Reel Injun

The Neil Diamond movie Reel Injun shows how the portrayal of North American Natives grow through out the years in film. The Birth of the Hollywood Injun is the opener in the movie and it shows the Hollywood idea's of an Indian. The film makers at that time were looking at Native Americans as a mythology as if they were extinct. Jim Jarmusch says "That is a genocide that occurred the American culture wanted to perpetrate the ideas that the Natives are now mythological, you know, they don't even really exist, they're like dinosaurs"(Reel Injun). Film makers made it out to seem as if Native Americans were no longer real. They wanted to make it seem like they were a culture that died off. However they are very real to this day and always have been.  Clint Eastwood says "I remember once we were on a set, the director said 'I want a real native upfront, I want to see the real thing' We couldn't find one"(Reel Injun). In reality Native Americans didn't have the money or education to become actors so Hollywood painted an image of who they were. They would paint the faces of people red and put on long dark hair wigs held on with headbands. It was easy for Hollywood to create an image for the Native Americans and it captured the worlds imagination. Western movies became huge in the filming department and gave the Natives a savage and brutal image. The heroic Cowboy killing the Indians and saving the day was the new entertainment. Jesse Wante says "When you're kids and you're trying to play Cowboys and Indians, and if you're an Indian kid- well doesn't that mean you're going to lose all the time?"(Reel Injun). The made the Indians look like the bad guy and the Cowboys look like the hero's. People grew up unaware of the true Native culture only seeing what Hollywood portrayed Native Americans to be.

The Renaissance era and the release of the movie Atanarjuat(The Fast Runner), directed by Zacharias Kunuk, showed the true culture of Native Americans. This movie was authentic and accurate representation of their culture. Chris Eyre says "They tell our stories our way"(Reel Injun). This was the first movie made about Native Americans that was directed and made fully by Native American people. This movie preserves their culture and was called an "inside job". The film industry took away who these people are. Zacharias Kunuk says "Were taking back, stories we used to hear, what we believe and why we are here"(Reel Injun). They were bringing back their culture with this movie. When a persons background is taken away its as if they are taken away too, but this movie brought it back. There is a very famous scene in this movie where a man is being attacked in his teepee and he runs out completely naked across icy terrain cutting up his feet. His dedication to this role showed his true spirit. Jhon Trudell says " We're not Indians and we're not Native Americans we're older then both of those concepts, we're the people, we're the human beings' (Reel Injun). John Truddell makes the point that everyone is just human and that the Native American people are just the same as everyone else, they just have a different past.