Affichage professionnel: The Hollywood Indian Stereotype: The Cinematic Othering and Assimilation of Native Americans at the Turn of the 20th Century

The Hollywood Indian Stereotype: The Cinematic Othering and Assimilation of Native Americans at the Turn of the 20th Century

This paper intends to demonstrate that the misrepresentation of Native Americans in cinema furthers the logic of differentiation at play in popular culture, focalizing on an irreconcilable enemy image upon which the American self is constructed. The Indian looking glass magnifies America’s lack of s...

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Dans:	URI:https://journals.openedition.org/angles,
Auteur principal:	Berny, Martin
Format:	Article ou chapitre numérique
Langue:	Anglais
Publié:	Angles 2020
Sujets:	Amérindiens Indien d’Hollywood noble indien sauvage altérité Soi Ouest sauvage Western industrie culturelle assimilation miscégénation Curtis Edward S. Vidor King Griffith D.W. Girard René stéréotypes Autre frontière Hollywood Indian noble Indian savage Other Self Wild West culture industry misrepresentation miscegenation stereotypes Native American Frontier
Accès en ligne:	Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM

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record_format	openedition
collection	OpenEdition Journal
language	Anglais
format	Article ou chapitre numérique
building	0/Bibliothèque numérique/ 1/Bibliothèque numérique/OpenEdition Journals/
topic	Amérindiens Indien d’Hollywood noble indien sauvage altérité Soi Ouest sauvage Western industrie culturelle assimilation miscégénation Curtis Edward S. Vidor King Griffith D.W. Girard René stéréotypes Autre frontière Hollywood Indian noble Indian savage Other Self Wild West culture industry misrepresentation assimilation miscegenation Curtis Edward S. Vidor King Griffith D.W. Girard René stereotypes Western Native American Frontier
spellingShingle	Amérindiens Indien d’Hollywood noble indien sauvage altérité Soi Ouest sauvage Western industrie culturelle assimilation miscégénation Curtis Edward S. Vidor King Griffith D.W. Girard René stéréotypes Autre frontière Hollywood Indian noble Indian savage Other Self Wild West culture industry misrepresentation assimilation miscegenation Curtis Edward S. Vidor King Griffith D.W. Girard René stereotypes Western Native American Frontier Berny, Martin The Hollywood Indian Stereotype: The Cinematic Othering and Assimilation of Native Americans at the Turn of the 20th Century
description	This paper intends to demonstrate that the misrepresentation of Native Americans in cinema furthers the logic of differentiation at play in popular culture, focalizing on an irreconcilable enemy image upon which the American self is constructed. The Indian looking glass magnifies America’s lack of self-knowledge. Following Frederic Jackson Turner’s theory of the frontier and the mythologizing of the West at the turn of the 20th century, the Hollywood industry recycled the dual stereotype of the noble Indian and the bloodthirsty savage. This dichotomy deployed through American cinema and literature fits the evolving curve that defines the limits of a cohesive norm and the dominant vision of what the country is, of what it means to be American. As powerful social agents, movies from the period helped shape the way America thought about Native Americans and contributed to a rewriting of History, summoning those fantasized images manufactured by James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales, dime novels, the paintings of Frederic Remington, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, or Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope. I argue that the disappearance of the positive representation of Indians in the 1910s is part of a wider process of assimilation that legitimizes and reinforces the position of white mainstream society. More specifically, this essay investigates the process through which the Hollywood Indian became a necessary ideological tool supporting the All American Hero and the war effort in both World Wars. King Vidor’s Northwest Passage (1940), a work of implicit propaganda used by the National Education Association, makes the Natives an analogy for the Nazis, thus substituting an enemy image for another. George B. Seitz’s The Vanishing American (1925) is also an emblematic example of the use of a dissolving enemy image. As a biased Darwinism inflected the collective consciousness of what was then thought to be their forthcoming extinction, Native Americans had to merge into the conforming frame of the master race, most effectively through the agency of the Office of Indian Affairs and within Indian boarding schools. The Vanishing American culminates with its main character’s demise: Nophaie’s sacrifice proves the two races can never be mixed, and that if assimilation is to take place, it is only through a whitening process that would lead to the obliteration of the Natives. When Nophaie dies, the moment of his passing is described through a skin color change, his face turning white. While the end of the twenties marked the arrival of synchronized-sound cinema, the Natives lingered “voiceless into the margins”, as a silent mirror image that could not speak, epitomizing what the American self was not (Kilpatrick 1999). To this day, white imagination remains unable to articulate the other’s language and to see beyond these immutable images.
author	Berny, Martin
author_facet	Berny, Martin
author_sort	Berny, Martin
title	The Hollywood Indian Stereotype: The Cinematic Othering and Assimilation of Native Americans at the Turn of the 20th Century
title_short	The Hollywood Indian Stereotype: The Cinematic Othering and Assimilation of Native Americans at the Turn of the 20th Century
title_full	The Hollywood Indian Stereotype: The Cinematic Othering and Assimilation of Native Americans at the Turn of the 20th Century
title_fullStr	The Hollywood Indian Stereotype: The Cinematic Othering and Assimilation of Native Americans at the Turn of the 20th Century
title_full_unstemmed	The Hollywood Indian Stereotype: The Cinematic Othering and Assimilation of Native Americans at the Turn of the 20th Century
title_sort	hollywood indian stereotype: the cinematic othering and assimilation of native americans at the turn of the 20th century
publisher	Angles
publishDate	2020
container_title	URI:https://journals.openedition.org/angles
url	https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://doi.org/10.4000/angles.331 https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://journals.openedition.org/angles/331
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spelling	openedition-oai:revues.org:angles_331 https://doi.org/10.4000/angles.331 urn:doi:10.4000/angles.331 en https://journals.openedition.org/angles/331 2020-07-16T02:00:00Z info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess article info:eu-repo/semantics/article urn:handle:20.500.13089/9myc https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ The Hollywood Indian Stereotype: The Cinematic Othering and Assimilation of Native Americans at the Turn of the 20th Century Angles Société des Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Supérieur info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/2274-2042 URI:https://journals.openedition.org/angles Berny, Martin Amérindiens Indien d’Hollywood noble indien sauvage altérité Soi Ouest sauvage Western industrie culturelle assimilation miscégénation Curtis Edward S. Vidor King Griffith D.W. Girard René stéréotypes Autre frontière Hollywood Indian noble Indian savage Other Self Wild West culture industry misrepresentation assimilation miscegenation Curtis Edward S. Vidor King Griffith D.W. Girard René stereotypes Western Native American Frontier This paper intends to demonstrate that the misrepresentation of Native Americans in cinema furthers the logic of differentiation at play in popular culture, focalizing on an irreconcilable enemy image upon which the American self is constructed. The Indian looking glass magnifies America’s lack of self-knowledge. Following Frederic Jackson Turner’s theory of the frontier and the mythologizing of the West at the turn of the 20th century, the Hollywood industry recycled the dual stereotype of the noble Indian and the bloodthirsty savage. This dichotomy deployed through American cinema and literature fits the evolving curve that defines the limits of a cohesive norm and the dominant vision of what the country is, of what it means to be American. As powerful social agents, movies from the period helped shape the way America thought about Native Americans and contributed to a rewriting of History, summoning those fantasized images manufactured by James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales, dime novels, the paintings of Frederic Remington, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, or Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope. I argue that the disappearance of the positive representation of Indians in the 1910s is part of a wider process of assimilation that legitimizes and reinforces the position of white mainstream society. More specifically, this essay investigates the process through which the Hollywood Indian became a necessary ideological tool supporting the All American Hero and the war effort in both World Wars. King Vidor’s Northwest Passage (1940), a work of implicit propaganda used by the National Education Association, makes the Natives an analogy for the Nazis, thus substituting an enemy image for another. George B. Seitz’s The Vanishing American (1925) is also an emblematic example of the use of a dissolving enemy image. As a biased Darwinism inflected the collective consciousness of what was then thought to be their forthcoming extinction, Native Americans had to merge into the conforming frame of the master race, most effectively through the agency of the Office of Indian Affairs and within Indian boarding schools. The Vanishing American culminates with its main character’s demise: Nophaie’s sacrifice proves the two races can never be mixed, and that if assimilation is to take place, it is only through a whitening process that would lead to the obliteration of the Natives. When Nophaie dies, the moment of his passing is described through a skin color change, his face turning white. While the end of the twenties marked the arrival of synchronized-sound cinema, the Natives lingered “voiceless into the margins”, as a silent mirror image that could not speak, epitomizing what the American self was not (Kilpatrick 1999). To this day, white imagination remains unable to articulate the other’s language and to see beyond these immutable images. Cet article envisage la représentation des Indiens, irréconciliable image de l’ennemi à partir de laquelle s’est construite l’identité américaine, comme symptomatique de la logique de la différenciation en jeu dans la culture populaire. La figure de l’Indien est le prisme révélateur du manque de connaissance de soi dont souffre l’Amérique. Suivant la théorie de la Frontière définie par Frederick Jackson Turner et de la mythification de l’Ouest au tournant du siècle, l’industrie hollywoodienne réactualisa le double stéréotype du noble indien et du sauvage assoiffé de sang. Cette dichotomie, déployée au travers du cinéma et de la littérature américaine correspond au tracé aux contours variables qui définit les limites d’une norme cohésive, la vision du pays, et ce que signifie être américain. Les films de cette époque ont altéré la façon dont l’Amérique percevait les Amérindiens et participèrent à une réécriture de l’Histoire, invoquant ces images fantasmatiques popularisées par le cycle Bas-de-Cuir de James Fenimore Cooper, les peintures de Frederic Remington, le Wild West Show de Buffalo Bill, ou le Kinétoscope de Thomas Edison. La disparition d’une représentation positive des Indiens au cours des années 1910 fait partie d’un processus d’assimilation qui légitime et renforce la position de la société blanche dominante. En outre, nous examinerons le processus au cours duquel l’Indien d’Hollywood devint un outil idéologique crucial pour soutenir le héros américain et l’effort de guerre durant les deux guerres mondiales. Northwest Passage (King Vidor, 1940), en tant qu’œuvre de propagande implicite utilisée par la National Education Association, fait ainsi des Indiens un péril analogue aux nazis, substituant une image de l’ennemi à une autre. The Vanishing American (George B. Seitz, 1925) joue un rôle politique semblable. Un darwinisme obscurci infléchit la vision collective de ce qui était alors perçu comme l’extinction imminente des Amérindiens, les poussant à se fondre et à s’évanouir au sein de la race dominante au travers des dispositifs mis en place par le Bureau des affaires indiennes et les écoles indiennes. Le dénouement de The Vanishing American met ainsi en scène la mort de son personnage principal, l’indien Nophaie, dont le sacrifice prouve que les deux races ne pourront jamais se mélanger, et que si une assimilation doit avoir lieu, ce n’est qu’en devenant blanc, conduisant à l’effacement même des Natifs. Sa mort est ainsi traduite par le changement de la couleur de sa peau, son visage devenant blanc. Alors que la fin des années 1920 marquait l’arrivée du son synchronisée au cinéma, les Amérindiens demeurèrent « sans voix, confinés à la marge », image miroir silencieuse qui ne pouvait parler, emblème de ce que l’américain n’était justement pas (Kilpatrick 1999). À ce jour, l’imagination blanche reste incapable de saisir le langage de cet autre et de voir au-delà de ces images immuables.

The Hollywood Indian Stereotype: The Cinematic Othering and Assimilation of Native Americans at the Turn of the 20th Century

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