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A successful blog post engages with the week's readings

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A successful blog post engages with the week's readings. Additionally:

• Blog posts should be 100 – 150-word reflections
• In your blog posts, address the following three points: 1.) Why a particular short passage from the reading is interesting to you; give author and page number. 2.) A brief connection you’ve made between the text and one of the following:
  • another reading from our class
  • another class you’ve taken
  • something from performance, the arts, media, or popular culture
• 1 – 2 questions that you have about the text that you will bring to the class discussion. Formulating strong questions is an important critical thinking skill that can be honed and will benefit you in your thinking and writing.

John Wayne's Teeth: Speech, Sound and Representation in "Smoke Signals" and "Imagining Indians" Author(s): Joanna Hearne Reviewed work(s): Source: Western Folklore, Vol. 64, No. 3/4, Film and Folklore (Summer - Fall, 2005), pp. 189208 Published by: Western States Folklore Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25474748 . Accessed: 13/03/2013 16:52 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . Western States Folklore Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Western Folklore. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded on Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:52:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Teeth John Wayne's Speech, Sound and Representation in Smoke Signals and Imagining Indians Hearne Joanna The emergence of independent indigenous film and video raises impor tant questions about the relationship between folklore and film and between filmmaking and dominant (especially and How do films that systems, genres. Hollywood) representations, contain folklore differ from films in which oral narratives structure or indigenous minority organize not only the dramatic content but also film production? How do Native-controlled films and videos re-invent the idea of tradition, and in the process re-frame discourses about authenticity in popular culture? How do acts of telling, recording, and dramatizing oral narratives on film relate mutually to the project of cultural revitalization through the work of stories and storytelling? For some tribal communities, film footage and photographs taken at outsiders have times in cultural service by signified appropriation of salvage ethnography and Western frontier dramas, indexing the of power relations unequal tion. Native American Victor Zacharias Masayesva, during Kunuk and and circulation, production, and First Nations filmmakers others recep such as Chris Eyre, have re-assessed prior systems ofWestern image-making while enacting strategies of cultural revival at the site of film and video production. Their images engage with the history of representations inWestern genres through a return to earlier as well as and photographs, and through experimental editing techniques, special effects, especially oral in and voiceovers, interviews, song sound?including storytelling re-enactments, re-coding enous media (sometimes popular archival) music, footage and sound bridges. The use of sound images represents an especially powerful way in which makers assert their voices in the present while in indig reclaim scenarios. ing images taken in the past and fused with Euro-American Further, many Native and First Nations filmmakers are profoundly aware Folklore Western 64:3&4 (Summer& Fall 2005):189-208. Copyright? 2006,Western StatesFolkloreSociety This content downloaded on Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:52:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 190 JOANNA HEARNE of the influence of film on young people as a storytelling medium, and work with their own films to counteract the intrusive ideologies of Westerns and other Hollywood and media images of Indians. Films such as Victor Masayesva's Itam Hakim, Hopiit (1984) and Imagining Indians functions, reconstructing (1993) engage this issue of film's pedagogical narra indigenous cultural identities in part by re-deploying tribal oral of and in the tives, strategy part through "inappropriate post-colonial of of Western Indians.1 popular images appropriation" This essay on focuses two films?one the dramatic, other documen for both insider and outsider audiences. Rather than using tary?made the material to try to understand particular tribal audience worldviews from my outsider's I consider perspective, moments specific the when filmmakers strategically intervene inmedia representations and appro tools for the purposes of visual sovereignty.2 Following priate media in the relationship between film production and interest David James' film text, and drawing from insights into post-colonial identity construc tion by Stuart Hall and Frantz Fanon, I outline several ways that indig enous filmmakers in engage research" "passionate re-contextualizing by earlier images, texts, oral narratives, and songs (Hall 2000:705) .3 Scholars in film studies have emphasized the importance of attending to filmmaking practices in relation to film texts. In his work on alterna tive David cinemas, asserts James that cinemas independent allegorize that produce them; that is, "a film's images and sounds never fail to tell the story of how and why theywere produced? the story of themode of their production" (1989:5). In later work, James the social relations further develops this idea in relation to emergent minority cinemas: As they [minority filmmakers] aspired to become producers rather than consumers a recurrent of cinema, has paradigm been recogniz produced: inHollywood films reflects ing that their exploitative misrepresentation their exclusion from positions of power in the Hollywood cinema, they have been faced with twoparallel systems of choice: first,on the level of the on or cinemas) (alternative second, between the choice production, the level of creating attempting the film text, the between "authentic" or narratives of over reworking them, taking languages, images, and those of Hollywood in the positions choice of their own systems productive to secure their industry; searching own using identity, them for or against the grain or otherwise disrupting them. (1999:8) constructs that differentiate James' formulation clarifies the diverging with and regard tominority iden independent productions Hollywood an either/or as binary opposites in tity.Though these could be perceived This content downloaded on Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:52:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions John Wayne's 191 Teeth construction of limited choice, James also calls attention to the need for alter scholarship that breaks down boundaries between Hollywood and In Allegories of Cinema he writes that native cultures of film production. "the categories of the avant-garde and the industrymust be dismantled, to the play of heterogeneity and and their blank polarization opened interdetermination" (1989: 22). James' use of the word "authentic" in quotation marks in the passage above further begs questions of authen ticity and tradition that have been central debates in folklore studies.4 and contexts, gies, a hybrid, mixed films evidence Many Native-produced production set of ideolo the that, within situations of constraints enable a diversity of oppositional practices.5 In these relations films complicate attempts to separate looking particular, tradition from innovation, authenticity from representation, and the notion of a singular identity from fictions of Indian blood. nevertheless unequal indigenous minority identities have been under as a factor of "blood quantum," a measure by which North American stood politically Indian as decline populations outsiders with intermarriage increases, typically presented intermarriage as a threat to the racial purity of settler populations. The debates about blood quantum have while Westerns an as measure authenticating of Indian have identity a from emerged history of elaborate legal and cultural fictions regarding measurable Indian bodies.6 fractions of tribal blood and racialized Indigenous the can?and has?challenged "vanishing Indian" trope filmmaking concomitant and assimilation blood policies racial quantum and criteria that to dismantle attempts have treaty Community filmmaking practices present an opportunity the of impact institutional, and cultural, cinematic structured commitments. to speak about in interventions tribal families by dramatizing and/or actively mediating the disrupted relations between familymembers and between Native youth and their communities. complete, identity is a production to Stuart Hall, According always in process, and constituted always "which is never not within, outside, on Frantz Fanon's concept of the Drawing of and the concomitant process post-colonial "rediscovery" identity of "passionate research" into native pasts that have been distorted or disfigured by colonial oppression, Hall asks if identitymight reside not representation" in "archaeology" writes: is "Far waiting ourselves from to be (2000:704). but being found, rather "in the grounded in a mere and when which, of re-telling the 'recovery' found, will past." Further, of the past, secure our he which sense of into eternity, identities are the names we give to the different This content downloaded on Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:52:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions JOANNA HEARNE 192 ways we are positioned by, and position ourselves within, the narratives of the past" (705-6). The strategies of indigenous filmmakers as they incorporate and re-tell "narratives of the past" in their films intersect powerfully with both folkloristics and film studies. Scholars working in visual anthropology have already given signifi cant attention to systems of funding and distribution, the social relations as instances of deliberate of production cultural construction, and the those filmed, and audience recep relationships tion.7 Faye Ginsburg suggests that indigenous media attempts a cultural "mediation of rupture," one that involves what she calls the "parallax between film content, effect"?the changed appearance of what is observed when viewed from another position. Many of the texts, images, and footage from earlier and Hollywood ethnographic representations have had a continued as half-life producers, cultural or and documents, have performers used in several cases sound to make Native filmmakers, taken images by speak with a voice that addresses indigenous needs and priori ties. Edward S. Curtis photographs, and his 1914 film In theLand of the outsiders War keted Canoes, have as re-circulated calendars, and posters, part post-cards, of material while items at the as mass-mar such same time acting as family photographs for some indigenous viewers. Curtis' original silent film, In theLand of theHeadhunters, has itself been re-claimed by Kwakiutl community members through their soundtrack, added in 1972. Another silent film, Redskin, directed by in 1929, recently toured the United Victor Shertzinger for Paramount States and Europe with new cians from the band National musical by Native accompaniment musi Braid. The Return ofNavajo Boy (2001), a Klain and director Jeff Spitz, documents film co-produced by Bennie the impact of the repatriation of silent film footage of the Cly family of Monument Valley from the 1950s. The reverberations of the family's viewing and commenting upon the returned film include re-uniting with a lost sibling, John Wayne Cly, who had been adopted and raised in article about the Cly family's new film find his birth family. French filmmaker project helped John Wayne Cly the recep Clause Massot's Nanook Revisited (1990) similarly documents a missionary home. A newspaper tion an among Inuit community to the showing of Robert Flaherty's to attend of theNorth. Such films challenge folklorists to the to the relationships between film content and film production, 1922 film Nanook to the specifically cin politicized re-use of films in new group contexts, in film content and to the act ematic ways inwhich folklore is embedded of filmmaking itself as a powerful form of cultural performance. This content downloaded on Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:52:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions John Wayne's 193 Teeth At the level of production, many indigenous dramatic film and video practices intersect powerfully with documentary, neo-realist, and Third Cinema impulses in the casting of nonprofessional actors, emphasis on shooting, unscripted or untranslated and stylistic devices such as the long dialogue, indigenous-language take. Film content is inseparable from the style and structuring of pro duction systems on film sets?such as the production of Atanarjuat/ The Fast Runner (2002)?where intergenerational contact between younger idioms, location tribal dramatic and elder cast and crew can strengthen and recognition of re-construction tribal identities through the cultural skills, knowledge, val and ues. At the level of the film text, films such as Chris Eyre's Smoke Signals of appropriat (1998) comment specifically on the human consequences as cultural signs. The filmmakers ing and circulating images of Indians re-frame earlier ethnographic and popular images, disrupting the way such images have been claimed, contextualized, and given meaning by the impact of popular culture representations outsiders, and mapping on tribal identities. SOUNDS, SONGS, AND NATIVE PRESENCE IN SMOKE SIGNALS itself as a form of indigenous media in Signals announces the opening shots that link the reservation landscape with the voice Smoke and then the image of the K-REZ radio headquarters?a weathered trailer home?and itsMC, Randy Peone (John Trudell), a prominent American Indian Movement activist in the 1970s. This casting politicizes the role through the interstitial associations with past media coverage of AIM, and the suggests Trudell's mellow, film's self-conscious humorous as performance presentation as a new a radio host indigenous voice in popular culture. Significantly, this self-presentation is projected through the medium of sound. Radio Westerns played a crucial role in disseminating long-running stereotypes of Indians as Tonto Lone Ranger series, while local sidekicks in shows like the radio stations on reserva tions have been important early instances of Native appropriations of Smoke Signals is itself adapted from Sherman Alexie's collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight inHeaven story (1993), which refers to the staging of cultural resistance and revitalization in the broadcast media. arena of mass entertainment. Smoke Signals engages with the history of Indian representations in the through sound bridges, the figure of John Wayne, and allusions to film and television Westerns. The film very explicitly links popular representations with the trope of the "vanishing Indian" through Arnold Western This content downloaded on Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:52:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 194 JOANNA HEARNE Joseph's (Gary Farmer) Independence Day monologue early in the film, when he asserts that he can "make anything disappear": Wave my hand and poof! The white people are gone, sent back towhere . . Wave . Poof! they belong. hand my and the is gone. reservation The trading post and the post office, the tribal school and the pine trees; the dogs and cats, the drunks and Catholics, and the drunk Catholics. Poof! And all myself the little Indian boys named .... Victor I'm so good, I can make disappear. Denise Cummings and Dean Radar have already identified the inter textual joke associated with Indian "vanishing": Gary Farmer's character Arnold Joseph, who "vanishes" by abandoning his family in Smoke Signals, is also cast as a character named "Nobody" in the Jim Jarmusch films Ghost and (1996) Dog (1999). In Smoke Signals, the young Victor (Cody Lightning) tells his parents that his "favorite Indian" is "nobody, nobody, nobody" referring at once to the triad of himself and his mother DeadMan and father, and to his father's psychological absence from the family. His repetition of the word seems to give it a prophetic power as well. Significantly, a bottle of beer is in the foreground for much of Arnold "disappearing" monologue. Joseph's ite that Indian?"nobody"?suggests Arnold's his speech and Victor's struggle against powerful favor and stereotypes, in the context of a culturally and racially mixed to the community, has become self-hatred. The speech also refers subtly Ghost Dance religious movement and the belief of some followers that dominant the dance could bring back tribal familymembers who had passed away, the change course of Euro-American settlement, and make the whites as "nobody" and his disappear.8 Arnold Joseph's other (non)identity absence from his family and community function powerfully as meta of Native phors for Euro-American colonizing strategies and disruption I discuss below, Victor's then death?is abandonment, identities and families. As through alcoholism, loss of his father? linked repeatedly inHollywood Westerns. to pervasive stereotypes of Indians, especially In Eyre's film, two sound bridges, drawn from specific folk music tra ditions, function as bounded motifs that can be attached and detached from the contextual images that contribute In a cru to their meaning. cial sequence of scenes on a bus headed for Phoenix, Arizona, Coeur and Thomas focal characters Victor Joseph D'Alene (Adam Beach) Builds-the-Fire (Evan Adams) engage in a debate, heavily influenced by about how images of Indians (especially Dances withWolves), Hollywood to "be a real Indian" and "look like a warrior." Victor This content downloaded on Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:52:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions asserts that "people 195 Teeth John Wayne's won't respect you ifyou don't look mean," and Thomas obliges by culti a rest vating his warrior look during stop?he unbraids his hair, removes his a dons glasses, Power" "Frybread rest stop, Victor and Thomas coded men, as costumes their by and t-shirt, and cowboys a scowl. affects return to the bus After the to find that two white have "rednecks," taken their seats. Told by themen to "find someplace else to have a powwow," Victor and Thomas move to the back of the bus, a move that not only re-creates the bus as the segregated social space of the American South in the Civil Rights era, but also echoes the federal policies of Relocation and dislocation The an music, of Native sound bridge tribes. that accompanies of the adaptation Irish song this relocation is non-diegetic or Owen" "Garry "Owen's Garden" by the Native group Ulali. The tune is barely recognizable due to the changes in tempo, but according to screenwriter Sherman Alexie the choice was deliberate: I always folk song, favorite to include wanted this scene. He had in song. Ulali's "Gary it was when playing of version Owen" "Gary George he a Owen," traditional Custer's Armstrong attacked Indian camps. So, I thought itsuse during this scene would be very ironic. I also thought it one was of my brilliant, original ideas, in the same context. but a few months I saw Peter later, Bratt's film FollowMe Home for the second time and realized that he had used "Gary Owen" ripped him off, or "paid homage "Well, that's okay, I ripped I told Peter I had unintentionally to his film,"but he just smiled and said, it off from Little Big Man' (1998: 161). Indeed, John Ford made ironic use of the song's association with the Cavalry even before Arthur Penn used it to accompany the brutal mas sacre scene at the end of Little Big Man in 1970. Ford turned to it fre quently as a musical signifier for themilitary (much like the bugle call), and in his most famous revisionist Western, The Searchers (1956), the song forms a sound bridge as the racist Civil War veteran Ethan Edwards and his mixed-blood (JohnWayne) companion Martin Pauley (Jeffrey encounter Hunter) raid and massacre.9 the The Comanche music survivors accompanies of a winter-time images of Indian Cavalry women and children being marched through the snow by Cavalry soldiers. The recall Trail the of Tears and other forced marches, and clearly images underline the association of the tune with relocation and removal. The through music to theWestern genre and to frontier history are paralleled in Smoke Signals by visual allusions in other parts of the film, as when Victor's mother and father fight in front of the television playing allusions This content downloaded on Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:52:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 196 JOANNA HEARNE a black and white Western film. Victor is presented with both televised trauma at once, and Arnold's and familial forms of psychological of the family following aban this fight is linked metonymically to the screen tropes of military suppression and and metaphorically vanished Indians. The broadcast images invade and transform intimate donment spaces in the film, and the young Victor, as the spectator of both screen and domestic performances, absorbs and learns from the scripts and scenes he witnesses. name The or Owen" "Garry "Owen's to refers Garden" a place, in Ireland, and the song is an Irish in 1788 as "Auld Bessy." The Irish poet Thomas a suburb of Limerick Garryowen, jig first documented lyrics for the tune under the title "Daughter of Erin." The song was well known in the United States during the Civil War years war itbecame associ through itspublication in songsters, and after that to the legend, ated with General Custer's Seventh Cavalry. According Moore wrote Custer heard his Irish troops (or in some versions a specific person, Miles Geogh, an Irishman and former member of the Papal Captain Guard) playing the "drinking song" and liked it so much that itbecame the unofficial marching song of the Seventh Cavalry. The tune is said to be the last song played by the regiment as it left the Terry column to in June of 1876. The the attack at Little Big Horn begin signaled by the title "Garry Owen" a to carry continue song and story associa powerful tion with and within U.S. military culture. The Seventh Cavalry now includes the words Garry Owen and the story of the song's insignia associa appears on many military websites, as the internet is an important contemporary mode of transmission for the legend. The website for Camp Garry Owen (Fourth Squadron, Seventh Cavalry) in South Korea, for example, specifically identifies the unit with "the cavalry of the early days, who forged ahead on horseback tion with Custer and the Indian Wars to find the enemy," and the term is used to designate members of the Seventh Cavalry deployed in Iraq, as well.10 The "Garry Owen" musical sound bridge in Smoke Signals initiates a in the imagined dialogue about pan-tribal indigenous cultural identity vehicle links This community of a bus called the "Evergreen Stage." Westerns and over Western transformation. road movies, genres that share the trope of traveling and American public land to find both authentication These prized American images of travel are simultane over histories in which indigenous ously fraught with irony, covering or coerced movements the landscape were restricted through people's The mobile during the nineteenth century and the reservation period. This content downloaded on Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:52:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions homes on the reservation, Lester FallsApart's the Velma crossroads"), and car Lucy's 197 Teeth fohn Wayne's trailer ("broken down at that runs only in reverse, and Joseph's yellow pickup truck that helped him to disappear are all vehicular images that further complicate earlier cinematic desires? Arnold see theWest as a space of individual mobility Easy Rider, 1969). often frustrated desires?to (such as Hopper's and freedom The a multivalent as bus modern symbol?a as stagecoach?acts a the frontier, as it did in John Ford's film That excluded Indians from the social relations Stagecoach (1939). of the stage, Smoke Signals depicts a continuing exclusion in this symbolic on of the social mix microcosm when vehicle-as-performative-space the Native are characters allowed inside but relegated to the rear seats. The film's director, Chris Eyre, has in the film as the first passenger to leave the bus at the end of a cameo this further sequence, a metaphor bus the underscoring for the production not represents only resonance symbolic of the bus as of cultural identity through cinema. The the contested west of the American space but also is, as Stuart Hall the space of popular culture, which observes, a shifting "arena of consent and resistance" (1981: 239). Unfixed and historically contingent, culture popular are symbols tion and of a "double movement" the sites of cultural transforma or contradictory play of recognition and refusal, containment and mobility. What is at stake, Hall argues, is "the active destruction of particular ways of life, and their transformation into something new" (1981: 227). As a metaphor in duction Hollywood Westerns), (especially for the relations of pro the bus also comes the potential for indigenous filmmaking to stage a vocal from the margins of media systems, re-signifying popular and concomitant From resume their new their about assumptions the identity of film about cowboys and Indians. signal interruption iconography spectators. seats in the back of the bus, Victor conversation to and Thomas Thomas asserts, "The cowboys always win," while Victor claims, 'You know in all those movies you never saw John Wayne's teeth? Not once. I think there's something wrong when you of the seat, Victor begins John Wayne's don't see a guy's teeth." to sing: Tapping on the arm teeth, hey ya, John Wayne's teeth, hey ya, hey ya hey ya teeth, hey ya, John Wayne's teeth, hey ya, hey ya hey ya hey, John Wayne's hey, Are they false, are they real, are they plastic, are they ya, hey. This content downloaded on Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:52:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions steel, hey ya, hey JOANNA HEARNE 198 This second sound bridge, "JohnWayne's Teeth," is then picked up by a professional drum group, the EagleBear Singers. The diegetic sound becomes non-diegetic sound as the shots of the interior of the bus cut to long shots of the bus moving through theWestern desert landscape in the warm light of early evening. The song resembles not so much pow wow as "49" style singing, the informal drumming and singing at parties that take place on themargins of powwows in parking lots and campsites after themore formal events of the powwow are over.11 In the two sound bridges of this final bus scene in Smoke Signals, an Irish folk tune which became associated with the imperialist campaigns of the U.S. military is appropriated by an indigenous vocal group (Ulali), and the figure of a through music that, as Alexie asserts, "is of English lyrics and Western musical rhythms along with Indian vocables and Indian traditional drums" (West and West). Told to is deconstructed John Wayne combination "find yourselves a to have else someplace and Victor powwow," Thomas do exactly that, transforming the marginalized space of the rear seats into a platform for protest through powwow or "49" music; in the pro cess, they gain the attention of the other bus riders and the driver with the power and volume of their voices. This a transition between even broader, scenes and within to dimension cosmic the the sound bridge song's a lyrics, lends discourse the authenticity of the physical body of Morrison, (and hence his especially his mouth John Wayne/Marion toughest cowboy of them all," according to speech). John Wayne?"the that raises questions Thomas?becomes ing the about to vulnerable characters of Victor and analytical Thomas, in the dismantling as as well the film's song, giv audience, what bell hooks might call the pleasure of an oppositional gaze. At the same time, the Hollywood style of "speaking" about Indians through or the mouth of the "teeth" figure of John Wayne, and the medium of film itself as a source of information and history, is rendered suspect. In its extensive engagement with the tropes of theWestern, Smoke Signals ascribes to Third Cinema, demon enacts a strategy that Paul Willemen a selective redeployment strating "what can be done with nant cinema's elements generic while refusing imprison them in, that 'varietal' relationship" Traces of a conversation about nationalism to reduce performative contexts, represents an to, or to (1989: 8). and tribal tion infuse the two sound bridges as well. "Garry Owen," live of the domi films already-displaced self-determina detached Irish from immi grant settler identity at the same time that it signals the U.S. military's of nationalist claims to Indian land and the Cavalry's appropriation This content downloaded on Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:52:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 199 Teeth fohn Wayne's Irish identity as part of that effort. It is a signification that claims place of frontier) through the displacement (Indian lands/the American immigrant traditions. The hybridization of indigenous and Western musical "traditional" as such forms, the Native contemporary American rendition of "Garry Owen" and the mixture of powwow/ "49" singing elements, suggests the fluidity and availability of folklore with Western for An and re-interpretation for with interpenetration item of folklore has become culture. popular an index of media intertextuality and even as the calls and film deconstructs cine cultural up hybrid identity, matic images of Indians. The figures of John Wayne and General Custer are defamiliarized, or made strange, through their re-constitution in song forms. indigenous ORAL HISTORIES IMAGINING AND HOLLYWOOD PRODUCTIONS IN INDIANS Indigenous documentary film and video artists have also defamiliar ized Hollywood production styles through sound, recovering the voices of the silent Indian extras in Hollywood movies and providing alterna tives to mainstream industry work. In his 1992 film Imagining Indians, Victor Masayesva returns continually to visual and textual documents? and paintings by artists including footage from Hollywood Westerns such as George Catlin?to redirect viewers' perceptions of the images through contrapuntal sound and voiceovers from interviews with actors. scholars, Many including Stephen Leuthold, on emphasis the makers and restraint?his an sacred?as who Fatimah Tobing Rony, Elizabeth Weatherford, Karen Jacobs, and others, have discussed Masayesva's remain away turning important aesthetic embedded in and from photographic for technique film indigenous to their accountable of images tribes, clans, families. In Imagining Indians, the frame narrative depicts a Lakota dental patient (PattyRuns After Swallow) who has been muted by dental "drill ing" and by oppressive stereotypes. The drilling has a double meaning, indicating first the feelings of discomfort, exposure, and voicelessness that accompany the dentist's work on the woman's mouth (the site of to while she is to forced listen his fantasies about speech) imperialist Indians and his plans to exploit indigenous spiritual practices for profit. The drilling also alludes to the history of on Native mining operations lands and sacred were reservations, lands (and expropriated, from gold to oil to coal and uranium, in which thus the spiritual practices connected with them) for the profit of outsiders. altered, or desecrated This content downloaded on Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:52:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 200 JOANNA HEARNE Frustrated, her mouth full of cotton swabs, the woman takes the drill, using itas a weapon against the dentist and then turning iton Masayesva's camera lens itself at the end of the film. In destroying the viewer's vision by making the clear glass opaque, she literally obliterates the camera's eye in an act that Karen Jacobs calls "anti-visualist" (2004: 291). This increasingly abstract image is further complicated by the pattern of the lines that dental patient drills into the glass, which at first resem ble a spider's web. The woman who has been muted and suppressed by drilling becomes powerful in thismoment because of her association with spiders and weaving. and benefactor of humans associated with creation acts as a messenger Spider Grandmother in the Hopi emergence stories; spiders are culture and through storytelling in Laguna with a variety of other expressive activities in other tribes. The image of the camera lens obscured by web-patterned drill lines is intercut with of tribal special effects in which paintings by George Catlin?portraits from dots. This the mid-1900s?crumble into leaders visual dissolution is replaced, finally, by a black screen, and several voices speak in Native languages. In this closing, and in his use ofWestern film clips, Masayesva quite beautifully both embeds oral narrative in the film text, and draws attention to the way the cultures of film production make meaning. His to the project of countering the psychological mut ing/mutilation caused by popular images of Indians, and his production relies on interviews inwhich Native people tell their own diverse stories film is dedicated images are produced about how popular viewers. He thus the way foregrounds and how such images affect Native can communities intervene of the images through the contexts and practices in and alter meanings of filmmaking. the film, Masayesva returns to footage of his extensive Throughout elders who once interviews with indigenous actors, from Cheyenne to actors Lakota and extras who in of Westerns the 1930s, acted younger recount their on experiences the set of Dances with Wolves. For example, early in the film, Masayesva overlays the viewpoints of the Cheyenne The classic Western extras with film clips from Cecil B. De Mille's (1936). Northern Cheyenne elder Castle La Croix recounts on the reserva the economic impact the filming of The Plainsman had tion community during the hard times of the Depression: Plainsman There was, paid was was, ah, cash uh, money, armor car that camp, around floating come in from came, Sheridan, to every man something that was that people taking realized, part that a lot of money. Wyoming, in that movie. the money This content downloaded on Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:52:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions was And There and they the money scarce during fohn Wayne's Teeth that movie that the time came company in. And were there 201 gambling, was hungry?there gambling men and women playing cards. And nobody would a be always come trucks couple in every morning from Sheridan, Wyoming, to bring out food, distribute it to the people thatwere camp cows a day, for the people to have meat, ing.And theyusually killed two was such a thing that people had during the camping days there. And it never seen was the after ever that, nothing I met that, uh, B. De that Cecil came Mille on resting a an table; woman elderly an and by anymore....That and Gary Cooper. sitswith his arms folded interview footage is shown first?he LeCroix's and but before, time listen interviewer qui this oral history of the film's production, including fur which remains in the Cheyenne untranslated, language an cuts to a Indian from The Plainsman, charge through Masayesva clip a stream towards an armed group of soldiers led byWild Bill Hickok etly. Following ther discussion The scene displays a classical Hollywood editing con (Gary Cooper). struction inwhich studio shots of the star and his companions are joined shots of the Indian charge across authenticated by?location a shallow river, using intercutting and rear projection techniques. a story narrated Masayesva overlays the film's original soundtrack with with?and tribal leader, Charles Sooktis Sr., who describes by another Cheyenne preparing for and shooting this scene. In his story, an actual Chief of the northern Cheyenne also wishes to be the "Chief of the cinematic Cheyenne during the filming of the charge, despite being warned about the trip-wire hidden under the water tomake the horses and riders fall under Hickok's In a story gun. influenced trickster by Sooktis narratives, the way theman was outfitted for the shot ("He had too many things in his hands!") and then, after the "Chief/Chief has fallen in the describes water, a humorous DeMilles scene. came (sic) around, the around riding riders, and he asked for somebody to be the Chief. Just anybody could be the Chief, during that run you know. there was But a man name of Little he "No," Coyote, says, "I'm the Chief. I been Chief of theNorthern Cheyennes formany years," he he some says. Then, wire across strung says, about "I'm So the Chief." 45 minutes, guy young the water. and a sword, the leader he had a bow says "Go!" horse he?they and we him back, that, out. and had?war was it. "Ah, were They he there ah, on stumble a no," gone for bonnet, had toomany things in his hand! He had arrow, all went. him would took him they brought all the buckskin outfit, all?he to warn tried The a tomahawk. and?and Good thing I was Then, behind?or ah, when one of the last ones you know, and this Chief took a big leap, and they got to that This content downloaded on Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:52:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions JOANNA HEARNE 202 wire got that was all wet, across strung and run got His the, underwater. two or over three horse times. And stumbled. And he know how the you chickens look when theyget wet?the war bonnet was hanging way down there, and dripping with water you know, and buckskin outfit all wet. And the young guy told him "I tried towarn you?let them, some young guy be the Chief for just, this run." just "No," he says, "I'm the Chief." And he was stillChief when he got all wet, you know. story re-frames the Indian charge scent through voiceover and suggests a complex negotiation of authenticity on the set. The narrative exposes the content of The Plainsman as a manifestation of the cross Sooktis' cultural relations and practices of its production, but Sooktis ismore interested in his own community's politics than in the film's Hollywood based stars or director. The usually anonymous extrasbecome the most more accurate in its important figures as they struggle tomake the film representations of the tribe's social organization. Little Coyote wishes to make the Hollywood drama recognize his tribal leadership, and in this, he resolves tomaintain his identity on the set and on screen. the story plays with and gently mocks Little Coyote's insistence on his position as Chief, there is also valor in his refusal to accept the the "mis-recognition" of Indians that accompanies social disruption doing While In casting (for which "just anyone could be the Chief). its image of Little Coyote's survival, coming back to life after both the the Chief, despite actual trip-wire and Cooper's cinematic gunfire?still a small but symbolic story gives The Plainsman being all wet?Sooktis' in Hollywood content documentary death and defeat Le and Croix's while re-writing the Western's of scenario Indian in theWest. Sooktis' voices, given such in this emphasis sequence, concerns that have little to do with the foreground other community The Plainsman as the savage threat to a set in of Indians representation tler nation's individual heroes. Le Croix remembers the production for relief that it brought to his reservation during the mid 19308, the height of the Depression. His moving assertion that "nobody was hungry" during the filming, his repeated mention of the distribu tion of both cash and food transported from Sheridan, Wyoming, to the the economic people at the location camp, suggests that the production of resources represented cities temporary?flow important?but to tribe. the towns pro (Sheridan) Contemporary (L.A.) and local duction companies run by indigenous media makers who are embed an ded in their communities Igloolik, Nunavut, and schools?such or Blackgum Mountain from distant as Isuma Productions Productions This content downloaded on Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:52:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions in Tahlequah, in Teeth fohn Wayne's 203 offer themore permanent benefits in terms of employ ment and education as well as locally-generated images.12 Oklahoma?can In an article on indigenous experimentalism, Masayesva deliberately in describing the practice of "the gun/camera/computer" "colonizing through technology." "From this perspective," he writes, can be defined by the degree to which "experimental films and videos indoctrination and champion indigenous they subvert the colonizers' conflates in the political expression revisions cinematic landscape" re-integrate (2001). Contemporary songs, images, popular indigenous archival and foot the age into community tribal identities and contexts, literally changing stories that give to meaning the on images screen. no be It should sur prise that filmmakers turn to traditional music, community histories, oral narratives, and locally embedded production methods in their politicized interventions in cinematic public memory from pan-Indian, tribal, and individual perspectives. Smoke Signals and Imagining Indians are overtly in that they self-consciously address popular stereotypes, and pedagogical classes. Their stories both films are frequently taught in undergraduate interact powerfully with the shadow textsthat viewers bring to bear in their encounters with the films.13 The folklore embedded in the film touches off or pre-constituted time becomes attached available for for meanings re-interpretation at and viewers, in a new the same context. sound, filmmakers such as Victor Masayesva, Chris Eyre, Through and others change the discourse that speaks and defines "Indianness" on in each and screen, film, sound becomes a metaphor for voice as the films explore the repercussions of viewing and the conditions ofmaking In particular, the figure of the individual star?often playing a media. under pressure in these films. Rather than being military hero?comes authenticated by the Native extras on screen, the location shooting, and the signification of various props and costumes, the authority invested in stars such as John Wayne and Gary Cooper by Hollywood filmmak ing is revoked in Smoke Signals and Imagining Indians. Alexie, Eyre and take Masayesva back the persuasive representational power of tradi tion for their own ends, using songs and oral histories to disassemble icons through irreverent questions, critique, and storytell Hollywood The ing. images of mouths and teeth?John Wayne's teeth subjected to critical speculation in Smoke Signals, the Lakota woman's teeth under a dentist's drill in Imagining Indians?become emblems for the experience of being silenced as well as for the right to speak, and through speaking, to transform the discourses arena of popular about indigenous identities in the contested culture. This content downloaded on Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:52:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions JOANNA HEARNE 204 NOTES to Mikel I am Koven, grateful on earlier versions comments 1. a nuanced For ity intellectual, Owens 2. The do debate about artistic, and I discuss filmmakers to assert or Isuma, group of individual have that not that minor indigenous post-colonial see theory, In no way backgrounds. and videographer of the Inuit produc film resemble the popular crew. The films production productions of a pan-tribal or indigenous instances or worldviews of transcultural film Bamboozled Lee's to the creations situ negotiations, indigenous An cinemas. (2000), of voice, are these recent excellent returns which to the trope ven and silence, rather, media; media older recontextualizing issues revisiting feminist and of strategies as limited in minority broad is example of blackface as an of African of historical exploration representations on as a that intervention and exposes stage systemic politicized in the contemporary entertainment of black actors industry. of and about the politics conversations tradition, authenticity, both minstrelsy Americans exploitation Extensive invented rather as well forms, are triloquism, 4. these of white here noting folkloric trends for their West relationships. It is worth Spike and different radically the work but auteurs, and ations, and between activism the films of Hopi photographer made in the same way as those Smoke Signals, which was are not "pure products" 3. the relationship political that were Masayesva tion and Nancy Sherman, (2001) and Allen (2002). I wish Victor Sharon of this article. are traditions in Bendix available Hobsbawm (1997), and Ranger (1983), Handler and Linnekin (1984), and Briggs (1993). My discussions uses of tradition have been influenced the political of strategic essentialism (Darnius andjonsson, and primitivist Prins' work on Native advocacy political of notion by Gayatri 6. on race Key essays on the "oppositional ing relations" a useful the gaze in cinema (1992), gaze" include studies and Jane Gaines' bell hooks' work on "look article early (1988). of blood-quantum on Reflections discussion For "'Indian Winkle, and Spivak's to Harald as outlined imagery in "VisualMedia and the PrimitivistPerplex" (2002). 5. and 1993), Blood': see politics, Strong and the Reckoning and Van of Refiguring Native North American Identity" (1996). of both 7. My analysis sects with and visual Ourselves, other authenticate lives and interdisciplinary anthropology. in which she find and dramas popular I'm asserts indebted in film to ask is seen film folklore studies, to Sharon that folklore and folk performances to what resemblances in this essay documentaries work inter studies, Sherman's Documenting to the capacity look at their own texts have viewers in the "to filmic record" (1998: 260). Mikel J. Koven has called for folklorists tomove beyond identifying "the folklore texts, as well in the film" as a more to a broader systemic focus understanding on the relevance This content downloaded on Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:52:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions of the nature of folklore of film studies to Teeth fohn Wayne's issues of media Robert Evans's company deserves 8. and reception circulation, production, of the Inuit-owned with members 181). Michael (2003: Isuma work Productions that in Igloolik models research focus?one another important more and negotia from folklorists?on cultural creation attention video production tions at the site of community-based (1999). to terms to read in the allusion "Nobody" possible a "native" to an island who to trick the used Cyclops, Odysseus newcomers. For more cially broad-based and to issues in relation minstrelsy, see Kalinak (2001). 10. Internet Garry home Owen, of music and delineation (2001 and 2004), Gorbman sites disseminating the following: discussions extensive of racial pages information is blinded inWesterns, espe (2001), and Stanfield and story include at of the 7th Cavalry for the 4th Squadron by of blackface the history the song about the name of It is also 9. 205 Camp http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/army/4-7cav. htm and sites covering http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility.camp-owen.htm; of the Indian Wars the history and the Civil War, and http://www.indianwars.org/Misc/garyowen.htm and music.net/display_tune.php?tune=garryowen; such as http://www.civilwar folk music sites such as http://www.contemplator.com/ireland/gowen.html. 11. See also Songs ofMy Hunter Heart (Carr an 1979), nonfiction outstanding film highlighting the poetry and "49" songs ofHarold Littlebird. 12. Isuma's Norman observed that during the filming Cohn, cinematographer, Fast Runner of Atanarjuat/The the location and the filmed set (2002), camp one another, a sense of text and resembled film between creating continuity I discuss the relationship production. of Atanarjuat/The Fast Runner in much ing in the journal and production, Screen. For further see marketing, between greater discussion Evans the production and content in an article forthcom detail of the film and (1999); Ginsburg its funding, (2002); Kunuk and Cohn (2002a, 2002b); Ginsburg (2003), Bessire (2003), and Huhndorf (2003). 13. term "shadow Barry Brummett's our texts we to bring experiences texts" is useful new with in texts" referring (Mechling FILMOGRAPHY Bamboozled (2000), 135min. Spike Lee Dances with Wolves (1990), 181 min. Kevin Costner Dead Man (1996), 120min. Jimjarmusch Rider (1969), 94 min. Dennis Hopper Easy TheFast Runner [Atanarjuat] (2001), 172min. Zacharias Kunuk Follow Me Home (1996), 100 min. Peter Bratt GhostDog: TheWay of theSamurai (1999), 116min. Jimjarmusch This content downloaded on Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:52:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions to the "familiar 2004: 51). JOANNA HEARNE 206 Imagining Indians (1992), 57 min. Victor Masayesva In theLand of the War Canoes (1914), 59 min. Edward S. Curtis ItamHakim, Hopiit (1984), 59 min. Victor Masayesva LittleBigMan (1970), 150min. Arthur Penn My Name isNobody [MioNome eNessuno] (1973) ,111 min. Tonino Valerii Nanook of the North (1922), 55 min. Robert Flaherty Nanook Revisited (1990), 60 min. Clause Massot The Plainsman (1936), 113min. Cecil B. DeMille Redskin (1929), 90 min. Victor Schertzinger Return ofNavajo Boy (2000), 57 min. JeffSpitz The Searchers(1956), 119min. John Ford SmokeSignals (1998), 88 min. Chris Eyre Songs Heart: ofMy Hunter Laguna and Poems Songs 34 min. (1978), Stagecoach (1939), 96 min. John Ford WORKS CITED 1993. Sherman. Alexie, York: 1998. Lucas. Bird, American York: Hyperion. Duke Divided 105(4): Anthropologist in Everyday The Audience 2003. Denise. Danius, "Accessible 2001. in American Studies Sara Stefan and of Folklore Studies. Collective Audiences, and Indian Indian Jonsson. Literatures 1993. World. in Authority and Intersection American and Independent 57-80. 13(1): Interview Scholarly Cultural Poetry?" American in a Media Life: Living Practices Metadiscursive in Contemporary Exchange Press. University to Primitivism: Indian in American The Formation Folkloristics.Journal ofAmericanFolklore 106: 387-434. Film. New 832-837. Routledge. 1993. Cummings, in Heaven. Fistfight Identity Indigenous Texts. Durham: Back Talking Charles. Briggs, York: of Authenticity: Press. of Wisconsin University S. Elizabeth. New Tonto In Search 1997. 2003. New A Screenplay. and Activist Literary Regina. The Madison: Desires. and Ranger Blood Narrative: 2002. Bendix, Bessire, Lone Smoke Signals: Chadwick. and Maori The Press. Grove -. Allen, Carr Denny with Gayatri Spivak. Boundary 2 20(2): 24-50. Evans, Performance -. 1999. Frozen Robert. Michael 2000. of Inuit Ph.D. Video. Light Thesis in Anger: Sometimes The and Fluid Time: in Folklore, Struggles The Folklore, Politics, Indiana of and University. Inuit Video. Fuse 22:4: n.p. Ann. Fienup-Riordan, University Gaines, Jane. Feminist 1993. of Washington 1988. White Film Theory. Freeze Frame: Alaska Eskimos in theMovies. Seattle: Press. and Looking Privilege Screen 29(4): 12-27. Relations: This content downloaded on Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:52:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Race and Gender in Teeth fohn Wayne's Jhon Warren. Gilroy, with Evan A Conversation 2001. Adams." Studies 207 in American Indian Literatures13(1): 43-56. -. in Sherman Literatures Ginsburg, Fine Another 2001. Subversion of the Oral Smoke Tradition? Identification 1991. Faustian Media: Indigenous or Global Contract 1999. The Screen 2002. In Media Media. Memories: Abu-Lughod, of Minnesota 40-56. Larkin, eds. Terrain, in Faye Indigenous Lila Ginsburg, of California University Berkeley: and Gaines Press. the Traditional Resignifying on New Anthropology Brian Indigenous eds. Jane M. University on Media of Impact Visible Evidence, Minneapolis: Worlds: and The In Collecting 156-75. Renov, -. Effect: Parallax Film. Ethnographic Michael Indian Village? CulturalAnthropology 6(1): 92-112. -. and in American Studies Signals. 23-42. 13(1): Faye. Example Alexie's Press. -. Off-Screen: Atanarjuat American Anthropologist 105(4): 2003. Stage. Claudia. Gorbman, In Westerns: Drums 2001. Films From "Media to the World Reservations" 827-831. the L.A. River: along ed. Janet Walker, through History, Scoring the 177-195. New Indian. York: Roudedge. Stuart. Hall, Blackwell -. Cultural 2000. An Anthology, Theory: and Identity eds. Robert Cinematic Stam and In Film Representation. Toby and Oxford: 704-714. Miller, Publishers. 1981. Socialist on Notes Theory, ed. "the Deconstructing Samuel Raphael, In Popular." London: 227-240. People's and History and Kegan Routledge Paul. and Jocelyn Linnekin. 1984. Tradition, of American Folklore 97: 273?290. Eric eds. 1983. The and Terence Hobsbawm, Ranger, Press, Cambridge: Cambridge University Handler, Richard, or Genuine Spurious? Journal bell. hooks, 1992. MA: Boston, Shari. Huhndorf, Cornell -. Looks: Race and of Tradition. Representation. Press. End Going Native: Press. Indians 2001. University 2003. In Black the Other. Eating South Invention The Fast Runner. Atanarjuat, in the Cultural Culture, History, Ithaca: Imagination. and in Inuit Politics Media. AmericanAnthropologist105(4): 822-826. Jacobs, Karen. 2004. Optic/Hap tic/Abject: Revisioning Indigenous Media Victor Jr., and Masayesva, Leslie Marmon Silko. Journal of Visual Culture in 3(3): 291-316. James, David. 1999. Hollywood Los Angeles. -. 90: October 1989. Allegories University Kalinak, Extras: One Tradition of "Avant-Garde" Film in 3-24. of Cinema: American Film in the Sixties. Princeton: Princeton Press. 2004. Kathryn. Searchers: Essays Eckstein and "Typically and Reflections Peter Lehman, American": on John Ford's 109-143. Detroit: Music Classic for The Western, Wayne This content downloaded on Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:52:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Searchers. In The eds. Arthur State University M. Press. JOANNA HEARNE 208 -. How 2001. Mikel Koven, the West Was 151-176. Walker, Critical Necessary Fever. Videocassette. Kunuk, Cohn. Access Zacharias, and Steven. 1998. and ed. Janet through History, Film and 116: Folklore with Interview 2002a. Tucson Films Popular ofAmerican Survey. Journal and Norman Zacharias, Kunuk, Routledge. Studies Folklore J. 2003. In Westerns: Sung. York: New A Television: 176-195. Eric Celluloid Peery. Television. Cable Norman Cohn. Indigenous Aesthetics: Native 2002b. Making Brick Atanarjuat. 70: 17-23. Leuthold, of Texas University Victor. Masayesva, Lion, Jenny 2001. 228-39. Mechling, Jay. 2004. Nicholson, Heather Louis. Owens, Norris, 2001. As Distorted Prats, Western. Prins, Harald. American Appropriations, Invisible and Lexington: R. University 1998. 2001. 11-24. Bataille, in the American Fantasies, In Media Jr., and the Politics Film, Video, Worlds: and Lila Abu-Lughod, Press. Brian of Imagining and Culture. Trail. Exeter: of Kentucky. Westerns Hollywood, of Exeter Voices First Encounters, Colonial America. Ourselves: Documenting Press American Identity Perplex: in North Advocacy eds. Faye Ginsburg, of California University University Peter. Stanfield, and the Primitivist Imagination on New Terrain, Sharon Native Representations: M. ed. Gretchen Myth Berkeley: 1994-5. Victor Masayesva, Tobing. Film Quarterly 48(2): 20-33. Sherman, and Press. University Media Natives: Fatimah Indians. Image Press. and Anthropology 58-74. Larkin, an Indian: Really In Native 2002. Cornell 2002. Visual Indigenous Rony, If an Indian Were of Nebraska Jose. Ithaca: ed. Books. Theory. University Armando North, Western Folklore 63: 51-78. Hunting." ed. 2003. Screening Culture: Constructing and Literary Images Lincoln: Minneapolis: Lexinton Postcolonial and and Identity. Austin: In Experimentalism. Magnetic of Minnesota Press. University Indigenous "Picturing Identity. Lanham: Art Media Press. the 1930s: and The Lost Press. "Indian 1996. and Barrik Van Winkle. Turner Strong, Pauline on the of Native and Reckoning Refiguring Reflections Blood": American North Identity. Cultural Anthropology11(4): 547-576. Presence. Weatherford, Masayesva, West, 1998. Gerald. Vizenor, Dennis Interview Willemen, Lincoln: Fugitive University 1995. Elizabeth. Poses: Native To 54(4): Jr. Art Journal and Joan M. West. with Paul Sherman and Jim British Film Institute. Alexie. Pines, End Indian American Scenes ofAbsence and Press. of Nebraska and Begin Again: The Work of Victor 48-52. 1998. Sending Cineaste2S(4): eds. 1989. Cinematic Smoke Signals: An 28. Questions of Third This content downloaded on Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:52:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Cinema. London: Smoke or Signals? American Popular Culture and the Challenge to Hegemonic Images of American Indians in Native American Film Author(s): John Mihelich Reviewed work(s): Source: Wicazo Sa Review, Vol. 16, No. 2, Film and Video (Autumn, 2001), pp. 129-137 Published by: University of Minnesota Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1409611 . Accessed: 21/08/2012 13:18 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . University of Minnesota Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Wicazo Sa Review. http://www.jstor.org Smoke or Signals? American Popular Culture and the Challenge to Hegemonic Images of American Indians in Native American Film John Mihelich A mericanpopularculturehashistorically beenanarenawhere hegemonic structuresand ideascould be challenged and where the status quo could be questioned,often throughhumorand satire.Continuing this tradition in one of the most refreshingrecent contributions to Americanpopularculture,Smoke Signals,ShermanAlexie challenges hegemonic and stereotypicalimages of AmericanIndiansthroughportrayinga complex, humanizing,and contemporaryimage of American Indians.In doing so, he addresses,in an interviewwith Cineaste, what he avows is the "greatestchallenge"to contemporaryAmericanIndiansthe issue of sovereignty (West and West 1998). Sovereignty generally refersto autonomy and control over one's destiny.As such, it involves representationand the power to create and determinehow groups,and individualswithin those groups,are represented.Since popularculture and widely consumed, it is a powerfulagent is, by definition,"popular" in shaping these representativeimages. However, the power of any one image of popularcultureis weakened in partbecause of the sheer magnitudeof competing popularelements. Imagesare furtherdiluted becausethey areoften casuallyconsumedas entertainmentand because the contents of popularculture are so broad, varied, and transitional. This essay emanates from my genuine appreciationfor the efforts of Alexie and my curiosityaboutthe effects of popularcultureand the po- > 3 129 ? tentialof Smoke Signalsto counterhegemonic representationsof Indians. To explore this potential, I askeda series of questionsof my studentsin an introductionto sociology class and conducted an exploratoryexperimentwith a colleague'schildren. In the following, I discuss both the power of popularculture to shape perceptions, through inciting novel ideas in a film like Smoke Signals,and the transienteffects of any one film. As such, I point to the importanceof this use and appropriation of popularculture and also to the limitations of popularculture that necessitateactions on the partof people who shape culturein general, directed toward elaborating and institutionalizingthe projects initiatedby artistsacting within the mediumof popularculture. I asked the students in two sociology classes to list the stereothat they or others hold concerning AmericanIndians.The lists types included a dichotomous range of all-too-familiar American Indian "unstereotypes.The studentslisted the negative stereotypes:"savage," and educated,'"poor"' "drunken,"angry," "inferior,' "aggressive," "stupid," "lazy',among others. The more positive stereotypes included "proud," "noble, "spiritual, "deeply religious, > 0 u 130 3 ? x "wise, "nature-loving,""tradition, and others. None of the stereotypesgave any indicationof perceptions of Indiansas "ordinary" Americans,although a few students arguedin the commentarythat, despite these stereotypes, many Indiansare "ordinary"Americans.Clearly, Indiansare understood by this predominantly white and non-Indianstudent population as something "other" than themselves-except, of course, those Indianswhom they know personally. These stereotypesarereinforcedby the imagescreatedby popularfilmsspanningclassicwesternsandcontemporaryfilmsof the American West. The images range from the warriorand the shamanicrepresentation to the ignorant drunken depiction. The warrior image includes the all-too-common savage warrior,usually shown in stereotypical Plainsform,and the heroic and noble warrior/hunter,depicted as stoic, in touch with nature, and peace loving but willing to fight when necessary.The shamanprofile representsa deeply religious and mysteriouscharacter.These images are most often contextualized in some historic past with the major theme in the lives of the Indians being the confrontation with encroaching peoples of Europeandescent. The warrior/hunter,the religiousleader,and the confrontations with whites were undoubtedlyimportantaspects of much of the experience of AmericanIndianshistorically,and even the savage warrior image probablyresonatesto some degree with actualexperiencewithin tribes as they perceived their enemies-whether Indian or white. The image of drunkenness,too, has its parallelsin historical and contemporaryIndianexperience as Indians,as well as a plethora of other Americans,struggle with alcohol problems. However, all of these images are reductive. The portrayals,or perhaps the lack of alternative portrayals,reduce the meta-imageof AmericanIndiansin popularculture to a finite and constrainedset of experiencesand potentials. Alexie challenges, partially through humor and satire, these stereotypes and images as he presents the lives of the main characters in Smoke Signalssituatedwithin a contemporarycontext. The traditional warrioror shaman is not found in the film, but the image of drunkennessplays a prominentrole becausealcohol abuseis partof the subject matterand integral to the story line. Alexie'sprotagonistsare two young, fatherlessCoeur d'Alenemen from the reservation,Victor Joseph and Thomas Builds-the-Fire.Victor is a tough, confident but sullenjock, and Thomas is a "storytellinggeek"(Alexie, quoted in West and West 1998, 29). While they are not close friendsin the beginning of the story, the two are inseparablylinked by circumstancebeyond their tribalaffiliationor the fact that they areAmericanyouth. Victor's father,Arnold, saved the infant Thomas from a Fourthof July house fire that killed Thomas'sparents. Severalyears after the fire, Arnold's wife, Arlene, awoke from an alcohol-induced slumberto find young Victor smashinghis father'sbeer supply againstthe tailgateof his pickup truck. On that day, she determinedto stop the alcohol consumption and demanded that Arnold do the same. However, the alcoholtormented Arnold disappearedfrom the reservationboth in response to the ultimatumof prohibitionfromhis wife and as an escape fromthe hauntingof his role in startingthe fatefulFourthof July fire.Thomas's attemptsto cultivatea friendshipare consistently rebuffedby the cool Victor until circumstanceonce again intervenes. Several years after Arnolds disappearance,Victor and Arlene receive news of the death of Arnold and a requestthat one of them travel to New Mexico to recover his remains.Without enough money to make the trip, Victor is forced to accept financialhelp from Thomas under the condition that he takeThomas with him. Thus, with a short ride in a car drivingin reverse and two bus tickets, they initiate the road trip that provides the context for the pursuit of friendship, identity, and meaning around which the story of Smoke Signalsrevolves. The film has many dimensions,and the charactersof Victor and Thomas and the images of AmericanIndiansthey promote in the film cannot be reduced to one interpretation.One of the contributionsof Alexie'sartistryin Smoke Signalsis his ability to portraycomplex characters who happen to be AmericanIndians.In their personae and their struggles,Alexie simultaneouslydevelops characterswith both specific Indianqualitiesand more common Americanaspects. In doing so, he promotes a more complete human image of contemporaryAmerican Indiansto a popularAmericanaudience. This significantcontribution is achieved through a rather simple formula:the major protagonists portraycontemporaryAmericanIndiansin a specific world that is at once Americanand Indian. ' 3 131 ? g > A u 132 3 ? Firstand most obviously,the filmis exclusivelyfocused on Indian charactersembeddedin an Indianculturalcontext. The protagonistsin SmokeSignalsare associated with the specific culturalelements of the contemporaryCoeur d'Alene.Forexample,the film featuresthe Coeur d'Alene reservationwith its landscape, people, dress, hairstyles, and formof the Englishlanguage,and incorporateselements of traditional music, food (fry bread), and family. The audience comes to know a little about the contemporaryAmerican Indian world the characters live in, as interpretedby Alexie, becausethat world is depicted. The humanizingeffortsof the filmand its appealto a mainstream Americanaudience do not end with the illustrationof contemporary AmericanIndianlife. Along with being an informative,tragic, and humorousstory,Smoke Signalsappealsto a mainstreamaudiencebecause it addressesfamiliarhuman conditions. In conjunction with the Coeur d'Alene Indianculturalspecifics lie a general Americancharacterand common personal dilemmasthat parallelthe experience of the larger Americanaudience.Victorand Thomas in manyways reflectsome very recognizable stereotypes in Americanculture, the jock and the geek, with which most Americanscan relate. The protagonists encounter dilemmasof life including the discovery of one's identity, the battle with alcohol or other addictions, the struggles of poverty, the experience of abandonmentor neglect from one's father/parents,the development of lasting friendships,and even the exploration of a road trip. These experiences,whateverthe culturaltrappings,resonatewith the experience of people within and outside the Indian community. Through the vehicle of this filmand its Indiancharacters,the audience can engage their parallel personal dilemmas. Herein lies the second partof Alexie'sformulafor image creation:he bringsto life a "familiar" characterwith which the popularaudiencecan identify.If the audience can identify with the charactersand their dilemmas,the filmpotentialSignalsdoes, and thus can communicate ly has a broad appeal, as Smoke with a large popularaudience.This Alexie was determinedto do. The simultaneousportrayalof experienceuniqueto AmericanIndians,with its specific culturalcontext, and experiences recognizable to a more widespreadpopularaudience is one of the majorstrengths of the humanizing efforts of the film. Whatever the attraction,one of the potential effects of the film on a mainstreamaudience involves its confrontationwith the images the audiencepreviouslyheld of AmericanIndians.A novel image is set forth as the charactersbecome very humanand very Americanwithout shedding their distinction as membersof a particularculturalgroupremainingvery Indian.The audiencecomes to know the charactersin culturaltrappingsthat might, at first glance, make them alien to the mainstreamaudience. The audience'srelationshipto the charactersis transformedto one of familiarityas they become real and complex through the unfolding representation.If this occurs, then the process of bringing to life the full humanityof each characterpotentially has the power to rendera fullerand more complex image of Indiansin the eyes, or minds, of the audience that may be underthe influenceof the aforementionedmore reductive images. Thus, Smoke Signalsand popular culturein general remainan effective avenue for confrontationand transformationin Americanculture. The novelty of these AmericanIndianimages created in the film strucka chord with the children-ranging fromage eight to fourteenwhom I talkedwith concerning Smoke Signals.I askedthe childrenwhat they thought about AmericanIndiansand had them drawa pictureof an "Indian"before we watched SmokeSignalstogether. Before the film, one of the children explained, "Thisis weird, but, when you firstsaid Indians,I kinda thought of savages, in a way, because, back in the old times, they didn'tlive like we did, they lived in huts and had firesand all that other stuff, like moccasins."Another child added, "Theywere warlike,because they came out of there and most of them in the past didn'thave guns, so they killed people with their barehands. Um, they lived off the land, you know, they kind of harvested food and didn't have processed flour and things like that."These quotes reveal the static, historical,and primitiveimages common in Indianstereotypes. The children'spicturesreflected the same static quality.While one of the children,the oldest, drewa pictureof a man in contemporarymainstream clothing, the others clothed their drawings in buckskins or colorful long dresses and beads. When asked specifically about contemporaryIndians, one child said, "They probably look like regular people but they probably have more, like, beliefs, kind of, because they grew up that way and their ancestorsor whatever,they had more of a background." After this discussion we watched SmokeSignalstogether and I askedthem a seriesof questionsabout the filmand how its imageswere similarto or different from their previous understandingsof Indians. While they were too inexperienced and uninformed to grasp much of the complexity of the film, they were surprisedby its portrayalof Indians.Their historical, static, and stereotyped images of American Indianswere confounded by the images portrayedby Alexie. The children'scommentsreflectthe humanizingdepictions presentedby Alexie in the film. One of the children remarked,"Isort of think of Native Americansas like tepees and stuff like that, but I don'tthink of them as but I think of them modern-daypeople. I think of them as, like INDIANS, now as regularpeople."Another child added, "They showed Indians like how they know feelings; in other movies they just talk about the history of it, and how, they didn'tshow how they had feelings."Along with the humanizingaspects,the childrenwere dismayedat the amount of drunkennessdepicted in the filmand thought it portrayedIndiansin s 133 2 & i a # 134 3 Y E a bad light. One child remarked,"Theydidn'treally show that much sober Indiansexcept those two guys, because the mom was drunk,the dad, and all those people were all drunk." While SmokeSignalswas probably not widely watched by children, these examples demonstratethe immediateand powerful transformativeeffects of the images in the film. It can providea direct challenge to the static historical images through developing a complex human portrayalof contemporaryIndians.However, the salient perception among the youth that the film acts negatively by depicting drunkennessindicates the tenuous natureof popularculture to transformhegemonic images.This perceptionwas not limited to the young children I talkedwith. The impressionsrememberedfromSmoke Signals sustain this tenuous in classes students impact. my sociology by college When asked to list the films they most remember seeing depicting AmericanIndians,less than 20 percent mentioned SmokeSignals.The fact that nearly every student rememberedseeing DanceswithWolves and TheLastof theMohicansindicates that those filmswere more popularly seen. Of those that mentioned SmokeSignals,only a few commented on the positive portrayalof Indians.The bulk of the students who rememberedthe film rememberedthat it depicted contemporary Indians,but they also characterizedthe film as portrayingIndiansin a negative light-with a focus on drunkenness.In class discussion, the studentswere asked if popularfilms,includingSmoke Signals,reflect common stereotypes. The majorityof students said that the films did in fact reinforce them. Only a few indicated that SmokeSignalschallenged these stereotypes or the images of Indianspresented in other popularfilms. Given the children'sand students'negative associationswith the film despite the well-developed alternativeimages created by Alexie, what are we to make of the impact of SmokeSignals?Why did this audience identify drunkennessas the dominant portrayalof Indians in Smoke Signalswhen the film included such a powerfulanti-alcohol message?Neither of the two main charactersever touched a drop of alcohol, Victor'smother had not taken a drinksince the day her husband left, and even Arnold quit drinkinglater in his life. One way to make sense of this contradictionis to recallthe enduringpowerof hegemonic representations.This powerindicatesone primaryreasonthat the works of artistslike Alexie, who use the mediumsof popularculture,cannot stand alone in their efforts to educate the public and transformdominant images.Popularculture,while an effective, immediate,and widely consumed agent, has, at times, only a fleeting effect, lasting only the time that passes between its consumptionand the consumptionof the next unrelatedelement. Popularcultureis consumed as entertainment, not as a learning tool. That does not mean it has no potential lasting power in the images it portrays.Butthe popularcultureitems exist in a largerpolitical context. Unless that context and its representationsare addressedby people acting outside of popularculture, the novel images offered by artistssuch as Alexie could be fleeting. The ideas and images designed by Alexie are certainly not reinforcedby hegemonic culture.Reductiveand stereotypicalimagesare much more prevalentand institutionalized,and the hegemonic cultural context is not conducive to the creation,dissemination,or reinforcement of counterimages like those developed in SmokeSignals.Aside fromthe numerousdepictions of AmericanIndiansin popularfilmsbesides Smoke Signals,one need only look at the controversysurrounding the mascot at the Universityof Illinoisat Urbana-Champaignas an example of these reductive images. Many see the mascot as a harmless Illinois tradition.That argumentis problematicin and of itself, but, if the mascot is seen in a largercontext of maintainingstereotypicalimages of Indians,its continued use is clearly exposed as an oppressive agent. The same holds for the use of AmericanIndiannamesand symbols at forty-fiveother colleges and universities(Lapchick1996;Miller 1999) and extends to activitieslike the "tomahawkchop"performedby spectatorsat AtlantaBravesbaseballgames. Hegemonic images are also perpetuatedin our teaching about American Indiansin the education system. While some high-quality courses incorporate an exploration and understandingof contemporaryAmericanIndianlife, all too often the curriculumfocuses on the same historical past as the film industry.While the representationof that past in the education system is perhapsof higher qualitythan the representations often seen in films, the continual representation of AmericanIndiansas a past, albeit diverse, populationreinforces,if my students are any indication, stereotypical and static images. Many of the valuable culturalpractices American Indianscontinue, as well as many of the problemsthey face today, have roots in history, and educators should seek to furtherthe understandingof those historicalcircumstancesand cultures.However, for Alexie'simages to enter and be sustainedin mainstreamhegemonic culture,the knowledge of the past must be balancedwith a dynamic understandingof the complexity of contemporaryAmericanIndianlives. The static images of past American Indiansas something other than, ratherthan part of, the concept of Americancontinue to contribute to the obstruction of images like those Alexie portrays. Another dimension to this balance and the reformationof hegemonic images of AmericanIndiansconcerns who tells the story.While scholarswith knowledge and actualexperience among Indiancommunities are a valuablecomponent, membersof Indiancommunitiesand tribescan and should partnerin the education process.This collaboration is being developed and fostered in numerousplaces. Forexample, at the University of Idaho, an AmericanIndianStudies minor has been s 135 2 > u 136 3 ? E formedwith the cooperationof and in partnershipwith local tribesand tribal members.Programslike this have the potential to help reshape hegemonic images of Indiansin the realm of education and provide culturalsupportfor the projectthat Alexie and many others have initiated throughthe mediumof film. Ownership in the Americancapitalisteconomic system is also a major factor in promoting hegemonic culture in general and the images of American Indians in particular.American Indians, like other minority populations,have limited membershipin the elite circles of capital ownership.Aside from contributingto sustainedhigh poverty rates,one consequence of this lack of ownershipof capitalis that those who have no ownership, and this includes American Indians, have no control over the primarypurveyorsof hegemonic imagery-the corporationsthat create/sell the massmedia.They thus have little control over the forms of the images constructed and sold that portray them in media ranging from national news coverage to popularfilms and printmedia. The lack of power in the economic realmalso reducesthe political power of any group in the United States since money and politics are intimatelyentwined. All non-upper-classAmericanssufferto some degree from the exclusion from political processes due to the heavy political influenceof the "powerelite"and corporateAmerica,but the exclusion has, and has had over the years, unique implications for AmericanIndians,including the issue of tribal casinos. Tribalcasinos are a relativelyrecent avenue of entry into the capitalisteconomy for Indiantribes.The complex negotiationswith federaland state governments over the right to operate casinos on the reservationsand the degree of regulationthey aresubjectto is an ongoing challenge of sovereignty.At issue with the casinos is the entry into the system of capitalist ownershipwith the associatedaccess to political power and corporate control through investments of revenue-not to mention the ability to addressconditions of poverty and unemploymenton reservations. Increasedaccess of Indian individualsand tribes to political power and corporatecontrol could potentially significantlycontribute to reshapinghegemonic images of AmericanIndians. The images of AmericanIndians presented via popular culture Signalshave the potential to have a powerfulimpact on through Smoke the American public perception of American Indians through challenging and reshapinghegemonic representations.However, as I have discussed, popularculture is fleeting, Smoke Signalsis a minute portion of that popularculture,and the hegemonic cultureat large is not conducive to reinforcing Alexie's portrayalsof contemporary American Indians.Many people, both Indianand non-Indian,enjoyed the movie fora varietyof reasons.Butit is not enough to simplyenjoy this moviefor whatever reason. Whether the movie evokes emotive responses concerning personalstruggles,a catharticwhite liberalguilt, or a sentimentalistor genuine compassion and/or admirationfor contemporary American Indians among a white audience, there is a larger issue at stake. The stake is representation,and it is an issue of sovereignty. Those of us who enjoyed the movie, talk about the movie, and recognize part of ourselves in the movie have a responsibilityto move outside our indulgence in popularcultureas entertainmentand recognize the importanceof popularculture to challenge hegemony-the "subversive"component to popular culture. If the emotional evocations lead to concrete actions and sustained attempts to promote understanding,whether it be at home with children or in a largersocial and political sphere,then that is a firststep. However, those of us operating in the daily construction and maintenance of Americanculture also need to be consciously inspiredand motivatedby the artisticmessage and pursuethe subversiveprojectafterthe emotion wearsoff. Ifwe fail, if we only indulge ourselves in popular culture emanating from the Coeur d'Alenereservationand then move to the next popularculture stimuli, SmokeSignals,along with the images it creates, will suffer the fate of so many other transient aspects of Americanpopularculture. And Alexie's"signals"will dissipate. W O R K S Lapchick, Richard E. "The Use of Native American Names and Mascots in Sports." In SportandSociety:Equal Opportunityor BusinessAs Usual?ed. RichardE. Lapchick, 75-76. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1996. C I T E D for Control of an Image."Quarterly Journalof Speech85 (1999): 188-22. West, Dennis, and Joan M. West. 'Sending Cinematic SmokeSignals: An Interview with Sherman Alexie." Cineaste23, no. 4 (1998): 28-32. Miller, Jackson B. 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