8
3. African American Stereotypes ...... 15
3.1 Stock Characters and Social Roles ...... 18
3.2 Analysis of The Green Mile ...... 25
4. Native American Stereoytpes ...... Chyba! Záložka není definována.
4.1 Stock Characters and Social Roles ...... 35
4.2 Analysis of Pocahontas ...... 39
5. Conclusion ...... Chyba! Záložka není definována.
Works Cited...... 43
Summary ...... Chyba! Záložka není definována.7
Resumé ...... 48
5
1. Introduction
The images of African Americans and Native Americans have been part of the
American movie-going experience ever since the beginnings of Hollywood era. Intrigued by the spiritualism it attributed to the Indian, White Anglo-Saxon protestant culture, a group comprising the ruling majority of the United States of America, has been fascinated by the enduring power of the frontier myth even before its nascent as a nation. Coined by
Frederick Jackson Turner, the concept of the frontier had immense impact on the development of the prevalent American values and aspirations as a society. Probably more than any other single factor, its promise of constant expansion and unlimited advancement contributed to the emergence of the American Dream as a phenomenon based on aspiration towards endless opportunities. No less momentous, the position of African Americans presented the critical rift between conflicting factions of power between the North and the
South. Disuniting the American society, the controversy that sprang from racial conflict had a significant impact on the development of its political climate. The African American minority, to whom they often ascribed their own deep-rooted fears and weaknesses, was exploited by the outgroup members who profited on their subjugation, at first by enslaving their bodies, and later by historicizing their cultural heritage and intellectual abilities.
Evolving from White actors portraying minorities in an offensively exaggerated manner, to a more authentic representation, enormous strides have been made in the demands for equality. However, this thesis will look at the ways that the perspective has largely remained White, and how latent racism or simply disinterest in the authenticity of a narrative can still largely be found in the relatively modern Hollywood productions. By providing historical context, the steady connection between prejudice and stereotype will serve as an agent in exposing the reasons behind their lasting significance and broad consequences. The medium of film has been chosen due to its relatively short duration in
6 which a character’s portrayal must be introduced and fully developed. By concentrating them in their most condensed forms, the characters thus often function as prototypes of given mental images, reflecting in the process how movies give prominence to certain aspects of one’s culture while overlooking others. Also taken into account was the vast scope and influence of the motion picture industry on the society at large. Most notably, this concerns the way it has served as a tool in shaping public opinion through history.
In the following chapter, the importance of film will be examined, as well as its impact on the persistence of stereotyping and racism in the American populace. The two subsequent chapters will deal with the ways in which two of the minority groups in the
United States of America, African Americans and Native Americans, are represented based on how films portray their most common purposes in the development of the plot, their social roles, and the presence of stock characters. The thesis will be concluded with a chapter comparing the differences and similarities in the common depictions of the two minorities, and the conclusions that can be drawn about the basis behind their construction.
The movies examined in chapters 3 and 4, respectively The Green Mile and
Pocahontas, have been chosen due to a variety of factors. Beautifully made and achieving considerable popularity, both of these works continue to exert great influence on the formation of conceptions in a large international audience. Receiving several Academy
Award nominations, the films marked a success both with the public and the critics. In addition, released in the last decade of the twentieth century, their relative contemporaneity provides an insight into the recent development of stereotypes, new trends that are being put on screen, but also the many ways in which the portrayal of certain groups remains fixed in its essence. Although The Green Mile is a feature film and Pocahontas is animated, they both have supernatural notions at their core. Remarkably, such departure away from the everyday reality might allow for a better insight into the conceptualization
7 of minorities by the producers. Through the process of abstraction, these minority characters are released from the confines of ordinary people and entrusted with personalities which express ideals rather than truth, thus revealing the assumptions held about races. The protagonists of the two movies show how, even when overall positive, the depictions of minorities often serve as a display of White beliefs, rather than their own realities. Specifically, Pocahontas is a prototype of the noble, spiritual Indian who, through connection with animals and plants, offers to the White foreigner an insight into the secrets of life, which he himself appears to have forgotten in his strife for civilization. Similarly, the plot of The Green Mile revolves around the effect John Coffey has on the White characters around him, more than on the development of his own character. Thus, exhibiting a common tendency in Hollywood productions, these two movies function as examples of how minorities are presented from an outside perspective. Consequently, they are often viewed as secondary compared to the White population, and almost never achieve fully authentic representation.
8
2. The Significance of Film, Stereotypes and Racism
While the contemporary Western culture demonstrates an inclination to boast of the freedoms its people are enjoying, it was not so long ago that members of racial minorities experienced severe oppression in their daily lives. In the United States of America, a powerful unrest during the 1960s took form in the Civil Rights Movement, rallying these groups in protest against the preferential treatment of ethnic majority. The unrelenting efforts to draw attention to their struggle brought to light the many implications of such injustice, and its effects on both the groups themselves and the society at large. In the process, previously overlooked and established stereotypes were exposed and publicly scrutinized in demand of legitimacy, revealing the vast amount of distortion and caricature that existed. However, although great steps were subsequently made towards genuine portrayals, the basis behind such misrepresentations proved more difficult to eradicate than it had seemed at first.
Developing gradually over a long period of time, prejudice had extensive influence on the widely shared sentiments about different groups of people. What is more, such views often developed into attitudes concerning political action or economic policies, evident already in the very description of these key terms: “Prejudice is customarily defined as a feeling of hostility toward the members of racial, nationality, and ethnic groups; stereotypes, as the beliefs people have about such members, and discrimination, as the differential manner in which people behave toward them” (Rinehart 136-37). Rather than operating on separate planes, prejudice prompts the formation of stereotype, which in turn shapes the treatment of people belonging to specific factions. When racial groups are concerned, such processes frequently result in the development of racism, which entails
“assignment of people to an inferior category and the determination of their social, economic, civic, and human standing on that basis” (Fields 48). Since these concepts are
9 mutually linked, it is imperative to examine the reasons behind their origins in order to better understand the scope of their impact. Partitioning people into separated groups based on their physical appearance, even if this is done with no bad intentions in mind, has for effect an emergence of the basis for stereotyping, since minorities are “defined as a race by others, acquire a group identity and become oppressed, and then use the idiom race in relation to themselves, their identities and grievances” (Miles and Brown 6). Due to the gradual development and subsequent acceptance of stereotypes, people are divided into categories, and the physical differences between them begin to be viewed as indicators of profound differences in their personalities. Such categorization of people based on their ethnic background is further perpetuated by the individual’s inclination to share the view of his peers, in order to be better accepted and awarded higher rank in the community
(Rinehart 142). Even if it means subduing others, privilege and power that are entailed in belonging to the majority prove difficult to forfeit even in the contemporary society.
Therefore, while the position of minorities is undeniably better than it had been in the previous decades, it does not mean that any further aspirations should be cast aside as overreaching, since there is always a degree of danger in complacency. What Gunnar
Myrdal termed the “American dilemma,” there exists an ambivalent attitude towards race in the United States of America, characterized by a strong contrast between the harsh realities of subjugation and the ideological “American Creed of liberty, equality, justice, and fair opportunity for everybody” (Myrdal). Even though there is certainly a sense of pride in the “liberty and justice for all” credo, a relevant opposing force is also present, lately found in the persistent protests against affirmative action or any efforts deemed excessively liberal, usually voiced by those who are in no need of such aid themselves.
Interestingly, according to studies, there is a link between such opposition and displays of racism (Jacobson 328). All of this goes to show how little has actually changed in the core
10 notions behind discrimination. Although racism once used to be characterized by unconcealed bigotry and physical violence, in the later period the “explicitly segregationist, white supremacist view has all but disappeared” (Kinder and Sears 416).
Sociologists today seem to agree that it has been replaced by what is termed “New’’ or
“Symbolic” racism, distinguished not by personal attacks as much as by systemic assault on the political rights and public standing of a group (Jacobson 307). In a study comparing the components of the “Old” and “New” racism, Cardell Jacobson determined that “what is new is not the new racism, but rather the exclusion of a few generalized items about racial integration (old-fashioned racism) from the usual cluster of racial bigotry items” (328). In other words, whereas it has become deplorable to publicly display (what is today perceived as) backward opinions and actions, racism itself has not disappeared, but rather only changed its form of articulation. Guided by these findings, it remains to uncover the patterns that stereotyping, springing from deep-rooted prejudice, continues to establish in various spheres of social dealings.
Echoing public sentiments, motion picture is a great tool for revealing the way people experience the world around them. The mechanism of film operates as a reflection of the popular culture, but it also moves beyond the simple function of a mirror, actively constructing the very imagery it profits on evoking. As articulated by Andrew Ross: “the encounter of text and spectator is not an encounter between two static and preconstituted entities. Spectators shape and are shaped by the cinematic experience” (24). Furthermore, the fact that movie makers are at least partially influenced by the potential of profit, means that the viewers having the most impact on the content being made will be those belonging to a majority; be that of a race, gender, religion, or other. This predicament raises numerous issues, since the decision of who is represented, in what manner and to what extent, is in the hands of one group of people, who may approach the subject with various degrees of
11 determination towards truthful representation. While audiences are often inclined to consume entertainment without worrying whether they fully adhere to the moral standards set up by the largely abstract term of political correctness, the groups exploited for viewing pleasure might not share such sentiments. It is important to keep in mind that the images being consumed through mass media powerfully influence the way audiences perceive cultural or social phenomena, especially when these portrayals are repeatedly done in a manner that relies on entrenched prejudice, since: “media stereotypes are not the natural, much less harmless, products of an idealized popular culture; rather, they are more commonly socially constructed images that are selective, partial, one-dimensional and distorted in their portrayal” (Dates and Barlow 5). Even when purposely exaggerated for dramatic or comedic effect, character portrayals are not always pondered to that extent by the public. While the gist of a particular movie might soon evaporate from memory, what remains is the constant reiteration of a theme that etches itself into the minds of the people by considerable power of repetition and expectation, through which “viewers come to what they see, and interpret what they see, both in the light of their own preconceptions and also as reinforcement of such notions” (Wober and Gunter 125). Indeed, comprehending the boundaries of fiction is not an entirely conscious decision. When, for example, African
Americans are repeatedly cast in blatantly stereotypical roles that depict them as “inferior, stupid, comical, immoral, and dishonest” (qtd. in Punyanunt-Carter 243), it becomes evident how such practices could have profound and far-reaching consequences, especially when done repeatedly and over a long period of time. Although there is an inclination to dismiss the suggestion that movies have the power to change the outlook of individuals, rationality often has little to do with the way human beings make inferences. Substantive research suggests that “mental categories involving Blacks might develop from these depictions” (Dates and Barlow 3). It is almost impossible to remain unaffected by such
12 omnipresent imagery, as it becomes part of the conceived general knowledge, especially in the case of people to whom mass media are the primary source of information on what members of a certain minority might look or act like (Dates and Barlow 3). Therefore, rather than relying on the audience to decipher the line between fantasy and reality, emphasis should be on the responsibility of the producers, and on the extent to which media have influence as a distributor of ideas. The main issue arising from stereotyping is that, due to the nature of social categories, their fluidity allows them to permeate into various levels of consciousness, creating links between concepts that are not necessarily connected in effect. Indeed, the reality itself is essentially a highly ambiguous term, and since people “have no direct access to "the real, [they] live and dwell within language and representation” (Andrew Ross 31). In other words, more than the actual implications of race, it matters more what people consider to be true, which is why “if fictional representations are taken as history, they have real historical consequences” (Stam 15).
In view of how motion picture has been shown to exert considerable influence on the formation of conceptions in its audience, the question arises as to what kind of messages it conveys in the present-day production. Unfortunately, while the film medium has evolved immensely since its early days, it does not necessarily entail that it ceased profiting on certain conventionalized tropes. The well-established stereotypes still elicit emotional responses in the viewers, attracting audiences and earning profits. Drawing on traditional methods, film producers are often merely masking the elements of racial superiority into newer, toned down versions. As Gloria Gibson notes, rather than witnessing an egalitarian representation on screen, it is often the case that: “we may find ourselves laughing or jeering images and/or sounds that, upon closer examination, are no more than reincarnations of our old, "all-too-familiar" foes” (4). The latest manifestations of stereotypes in movies are not surprising, given the fact that racism itself, rather than being
13 a stable model, has changed its framework innumerable times ever since the first contact between people of different colors of skin. Nowadays, its remnants still present one of the major problems in the American society, shaping the economic policies and social atmosphere of the country.
14
3. African American Stereotypes
In its infancy, African American portrayal on screen featured no actual representatives of the race itself. The early motion picture was marked by its use of blackface, a practice in which white people masked themselves into persons of color by overemphasizing certain
African American features, such as bigger lips, white eyes, and overall darkness. This custom, although overtly offensive, did not meet its demise until the rise of the Civil Rights
Movement in the1960s. However, physical appearance was far from the only stereotyped feature. When it came to bringing black characters to life, prejudice went still further and proved even more difficult to overcome. In D.W. Griffith’s highly controversial film Birth of a Nation, African Americans were portrayed as belonging to two fundamental types; either uncontrollable and wild, or loyal but essentially childlike and inept. Reaching great popularity, the movie attracted numerous followers, whose work continued the theme behind Griffith’s presentation of African Americans. These early depictions would later develop into well-established stock characters: toms, coons, mammies, bucks, and tragic mulattos; all of whom were “used for the same effect: to entertain by stressing Negro inferiority” (Bogle 4). The types, further described in the following subchapter, proved extraordinarily firmly rooted in their essence. With society progressing in their awareness of the value behind different worldviews, racism was recognized as inadmissible, yet the models of thinking behind it persisted, keeping the various preconceptions alive, and changing only their outward form as the film industry evolved.
Considering the prominence of the White Anglo-Saxon protestant culture in the
American society, sociologists explored the circumstances through which social inequality came to manifest itself in film, and the way it has been an important agent ever since its very beginnings:
15
“The minstrel tradition authorized white performers to play at blackness. This
asymmetry in representational power generated intense resentment within "minority"
communities, for whom the casting of a nonmember of the group was seen as a triple
aggression, implying (a) you are unworthy of self-representation, (b) no one from your
group is capable of representing you, and (c) we, the producers of the film, care little
about your offended sensibilities” (Andrew Ross 31).
In this regard, cultural dominance of a particular group of people is not only displayed, but further constructed through the influence of film. Consequently, since minorities are so often excluded from the creation process, as evident from the shockingly low proportion of their members in the important roles of directors, producers, and writers, their authority over the way in which they are represented is also extremely limited. Incessantly reshaped in order to fit the notions of outgroup members about them, it comes as no surprise that such practices result in major discrepancies between reality and fiction. By keeping the context, themes, and the protagonists White, Hollywood only marginally allowed for the participation of the outside factions in its circles.
Foremost, it is imperative to understand the impact that lack of diversity manifested in stock characterization has on the representation of a minority. Confined to one- dimensional roles that offered no room for personal growth and character development, members of minorities have often been stripped of their humanity, and cast as a means of comic relief or base exoticism. Treated as a peculiarity, they were looked at as different from the norm, and used for the diversity they could bring on screen, while rarely being allowed the full range of human emotion and competence. Even when stock characters were in the later period portrayed in apparently positive ways, there remained a harmful element of simplification:
16
The positing of a series of fixed types can lead to a kind of essentialism, as the critic
reduces a complex array of portrayals to a limited set of reified stereotypes, forcing
very diverse characters into preestablished categories. Such reductionist simplifications
run the risk of reproducing the very racism they were initially designed to combat.
(Andrew Ross 32)
For African Americans, such practices only heightened the controversy of their position in the American society as secondary citizens, the ongoing struggle which was best captured by W.E.B. Du Bois in The Souls of Black Folk, under the term of double consciousness:
[T]he Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in
this American world, a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets
him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this
double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of
others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt
and pity. (Du Bois)
Films merely displayed what was already evident in the structure of the American nation.
Reserving its upper ranks to a closed clique, the stories that films brought to screen always appeared to be told from the middle-class Anglo-Saxon perspective. This was the case even when the narrative was part of someone else's cultural heritage, and would have made more sense if recounted in their own right, rather than being distorted and retold from a foreign point of view. Such exclusive treatment did not concern only the most significant positions in the process of film creation, such as writing and directing, but permeated all levels of production. Disregarded, African Americans were not accepted among the ranks of white celebrity actors for a long time, but were instead treated as cheap amusement - a form of backdrop to the actual story line. By means of employing them only in such roles that were deprived of any real depth, overplayed and conventionalized, African Americans
17 were kept in line and beyond danger of disrupting the state of affairs in regard to the distribution of power. Instead, actors were commonly given roles as stock characters, which extremely restricted their potential for meaningful expression.
3.1 Stock Characters and Social Roles
In the Antebellum era, the oldest representation of African Americans took shape in the character of Sambo. Although conceived at the height of slavery, and therefore before the technological development of motion picture, numerous notions behind this derogatory portrayal would later emerge in the stereotypical renditions that followed. With a childlike simplicity, Sambo was utilized as an argument in defense of slavery. Carefree, harmless, free from intellectual burdens, and perpetually avoiding work if not under supervision of a master, he was deemed incapable of independence. Slavery was thus presented as a union of benevolent protectors and grateful subjects who benefitted equally from the institution
(Ethnic Notions). These skewed but widely spreading images were perceived as authentic by the large mass of people who lacked personal close contact with the minority. The
Sambo trope both reinforced the impression of African Americans as subhuman, and also justified the South’s way of life.
After the Civil War, the icon of Uncle Tom was introduced. His widespread popularity and warm reception by the American public is very telling of the void that he was used to fill. In an era of social upheaval, the Uncle came to represent the nostalgic desire of the part of the nation towards simpler times, when power was clearly on their side, and when legal concessions did not threaten to disrupt their dominance (Ethnic Notions). The character of a devoted and benign old man was precisely what the public wanted to see, since it offered no implication of the turmoil that disturbed the country. By envisioning them as docile Uncle Toms, Black men were stripped of any implication of disobedience:
“Always as toms are chased, harassed, hounded, flogged, enslaved, and insulted, they keep
18 the faith, n’er turn against their white massas, and remain hearty, submissive, stoic, generous, selfless, and oh-so-very kind” (Bogle 6). The Tom persona was at its peak in the earliest period of the motion picture history in the United States of America, and was even the very first role to be played by a Black man. Nevertheless, rather than belonging to the past, some of the core aspects of the benevolent Uncle are still found in the present-day productions. Their enduring popularity is evident in the fact that an acclaimed African
American actor, Morgan Freeman, was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in Driving Miss Daisy, where he portrayed a well-behaved chauffeur who
“served” a demanding White “mistress” (Bogle 315).
Also making its appearance following the emancipation of former slaves, the image of
Coon did considerable damage to the reception of African Americans. Dressed in an elaborate yet ridiculous manner, and attempting to use educated phrases beyond his understanding, the failures he encountered drew humor from the myth of African American inadequacy and intellectual depravity (Ethnic Notions). Senseless and silly, his presence served only to make the audience laugh at his antics, dismissing him as a full-fledged human being and regarding him merely as an “amusement object and black buffoon”
(Bogle 7). Coon’s absurdities stripped African American men of their dignity, yet that only increased his popularity since, reduced to unintelligent fools, immature Black people did not challenge the social order any more than frail Uncles did. Reassuring in their simplicity, they were welcome on screen. Although almost two centuries have passed since its early presence, the Coon persona has many remnants in the Hollywood film of recent decades. Possibly because the young Black male is still regarded as potentially disruptive, there appears to be an enduring need to render him harmless at least in fiction. This could be the reason why numerous popular Black actors today, like Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, and Chris Tucker, often display elements which strongly resemble this past era as part of
19 their performances. Loud, arrogant, and yet often embarrassed by people in higher social standing, their characters display the same theme of less than successful integration into the White environment.
Another banal rendering of the Black male can be seen in the display of two similar categories of ferocious villains; that of the Brute, and the Buck. Black Brutes are depicted as violent and unruly, provoking conflict and operating almost solely in outbursts of brutality. They are not functioning members of society, but rather beasts who seem ruled more by instinct than reason. Black Bucks are similarly uncontrollable, albeit their appetite is focused not on the fight but rather on carnal pleasures. Donald Bogle describes them as
“big, baadddd niggers, over-sexed and savage, violent and frenzied as they lust for white flesh” (13-14). Although in somewhat different ways, both of these variants draw on the white fear of a powerful Black man, both in political, economic, and romantic spheres
(Roediger 78). Be it due to their physical strength or sexual prowess, Black Brutes and
Bucks are the exaggerated stereotype inspired by the rivalry that came to exist between formerly unequal groups of men: “By dark skin color, assumed virility, physical strength, and athletic prowess, African American men as a subjugated minority are a societal contradiction to established ranks of wealth and power. This intensifies their ability to threaten the European-masculine status quo” (...). Menacing Black characters were relatively infrequent in the early era of film development, probably due to the implications that their strength, however deviant in its focus, might raise. Still, later periods were abundant in such imagery. In the films of the 1960s, Brutes found an outlet in portraying militants demanding their rights, and the following decade only deepened this representation, leading to what Bogle described as “the age of the buck, a period when a band of aggressive, pistol-packing, sexually-charged urban cowboys set off on a heady rampage, out to topple the system and to right past wrongs” (Bogle 232). Usually, Brutes
20 and Bucks were portrayed by actors with a markedly Black skin tone, demonstrating the equation of Blackness and viciousness. Curiously, even in contemporary cinematographic portrayals, the connection between skin color and personality remains tangible. Villains are usually more likely to be darker and have more striking African American features than members of the race that are cast in predominantly positive roles. Not limited to feature film, a case in point are numerous cartoons intended for children. Animation can present stereotypes even more overtly than real actors, since one of the common features of cartoons is linking the animalistic with African Americans, while human protagonists more commonly display European features. For instance, in the case of Disney’s Lion King, “the hyenas clearly speak in a kind of street, inner city African American dialect. They are considered the bad guys” (Brunette, Mallory, and Wood 2). Interestingly, this practice is not limited only to the portrayal of African Americans, but any ethnicity that is considered foreign to the Anglo-Saxon majority: “The Aladdin character in that movie portrays “bad”
Arabs with thick foreign accents while Anglicized Jasmine and Aladdin speak in standard
Americanized English” (Giroux, 1995). Aladdin looks and sounds like a fresh-faced
American boy. One of the evil characters, Jafar, looks very Arabic (Brunette, Mallory, and
Wood 2).
While white men bolstered their masculinity by distorting the image of their African
American counterparts, the Mammy character equivalently did a lot of damage to the perception of Black women. Although female, Mammy is presented as the very antithesis of the western ideal of femininity. Hefty, jolly, crude, and always dressed in numerous layers of oversized clothes, she is rendered asexual to the point of absurdity (Bogle 9).
While renditions of said representation can be found to an alarming degree in many modern situation comedies, the Mammy stereotype reached its peak in the 1930s and
1940s, in an age when African American actors were confined to the role of servants.
21
Embodied in the persona of Hattie McDaniel, Mammies were entirely devoted and dutiful in their assistance to White employers, to the degree where it was difficult to tell the exact line between service and slavery. Lately, the Mammy character is still strongly present in its toned down version of a domineering and severe mother, most often found in single- parent black households in both television series and movies. Her portrayals probably had the most influence on the perceptions of marital relations, deviations in gender norms, and parent-child relationships of African American families. From the belief that “mammy loves her White “family” more than her own (Collins, 2000), the worth of the Black family was directly opposed to that of the White, which was heralded as the norm of domestic bliss. Displaying women as oppressive also entailed characterizing the men in their lives as weak and unmanly, thus disrupting both of theirs adherence to gender norms and rendering them deviant (Ethnic Notions).
A contrary, yet still damaging portrayal of African American women was presented in the shape of the Tragic Mulatto. Unlike the mammy figure, these women conformed to the
Western standards of femininity, with their looks as well as their behavior. Docile and delicate, proud in the face of adversity, they often had European features and lighter skin.
Their characters were intended to be sympathized with, presumably not coincidentally due to their resemblance to White audience, and the plot was usually manipulated in a way to arouse the conclusion that “the girl’s life might have been productive and happy, were it not for her racial heritage” (Bogle 9). By creating a color gradient of roles that seemed to correspond to a diagram of human worth, Hollywood helped in creating a link between a person’s complexion and their standing in society. The assumption that skin color has profound influence on the individual’s status is still reported as being widely prevalent today, both between and within races, comprising as wide range of consequences as are
22 quality of life, self-esteem, and self-efficacy, and affecting women far more than men
(Thompson and Verna 351).
What all of the stock characters seem to have in common is that their characteristics have little to do with reality, and a lot to do with particular assumptions about African
Americans. Building on the myths of Black man’s sexuality, dark woman’s exoticism, or the influence of mixed blood on a person’s nature, films reflected these beliefs by prescribing sets of behavior that were expected to be seen on screen, thus further perpetuating them. Black women, when they were included in the production, were divided into two basic groups: those deemed sexually attractive and exploited for their looks, and those who posed no threat to White women but possessed certain desirable traits, such as loyalty and domestic skills. In general, female African Americans were presented as belonging to one of the two very pronounced extremes, each of which were degrading and fictitious in their own right. In the 1970s, the objectification became most evident with the emergence of figures of “macho goddesses [who] answered a multitude of needs and were a hybrid of stereotypes [...]. Each was a high-flung male fantasy: beautiful, alluring, glamorous voluptuaries, as ready and anxious for sex and mayhem as any man” (Bogle
251). By reducing Black women to superficial jezebels, it became apparent how little progress has truly been achieved in the authentic representation. Rather than convey some of the issues that were abundant in that era of social struggle, movies focused on their bodies and sexual appetites instead. This habitual practice of picking only a limited selection of traits that corresponded to the expectations of majority audience, meant that
African American culture remained to a degree a commodity – adjusted as necessary according to the leading trends. There was little interest in exploring the implications of what it meant to be a Black woman in the United States of America, uncovering their daily
23 struggles and inequality that they faced. Instead, they were most often cast in small roles that served only to add a little excitement to the otherwise weaker parts of the plot.
Overall, men were awarded a wider range of characterization, which is linked to the sheer disproportion in their representation when compared to Black women, who were almost relentlessly marginalized. Nevertheless, there is a similar pattern in their depiction.
Often playing either muscular Brutes or henpecked husbands in want of self-assurance,
African American males on screen simply look as unrealistic as their female equivalents.
Due in part to their secondary position in regard to the narrative, their characters are never as developed, lacking depth and screen time that is given to the central figures, usually played by White actors. This suggests that once again, rather than telling their own stories,
Black characters are used as a device for furthering the plot and as a means for the White protagonist to display his nature to the audience. In the following section, these issues will be further developed on specific examples. The oversimplification of gender identities and the prominence given to the physical, even primitive aspects of African American characters, resulted in the disintegration of their domestic foundations on screen. In numerous productions, families were shown lacking a deep loving bond that was highly valued within the American ideal of domesticity (Merritt and Stroman 493). Depicted with weak, or even absent fathers, and tyrannical mothers who showed little patience or understanding towards their children, African Americans seemed uninhibited, rampant, and difficult to personify with. Their characters were further distanced from the conventional framework by the occupational roles assigned to them, and the use of language that corresponded to the class that was displayed most often. Such commonplace depictions built on the “popular myth that BEV (Black English Vernacular) is a sub-standard form of
English spoken only by unintelligent Blacks” (Fine and Anderson 404). Utilized in this way, language served as just another tool for depicting African Americans as inferior.
24
Presenting their speech as deficient and amusing, such portrayals highlighted their
“isolation from the mainstream culture” (Fine and Anderson 404).
3.2 Analysis of The Green Mile
In this subchapter, attention will be given to the manner in which the surviving racial assumptions are evident in the realization of the Frank Darabont’s 1999 movie, The Green
Mile. The analysis conducted will concern several stereotypical elements present in the modern Hollywood production, the most notable of which are: the propensity to revolve the plot around White protagonists, the separation of African American characters from the rest of their communities, the lack of adequate development of their characters on both autonomous and interpersonal dimensions, and finally, the retention of damaging stereotypical elements in their characterization.
From the very beginning of The Green Mile, there is little doubt as to whose world the audience is getting an insight into. After a short, vague foreshadowing of the events that will play out, the film opens up with a focus on the elderly Paul Edgecomb. By the time he begins his recount of the events he had witnessed while working as a prison guard on death row duty, the audience is already engaged with his character and he establishes himself as a protagonist. The opening frames set up the perspective that the rest of the movie will develop. Played by an acclaimed actor, Tom Hanks, the central storyline revolves around the White man who crosses paths with an extraordinary person of John Coffey, an African
American who is wrongfully charged with raping and murdering two White girls. As the story develops, it becomes apparent that Coffey has supernatural powers, which he uses to cure the deserving White people around him, including Paul Edgecomb and the wife of the prison warden. Supported by the rationale of moral indignation, Coffey influences the course of events that end up sending a sadistic prison guard Percy to a mental asylum after
25 having shot another inmate, "Wild Bill" Wharton, the original perpetrator of the crimes that
Coffey was charged with.
The movie, with a span of over three hours, draws a large part of its appeal from the personal bonds that develop between characters. Taking place during the Jim Crow era, the connection that is established between the guards and Coffey despite the prejudice of the times can be considered an advancement, yet the nature of their relationship is worrisome once analyzed more closely. Apart from the fact that the film vindicates institutional segregation of the time by focusing on a few individuals who are morally in the right, and thus almost denies the shame of existing degradation (Turner), it also bases its idea of relationships between races on White supremacy. From his very introduction, John Coffey is established as unequal to the rest of the people on the Green Mile. While he appears menacing at first, due to his sheer size, the threat is quickly dismissed once he begins talking, reveling his “mental and emotional simplicity. This towering, barefoot giant in bib overalls is a child-like innocent. His language skills are minimal and his dialect is of the deep rural South”. But the disparity in their relationship goes further than intellectual differences. Once it is revealed that he has healing powers, it is decided upon removing him from the Green Mile at night, in order to cure the warden’s wife who is dying of cancer in her home. Yet, in the process, the guards “neither consider nor consult Coffey when conspiring to take advantage of his magical abilities” (144). This casts a very different light on the dynamics of the relationships in the movie, since the distribution of favors and help proves decisively one-sided. It is suggested that, if Black character has some redeeming qualities, it is taken for granted that they are to be taken advantage of in order to help a White person. Richard Alleva views the character of John Coffey as “white liberal's fantasy of a black man and someone who not only suffers the errors of the white
26 man, but suffers for the white man, redeeming his oppressors with his taciturn beatitude”
(cited in Owen and Ehrenhaus 138).
Furthermore, the prominence of a one-sided perspective is aided by the fact that all positive White characters are said to have intimate personal relationships in their lives, by being husbands or fathers. This circumstance adds a layer of familiarity, making them more human and relatable to the audience. In contrast, John Coffey appears to be fully alone, with neither friendships nor romantic involvements. Many of his characteristics point to the fact that he is representative of the latest display of stock characterization in African
American portrayal on screen, namely the Magical Negro. Although such depiction at first seems empowering due to its supernatural abilities, once examined more closely, it becomes evident how it is defined by an array of traits that help maintain Black inferiority, such as:
“(a) using magical and spiritual gifts for the White character, (b) assuming primarily
service roles, (c) exhibiting folk wisdom as opposed to intellectual cognition, (d)
possessing limited role outside of magical/spiritual guide, and (e) displaying an
inability to use his or her powers to help himself or herself” (Glenn)
The idea of simplicity and happy servitude, rooted in the character of the Uncle yet often emerging in the Magical Negro as well, makes it impossible for Coffey to portray complex character. While he is deeply emotion, his intellectual dimension is thoroughly deficient.
As is often the case in stereotypical portrayals, only one of the human spheres is allowed to develop, a characteristic which is decidedly contrasted to the leading White characters in the movie. Although Coffey has many positive characteristics of decency and frankness, he represents an ideal more than an actual person, which causes him to remain confined in his implausibility. On the other hand, the White roles are allowed to be both kind and insightful (with the exceptions of Percy and Wild Bill), which renders them not only more
27 human, but also more admirable, and therefore, the real heroes. The contrasts between them seem to suggest that, even when supernatural, “Black characters are morally equivalent to their “normal” White counterparts” (source).
28
4. Native American Stereotypes
Possibly more than any other group of people, Native Americans have experienced the dire consequences of being outnumbered. Gradually driven out of their own lands, the tribes were assumed to be deprived of their future by the arrival of European settlers and their unrelenting advancement. After the first meeting, it soon became apparent that the accounts of them that rapidly spread throughout the Old World would come to threaten their past as well, possibly causing even more damage to their cultural legacy than the defeats in combat. The ordeal of Native Americans was unique in the extent to which contact between them and the outgroup members has largely been indirect in nature.
Relying on the often uneducated or simply overly brief reports of the early encounters between them and the settlers, a misleading image of the Indian soon emerged to take a firm hold on the prevalent understanding of them. Due to the fact that outside of the frontier contact with them was exceptional, such preconceptions were difficult to dispel. As a result of the ensuing indifference to the actual realities of Native customs, lack of understanding of the complexities of their cultural framework, but mostly out of the belief in supremacy of their own heritage, European settlers and their correspondents in the Old
World constructed a model of the tribes that would fit their worldview. In this way, numerous different cultures they came upon were combined into a monolithic and reduced image of “the Indian”. In the centuries to follow, the trope would prove remarkably resistant to change, despite the later proximity and better understanding that soon developed between the two factions. Robert F. Berkhofer finds the reason behind this simplistic outlook in the practice by which “Europeans correlated whole nationalities with uniform moral and intellectual attributes” (24). As he explains: “Nations, races, and cultures were all basically seen as one interchangeable category for the understanding of peoples, and individuals were usually judged as members of their collectivity rather than as
29 different, separate humans” (25). In some respect, such application persists still today, and the inflexible concept of Native Americans later surfaced even in their representation in movies. With highly constrictive sets of behavior, the rigid characters found in mass production of westerns became known as “the Hollywood Indian,” because they bore little resemblance to the actual people, and reached the sphere of “a mythological being who exists nowhere but within the fertile imaginations of its movie actors, producers, and directors” (Rollins and O’Connor 12). Whimsical mental picture of the Indian, however disfigured, was regarded at times as “real, perhaps more real, than the Native American of actual existence and contact” (Berkhofer 71). Native American people were thus reimagined, and scrutinized from a perspective that did not allow for any deviation from established norms. Fashioned from the outside ever since their first encounter, the qualities of Native Americans were frequently judged positive or negative in the general discourse depending on the personal agenda of the evaluators, rather than on the objective realities of the very diverse people in question.
The exploration of the New World captivated Europeans with its prospects of new beginnings. In a time when people were questioning the consequences of civilization, which was seen as alienating and constrictive, they regarded the recently discovered continent as an empty land that presented them with a chance to start anew. In many paintings that proliferated in the period after the contact, America was illustrated as a pristine open space, solely awaiting European settlement. If any Indians were present, they were usually depicted in the corners, small and insubstantial. Similar treatment was evident in almost every domain of social narratives, ranging from literature and arts, to political agendas. Following the vast amount of prejudice projected onto them, along with a thorough lack of interest in the minutiae of their understanding of life, it is not surprising that they were seen primarily as an obstacle to progress and scientific thought, the core
30 values of the Age of Enlightenment. The distinctness displayed by Native American tribes was read merely as contrast to the generally acceptable behavior and esteemed principles of refinement. With little sympathy extended to them as human beings, they were regarded as a symbol of everything non-European, and therefore in opposition to all things proper and humane: “Using the twin criteria of Christianity and “civilization,” Spaniards found the Indian wanting in a long list of attributes: letters, laws, government, clothing, arts, trade, agriculture, marriage, morals, metal goods, and above all religion” (Berkhofer 10).
In a binary world of right and wrong, where the judgement came from those yielding more power, Native Americans did not fare well. The dominant civilization pushed its own beliefs onto the rest of the world, operating on an assumption that there existed a universal truth in the matters of morality or societal traditions. Since the notion of cultural pluralism became widely accepted only centuries later (source), the colonists evaluated the Indian “in terms of its lack of White ways rather than (...) from within the framework of the specific culture under consideration” (Berkhofer 26).
Not unlike African Americans, the Native peoples had to experience themselves from a foreign point of view, the only difference being that their “double veil” would prove even more difficult to overturn. Through the extraordinary power of conceptualization, the vivid images of primitive Indians were so transfixed in the mind of the public that any changes in reality did not seem to have impact on the popular depictions, regardless of the medium. Indeed, the minority seemed to remain constricted in its very definition:
“Since Whites primarily understood the Indian as an antithesis to themselves, then
civilization and Indianness as they defined them would forever be opposites. Only
civilization had history and dynamics in this view, so therefore Indianness must be
conceived as ahistorical and static. If the Indian changed through the adoption of
civilization as defined by Whites, then he was no longer truly Indian according to
31
the image, because the Indian was judged by what Whites were not. Change toward
what Whites were made him ipso facto less Indian” (Berkhofer 29).
Accordingly, Native Americans were viewed as deficient at their core, since they continued to be judged by biased standards of the dominant culture. In general, the sentiments towards them depended on the basic principles of the time, and such an interpretation merely echoed the most recent general climate depending on the developments in the world, rather than their own circumstances. Ever since the first contact was established, the beliefs rooted in the Old World surfaced to form opinions of Native Americans, just as it would later be repeated with African Americans as well, showing how there is a strong correlation between changes in the attitudes of the dominant culture, and its perception of minorities. John O’Connor explains how the portrayal of Native Americans on screen regularly reflected public trends in the United States of America, especially when political crises arose. For instance, with the outbreak of the World War II, the Indian was used as an established “traditional enemy,” and his negative portrayals in movies were utilized to inspire patriotic feelings. On the other hand, with the involvement of the United States in the highly criticized warfare in Vietnam a couple of decades later, Native Americans were commonly portrayed in a more humane light and genuinely sympathized with. Regrettably, such a change in their rendering spoke more of the nature in which the majority related to their Native American citizens, than of the heightened sensibility to the plights of the
Native Americans (Rollins and O’Connor 28). Interestingly, overall positive portrayals of
Native Americans appeared on screen only after they no longer posed any actual threat to the white advancement: “The noble Indian deserved White pity for his condition and his passing, but his way of life no less than that of the ignoble savage demanded censure according to the scale of progress and the passage of history (Berkhofer 91). Since little importance was given to their ongoing struggles rooted in the legacy of massacres and
32 degradation, their portrayals in film further demonstrated how they were utilized chiefly as tools to incite certain responses in the public. For this purpose, their personalities would remain strictly limited to conflicting extremes.
With a beginning in the era of silent film, but continuing well into the 20th century,
Native Americans were rejected as adequate members of the acting scene on account of the dismissive public perception of them. Instead, they were often backgrounded, or shown as colorless adversaries that offered opportunity for the film’s protagonists to establish themselves as characters (Price 154). Typecast into roles that ignored the possibility of their depth as human beings, they were used as entertainment, there to incite emotion, but rarely as key advancers of the plot. The Indian was to stay “a part of the setting to a greater extent than he is ever a character in his own right” (Cawelti 22). In addition, Native
Americans wishing to be a part of the picture had to forego any hopes of authenticity, and instead master the art of fitting into the powerful narrative that has been constructed of them. For that reason, rather than remaining true to their heritage, they had to learn how to
"act Indian." (Price 165). This tendency remained well-established in Hollywood, proving that “as long as Native actors are assigned roles controlled by non-Natives, the image will remain revisionist” (Rollins and O’Connor 3).
As in the case of African Americans, such practice both reflected and further constructed the conduct of the American majority towards the tribes. Although they were pitied on occasion, such sympathy often bordered on condescension, and when it came to providing meaningful roles they remained mostly overlooked. In order not to fall short of the general expectations of their worldviews, the immense differences between the tribes were glossed over as part of the Indian act. Although characters were referred to by their membership to a particular group, little attention was paid to their authentic representation:
“in the Hollywood Western, there are no ‘real’ ‘Indians’ - no Iroquois, no Lakotas, no
33
Navajos, only Hollywood Indians with different names. With hardly an exception throughout its history, the Hollywood Western has obliterated the ethnic and cultural distinctions between the many indigenous people of North America” (Maltby qtd. in
Rollins and O’Connor 77). Various elements were combined into a disjointed and historically inaccurate entity, focusing only on a small part of the more popular elements, like horse culture, adornment with feathers, teepee dwellings, and other well-known
Indians symbols in film. In reality, such features were true only for a very limited span of time and space, since:
“No American Indians rode horses before Columbus and most still did not hunt from
horseback in the middle 1800's. Most American Indians did not depend upon large
game as their primary source of food, but were in fact agriculturalists. Most American
Indians lived in permanent houses, not in temporary hide tents. Most American Indians
did not wear tailored hide clothing, but woven robes” (Price 167).
As a result of the narrowed concept of the Indian, only a couple of predominant stock characters would develop in the American film; archetypes being the noble savage and the animalistic villain. While there are subsets of these visions of Native Americans, the positive and the negative representation share similar characteristics, and their differences depend more on the viewpoint than depth of character or real antithesis. Reduced to either crazed barbarians or dull statues of empty nobility, there is a keen sense of lack in heterogeneity: “either an enemy or a friend, [the Indian] was never an ordinary human being accepted on his own terms” (Rollins and O’Connor 27). Consequently, a vast amount of minute distinctions that characterized these people was never allowed to develop on screen. Instead, their personalities can be viewed under very restricted notions of the
Savage and the Noble Indian, and their approximate counterparts of the Squaw the Indian
Princess.
34
4.1 Stock Characters and Social Roles
The trope of the Savage Indian has been given more screen time than any other representation of Native Americans. Since the persona entailed no complex character development, it was useful for providing elements of action to the plot otherwise centered on White protagonists. Savage Indians are regularly present as a backdrop to the actual storyline, there to situate the narrative in its context, and as the engine of raids conducted by bloodthirsty savages. Depicted in traditional “Hollywod Indian” style, with menacing mohawks, fringed leather garments, and unavoidable war paint on their faces, they are caricaturized to the point where it is difficult to find any distinctive traits between them.
Assuredly, their purpose is almost never to establish themselves as people, but rather to evoke the expected reactions from the audience, who immediately see them as an amorphous horde driven by the shared thirst for spilling blood. It is of note that the reasons behind raids are mentioned only in exceptional circumstances. As if it was simply the essence of being Indian, the nature of their attacks is neither pondered nor explained.
Instead, the assaults are most often easily resisted by brave White heroes, to whom they merely present an opportunity to display their masculinity and prowess in battle. Devon A.
Mihesuah, a Native scholar, emphasizes the irony by which, despite “the history of Indian-
Euro-American relations [that] is filled with instances of European massacres of Indians, in movies and on television, it is always the Indians who are portrayed as bloodthirsty villains” (48). Furthermore, while war is presented as the main, if not the only drive of the
Savage Indian, his skills prove no match to the White characters. After a common movie trope, the protagonists are capable of defeating the minority members even when greatly outnumbered, and their skill is often accentuated by stressing Native inadequacy. Another component of the Savage Indian stereotype is the appropriation of certain tribes as
35 epitomes of brutality. Presenting them as simple barbarians, and with little spiritual value other than rituals connected to warfare, whole groups of people are presented as having the practice of scalping as their one true purpose. Hollywood producers found such a depiction profitable, which was reflected in the proportional representation of different tribes on screen, marked by “predominance of Native societies with an historical reputation for violence, particularly Apache, Cheyenne, and Comanche” (Price 166). This practice involved not only poor reputation for the people represented, but also virtual invisibility of the groups whose culture was deemed less exciting (Price 166).
Conversely, White fascination with the idealized side of Native Americans was manifested in the formulation of the Noble Indian. Constructed at a time when the Native presence was contained and no longer posed any threat to the settlement of the Continent, the emerging nostalgia and indications of guilt helped create the image of a man perfectly balanced in his spiritual and physical aspects:
Along with handsomeness of physique and physiognomy went great stamina and
endurance. Modest in attitude if not always in dress, the noble Indian exhibited great
calm and dignity in bearing, conversation, and even under torture. Brave in combat, he
was tender in love for family and children. Pride in himself and independence of other
persons combined with a plain existence and wholesome enjoyment of nature’s gifts.”
(Berkhofer 28).
Although such a portrayal appears decisively positive, it is important to realize that its consequence is not an actual depiction of Native Americans, but rather a collection of
White ideals attributed to a fictional character. Through cultural appropriation, tribal heritage is distorted and remade out of elements that fit into the White narrative:
“Just as the material conditions of the lives of Native Americans were redrawn through
captivity, the reservation system, and political oversight by the federal government, so
36
it goes that their spiritual and cultural dimensions had been circumscribed in the
American popular culture by containing Indians within a field of romantic nostalgia”
(Rollins and O’Connor 64).
The Noble Indian achieved immense popularity, not only in the United States of America, but also in the Old World, most notably through the works of Karl May and his popular series of Winnetou novels, written despite the fact that the author visited the Continent only late in his life. The other, similar stories portrayed dignified but benevolent Indian chiefs, facing adversity with a befitting grace resembling European nobility, which once again displayed the origin of their characterization. Notably, the impact of this stereotype was no less damaging than its contrast of the Indian Savage. It reduced Native American men to absolutes of either good or bad, not allowing for any middle ground in which they might be revealed as ordinary human beings, equal to the rest of the world in their daily struggles.
As a female rendering of the Noble Indian, the Indian Princess displays an array of positive qualities, such as dignity, benevolence, and fairness. Her bearing is modelled upon the ideals of femininity inherited from Europe, but she is also graced with a hint of exoticism, making her more intriguing and desirable. In film, the Indian Princess is dressed provocatively almost without exception, openly displaying her physical attractiveness regardless of her tribal heritage in attire, as evident already in the example of Pocahontas
(Mihesuah 10). Her physique distinguishes her most decisively from her cinematic opposite, the Squaw. The Princess is young and beautiful, but she is also an ideal of the
Europeanized savage, emerging as a blend between the primitive and the civilized. This is visible in Rayna Green’s description of Native American women in cinematic portrayals:
The princess is lean and has Caucasian features, unlike her opposite stereotypical
evolution, the savage, fat, Indian-looking squaw. The ever-distant, noble, Caucasian-
37
featured Princess, symbolizing civilization, defies her culture to save the white man;
conversely, the drunken, fat, savage Squaw, sexual partner of the White man, represents
a barrier to civilization’s progress. (qtd. in Angela Ross 30)
Similarly to African Americans, the presence of Native American women was much more limited than that of men. When they were present, the Hollywood production focused on their physical appearance, dividing them based on their appeal to White men. The more mature or less attractive women were backgrounded, and their personalities were subsequently modelled after the perception of their bodies, rendering them dull or aggravating. While the positive figures of Native Americans shared many qualities, the main difference that separated the Indian Princess from her male counterpart was the development of her romantic life on screen. Less threatening to the distribution of power in the society, Native American women were more likely to be allowed to engage in romantic pursuits, which is why in their case the interracial element was much common than in the
“reciprocal form of miscegenation, Indian man and white woman, [which] has been less acceptable to white audience” (Price 164). Since the dominant perspective remained that of the White male, the romance between the protagonist and a beautiful exotic Princess was more likely to be depicted. However, even when romance between the groups was present, it most often ended in the death of the Native American husband or wife, a telling sign of the enduring fears of racial mixing (Price 164).
By regarding Native American women as either Princesses or Squaws, the complex patterns of their social roles have rarely been portrayed in film. The egalitarian classification which characterized most Native tribes has instead been replaced by the simplified models of Old World systems, which resulted in the “[projection of] European prejudices against their own women onto the relations of Indian men and women”
(Mihesuah 63). By upholding the superiority of their own culture, settlers dismissed the
38 possibility of a “primitive” society being more progressive in some aspects of social organization. Disregarding the tradition of matrilineal societies in numerous Native tribes, the settlers imposed their own values on the conquered territories. However, instead of advancement, European customs brought disruption into the lives of Native Americans, creating inequality among men and women and assigning only one group to the positions of power (Mihesuah 43).
4.2 Analysis of Pocahontas
In an attempt to uncover the usually disregarded consequences that even the positive stereotypes have, the movie chosen for this analysis was Disney’s Pocahontas. Skillfully made, it achieved widespread popularity and influenced a whole generation of children, leaving an imprint on their perceptions of Native Americans. The sheer magnitude of movies and cartoons directed at children is evident in the lasting reputation they retain, going as far as commanding “at least as much cultural authority and legitimacy for teaching specific roles, values and ideals than more traditional sites of learning such as public schools, religious institutions and the family” (Giroux 25). Due to such powerful impressions, it is worth considering the messages contained in the depiction of the Native
American culture and people in Pocahontas. While there are certainly good sides to this work, there is also a range of disquieting elements. This section will be concerned with the stereotypical depiction of the protagonist, White perspective in the handling of the story, and the aspects of cultural appropriation and historicism.
Although Disney producers maintain that the story of Pocahontas was chosen with the resolution of empowerment in mind, and in order to create a break with the typical “damsel in distress” role that was so often found in their earlier productions, numerous Native critics view the portrayal of the protagonist as prototypical of the stereotypical reduction in
39 character complexity. One of them, Cornel Pewewardy, castigates the representation of the
Native protagonist:
The "Indian Princess" stereotype is rooted in the legend of Pocahontas and is typically
expressed through characters that are maidenly, demure, and deeply committed to some
white man. The powerfully symbolic Indian woman, as Queen and Princess, has been
with us since she came to stand for the "New World," a term that in and of itself
reflects a Eurocentric value judgment. (Pewewardy)
Although Pocahontas was conceived as a self-reliant female lead, such a portrayal ultimately did not emerge. This was most notably due to the picture’s embellished focus on the emotional side of her character. Choosing between romantic love and her community, there is an overall impression of exchanging one burden for the other, under which the female has to choose whom to serve, instead of giving prominence to her inner aspirations.
Such a perspective, in which a woman is expected to resign herself to the comfort of others, while at the same time remaining physically attractive and exotic, is suggestive of a
White male point of view. Furthermore, the very fact that the trope of the Indian Princess is referred to by the title of nobility that did not even exist in the Native cultures, points once again to the outsider’s perspective. By reimagining the story of her life, the dominant culture once again intruded on the Native American legacy. While there is nothing wrong with a degree of artistic freedom, the problem arises when profit is made by exploiting an important icon of someone’s heritage, and presenting its distorted image to the rest of the world under a veil of empowerment and cultural authenticity. Indeed, the most dramatized element in Pocahontas is the Native American spiritualism. Emphasis is put extensively on the connection between the protagonist and the natural world, but the problem lies in the fact that this relationship is simplified to the point of verging on condescension. By talking to animals and walking barefoot everywhere, Pocahontas seems more representative of the
40
New Age spiritualism, than complex Native American ontological belief systems
(Pewewardy). The concept of primitivism, touched upon by such intangible qualities as simplicity and connection to the environment, is further developed by the usage of language in the cartoon. Pewewardy disapproves of the usage of certain expression, such
"savages," "heathens," "pagans," "devils," "primitive," and "civilized." He maintains that
“these terms connote something wild, primitive, and inferior. They imply a value judgement of white superiority.”
Another aspect of the cultural appropriation and the lack of regard for authenticity, is the amount of historicism present in the rendering of this story. Not limited to the illustration of certain abstract qualities such as spiritualism, the account of Pocahontas, as based on historical records, is retold without regard for the truth. While it might be troublesome portraying the actual reality of the kidnapping of the eleven year old girl in a cartoon movie intended for children, erasing history and presenting a polished version on screen is not only careless, but deliberately revisionist. If the amount of violence that was done to the Native Americans through history is deemed too disreputable to be shown to children, a question arises as to whether there is not more shame in the continual recommodification of the Native American legacy, through which past crimes seem to be only perpetuated in the public discourse.
41
5. Conclusion
Both African American and Native American minorities still experience a great amount of discrimination in their representation in film. Built on a past tainted with racism, the remnants of prejudice proved difficult to annihilate. While the past cannot be changed, what is worrisome is the amount of enduring stereotypical representations of minorities in the modern Hollywood productions. Building on the well-established stereotypes of their inferiority, such images are still used to provoke amusement by presenting reimagined versions of the actual people. Even when presented in an apparently positive manner, as has lately been the case with the emergence of the “magical Negro films” and the revisionist western, a number of demeaning factors are still present. While there have been strides in raising awareness of the need for a more equal representation, the key problem remains that, without access to important roles in the motion picture production, minority members do not have a possibility to tell their own stories. Due to this, even despite best intentions, the perspective in films will remain White, for as long as minority members are not given opportunity to recount their own experiences in an authentic manner.
Marginalized and trivialized, repeatedly cast in the same molds, it is a great loss for the film production to miss out on the diversity with which minorities could invigorate the stale constructions of characters. Thus, instead of being “framed in terms of White values and needs, White ideologies and creative uses” (Berkhofer 111), as has so often been the case, the future of the film, but also of race relations, might lie in extending the right of self-representation to minorities, and not only in theory. Because of the impact of film on the public consciousness, it is crucial to bring an end to the questionable practices, and insure that the future generations have a possibility to grow up without the formation of prejudice at a young age.
42
Works Cited
Pocahontas. Dir. Mike Gabriel and Eric Goldberg. By Carl Binder, Susannah Grant, Philip
LaZebnik, Irene Bedard, Judy Kuhn, Mel Gibson, and David Ogden Stiers. Buena Vista
Pictures Distribution, Inc., 1995.
The Birth of a Nation. Dir. David Llewelyn Griffith. The Birth of a Nation (1915 Film by
D.W Griffith). YouTube, 10 July 2016. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.
The Green Mile. Dir. Frank Darabont. Warner Brothers, 1999.
Baird, Robert. “‘Going Indian’: Dances with Wolves.” Hollywood’s Indian: The
Portrayal of the Native American in Film
Berkhofer, Robert F. The White Man's Indian: Images of the American Indian from
Columbus to the Present. New York: Vintage Books, 2004. Print.
Bogle, Donald. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks; an Interpretive History of
Blacks in American Films. 4th ed. New York: Continuum, 2001. Print.
Brunette, Libby, Claudette Mallory, and Shannon Wood. Stereotypes and Racism in
Children’s Movies. Research Gate. National Association for the Education of Young
Children, n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.
Cawelti, John G. The Six-gun Mystique Sequel. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State
U Popular, 1999. Print.
Dates, Jannette Lake, and William Barlow. Split Image: African Americans in the Mass
Media. 2nd ed. Washington, D.C.: Howard UP, 1990. WorldCat Organization. Howard
University Press, 25 Apr. 2008. Web. 02 May 2016.
Du Bois W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches. Greenwich, CT: Fawcett
Publications, 1961. Print.
Ethnic Notions. Dir. Marlon Riggs. Perf. Esther Rolle. California Newsreel, 1986. Web.
Fields, Barbara J. “Whiteness, Racism, and Identity”. International Labor and Working-
43
Class History 60 (2001): 48–56. Web. 12 Mar 2016.
Fine, Marlene G., and Carolyn Anderson. “Dialectical Features of Black Characters in
Situation Comedies on Television”. Phylon (1960-) 41.4 (1980): 396–409. Web
Gibson, Gloria J. “Monsters, Aliens and Plants: Reincarnated Stereotypes in Hollywood
Cinema”. Black Camera 2.1 (1987): 4–4. Web. 12 Mar 2016.
Giroux, Henry A. “Animating youth: the Disneyfication of children’s Culture.” Socialist
Review, 24 (1995), pp. 23–55
Glenn, Cerise L., and Landra J. Cunningham. The Power of Black Magic: The Magical
Negro and White Salvation in Film. Journal of Black Studies 40.20 (2009): 135-
52. SAGE Publications Online. SAGE Publications, Nov. 2009. Web. 23 Apr. 2016.
Jacobson, Cardell K. “Resistance to Affirmative Action: Self-interest or Racism?” The
Journal of Conflict Resolution 29.2 (1985): 306–329. Web. 19 Apr. 2016.
Kinder, Donald R., and David O. Sears. "Prejudice and Politics: Symbolic Racism Versus
Racial Threats to the Good Life." Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology 40.3 (1981): 414-31. Coolingwood Research. American Psychological
Association. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.
Lott, Eric. Love & Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class. 20th ed.
N.p.: Oxford UP, 2013. Google Books. Oxford University Press, 10 July 2013. Web. 29
Apr. 2016.
Merritt, Bishetta, and Carolyn A. Stroman. “Black Family Imagery and Interactions on
Television”. Journal of Black Studies 23.4 (1993): 492–499. Web. 21 Apr. 2016.
Mihesuah, Devon A. American Indians: Stereotypes & Realities. Atlanta, GA: Clarity,
1996. Print.
Miles, Robert, and Malcolm Brown. "Racism." Google Books. Routledge, 2004. Web. 21
Apr. 2016.
44
Myrdal, Gunnar. "American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern
Democracy." Internet Archive. Harper Brothers Publishers, 23 July 2010. Web. 23 Apr.
2016.
Owen, Susan A., and Peter Ehrenhaus. “Communities of Memory, Entanglements, and
Claims of the Past on the Present: Reading Race Trauma through The Green
Mile." Critical Studies in Media Communication 27.2 (2010): 131-54. Taylor &
Francis Online. Routledge, 3 June 2010. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.
Pewewardy, Cornel, Ph.D. "The Pocahontas Paradox: A Cautionary Tale for Educators."
Journal of Navajo Education (1996/1997): n. pag. Hanksville Organization. University
of Kansas. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.
Price, John A. “The Stereotyping of North American Indians in Motion Pictures”.
Ethnohistory 20.2 (1973): 153–171. Web. 21. Apr. 2016.
Punyanunt-Carter, Narissra M. "The Perceived Realism of African American Portrayals on
Television." Howard Journal of Communications 19.3 (2008): 241-57. University of
Oregon. Routledge, 2008. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.
Rinehart, James W. “The Meaning of Stereotypes”. Theory Into Practice 2.3 (1963): 136-
143. Web. 19 Apr. 2016.
Rollins, Peter C., and John E. O'Connor. Hollywood's Indian: The Portrayal of the Native
American in Film. Lexington: U of Kentucky, 1998. Print.
Ross, Andrew et al. “A Symposium on Popular Culture and Political Correctness.” Social
Text 36 (1993): 1–39. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.
Ross, Angela. "The Princess Production: Locating Pocahontas in Time and Place." Arizona
Open Repository. The University of Arizona, 11 Mar. 2008. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.
Stam, Robert. “From Stereotype to Discourse: Methodological Reflections on Racism in
the Media.” CineAction 32 (1994): 10-29
45
Turner, Frederick Jackson. The Frontier in American History. New York: Henry Holt, 1921.
Gutenberg Organization. The Project Gutenberg, 14 Oct. 2007. Web. 19 Mar. 2016.
Wober, J. Mallory and Gunter, Barrie. Television and social control. Avebury, Aldershot,
Hants. Sydney, 1988.
46
Summary
This thesis uncovers how depictions of African Americans and Native Americans in modern Hollywood production reveal enduring stereotypes. Because these minority groups have been an integral part of the American nation ever since its beginnings, their filmic representation functions as a mirror of the political atmosphere in the country. Additionally, by providing a brief overview in the evolution of stereotyping, it shows how portrayals of minority members often echo the notions that White people hold about themselves.
Entrenched prejudice of White superiority remains difficult to truly eliminate, restricting
African American and Native American characters to mostly backgrounded roles. Specific stereotypes are examined through the analyses of The Green Mile and Pocahontas, in which John Coffey emerges as a representative of the Magical Negro persona, while
Pocahontas displays but also greatly assists in constructing the model of the Indian
Princess. It is concluded that, although overtly racist depictions of minorities are generally no longer present in Hollywood films, there remains a tendency to reduce them to certain well-established types. As long as the production remains predominantly White, the extent to which minorities can be represented authentically is questionable.
47
Resumé
Tato práce odhaluje, jak vyobrazení Afroameričanů a Indiánů v moderní
Hollywoodské produkci, odkrývá přetrvávající stereotypy. Protože zmíněné menšiny byly nedílnou součástí Amerického národa od dob jeho vzniku, jejich filmová reprezentace funguje jako odraz politické nálady v zemi. Dále poukazuje na vyobrazení členů menšin, pomocí poskytnutí stručného přehledu vývoje stereotypů, jak vyobrazení členů menšin
často zrcadlí představy, které mají běloši sami o sobě. Zakořeněné předsudky bílé nadřazenosti zůstává složité odstranit, což omezuje postavy Afroameričanů a Indiánů převážně na sekundární role. Specifické stereotypy jsou zkoumány analýzou filmů Zelená míle a Pocahontas, ve kterých se John Coffey objeví jako zástupce postavy „Magical
Negro“, zatímco Pocahontas vyobrazuje, ale také pomáhá tvořit, model Indiánské princezny. Práce dospívá k závěru, že, i když otevřeně rasistická vyobrazení menšin už nejsou obecně přítomná ve filmech Hollywoodské produkce, zůstává tendence snižovat je na určité zavedené typy. Dokud produkce zůstává převážně bělošská, rozsah, ve kterém mohou být menšiny vyobrazeny autenticky, je sporný.
48