Hollywood's idea of Indians

An awful lot of the reputation Native Americans have is pretty much a product of Hollywood.

There was once an ad showing an Indian finding a pile of litter in the woods and shedding a tear. Of course, the actor portraying the Indian was actually an Italian which is yet another example of Hollywood type foolishness.

Actually a trip through any Indian reservation will expose numerous piles of litter and junk laying around. The reality of the plains tribes being nomadic was simply because they had polluted their camp sites and it was time to move to pollute somewhere else.

Of course, the camp site could be reused after a while because animal life, the winds, snows and rains would cleanse it by consuming all of the organic stuff left behind. Human waste, animal carcasses and the like breaks down fairly quickly and it became habitable again. I suppose this could have gone along indefinitely.

Still, the Hollywood Indian became somewhat of a symbol of stealth and cunning. He was supposedly able to go through the woods silently and lived in total harmony with nature.

Truth is he was pretty much like everyone else. He occasionally tripped and fell over a vine or stubbed his toe in the darkness. There was nothing magical about Native Americans back in the day.

I always liked the way Mad Magazine's artist Don Martin portrayed them. He didn't insult them as a people, he poked fun at the way Hollywood portrayed them.

In one of his cartoons a white settler was being chased and every running sound he made was written into the cartoon picture. The settler was like a bull in a china shop as he crashed through the boonies.

Of course, the Indian chasing him didn't make a single sound.

In another cartoon there was a lone Indian on a cliff top looking down at a passing wagon train. In the next panel there were a half dozen. The third panel had hundreds and the fourth panel had Indians falling off the cliff face with someone shouting "Hey! Quit pushing back there!"

Hollywood has created an awful lot on misnomers about Indians and they persist to this day.

Sorry, our Native Americans are pretty much just like everybody else.

I suppose the Indians are not alone. Hollywood has always portrayed the US Calvary as always coming to the rescue just in the nick of time.

In fact I teased a couple of Marines by telling them if they were in danger of being overrun that they should call the nearest US Cavalry unit no matter how far away they are because never in the motion picture industry has the United States Calvary been too late!

Of course, the Marines booed and threw ice and popcorn at me but I knew they would before I opened my mouth to begin with.




To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY