Native Americans in the Media

Native Americans in the Media

Becca Wells
CT 807
April 2017
Native Americans in the Media

After I read an article in our local paper about the protests going on with the Dakota

Access pipeline, it was understandable to see why there is a bad light shed on the Native

American Culture. The article talked about how it was understandable that those of Native

American culture have a connection with Mother Earth, but the state that the area was left in was

a true disgrace. This protest was by the Sioux tribe, so said the article; however, many of those

that went to contribute to the fight put a larger stereotype upon the Sioux nation as they just

wanted the publicity of being known for doing something, or making a difference. It was not

uncommon during this protest to see anywhere from one to five celebrities at a time, live

streaming their protest on Facebook or complaining as they were arrested due to breaking local

laws and stating they were only arrested because they were a celebrity. A friend of mine went to

protest the Dakota Access pipeline, however, she had no idea why the protest was there, when

I furthered my questioning she went on to tell me that the water is being put at risk. With her

same breath, she went to talk about how much trash they left behind for the cleanup crew and

thought it was funny. Yet, there is nothing funny about a crew working day and night cleaning

up the sacred land taking more than 10 dump trucks of trash off the land. If one is worried

about the ground water, then why would one trash their land, as this too would put the ground

waters at risk. I have talked with other friends, who also happen to be Native American, that

were appalled by the portrayal of those who are not connected to their culture put on them,

making it seem as they did not actually have the respect for their Mother Earth, that all they

wanted was media attention, causing negative stereotypes for all in the culture. For this reason, I

have chosen to write my research paper on Native Americans in the media.

Other than those I personal know who are Native Americans I really do not know a whole

lot about their culture, except for what I see in the news or in movies. When I spoke to my
Native Americans in the Media

mother about what was going on she was rather disturbed by this as she used to teach at our

Bureau of Indian Affairs school that was in our capitol city when I was a baby, she felt that the

portrayal of the Sioux tribe was nothing like she knew of their culture and values. From

everything that we have discussed in this class I knew that I wanted to consider this situation and

how we can help our students understand that what you see or hear is not always what the culture

is about. I wanted to see what are those typical stereotypes that are out there, are there

similarities, is there a consensus on their culture? With those questions in mind I decided to use

the top two recommended shows/movies on Netflix that had Native American characters for a

reference of how their culture is represented on the big screen. These came up in my

recommended for you feed when I opened Netflix. I then decided that maybe South Dakota is

being bias so I searched for news articles from a larger reputable paper, the New York Times.

For my peer-reviewed articles, I found two great articles that relates closes to what I am

considering, I found both articles from the KU library database, the first article was from the

Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly while the second article was from the Journal of

Social Issues.

The top two shows/movies that Netflix recommended that had Native American cultures

were the show Longmire and the movie Blazing Saddles. After watching the show Longmire,

which is a show about a Sheriff of a county that is on the border with an Indian Reservation that

has their own public safety system and does not follow the same rules and guidelines as the

county, I noticed a few different stereotypes that were portrayed in the show. Now, not all the

stereotypes that were portrayed in this show were negative, there were a few that were very

positive. So, starting with a positive note, in this show Native Americans are portrayed as being

very spiritual and connected to their culture and ancestors. Their family, not only by blood but
Native Americans in the Media

their cultural family, is very important to them, more important than the law. There are a few that

really want to make a change to their culture for the better, to get away from the negative

stereotypes that they see in themselves, be it they feel that the alcoholism is consuming their

lives or they feel that they see their family struggle from the gambling debts. They are portrayed

as being very uneasy when it comes to people not of their culture. They tend to be alcoholics,

gamblers and have connections with the mob. On to Blazing Saddles, this is one movie that most

everyone has seen in their life time. The portrayal of Native American culture in this movie is

very negative. They are shown as being drunks, have painted faces and speak in Yiddish. This

was expected of the town people and they found it entertaining. Now, Mel Brooks did do this on

purpose to point out to Hollywood how bad they are at using negative stereotypes of Native

American culture.

The first article I found from the New York Times was written by Julie Bosman in March

of this year, where she interviewed a few residents and made a few observational comments

about the Rosebud tribe. She talked about how the towns in the Rosebud reservation were filled

with debris and had very few amenities. One town only had 12 residents but had four liquor

stores (on the Nebraska side of the reservation.) She talked about how the culture has been

struggling for many a year with alcoholism, it is not uncommon to see people sitting on the side

of the road drinking beer or passed out on the ground, disheveled and sick. On the South Dakota

side of the reservation it is dry land, meaning that they are not allowed the sale of alcohol. Even

though the sale of alcohol may be illegal it is very much like prohibition times, one is still able to

easily find and purchase alcohol. Due to the severity of alcoholism on the reservation

unemployment exceeds 80 percent, poverty affects more than 90 percent of those that live on

the reservation. More than a quarter of the children born on the reservation have fetal alcohol
Native Americans in the Media

syndrome. Even in this article alone I found many stereotypes mentioned. Talking about Native

Americans being alcoholics, lazy and are only being concerned about when they get their next

drink. This goes along with a lot of the negative stereotypes that was seen on Longmire and

Blazing Saddles.

I did another search and found another article from the New York Times written by Julie

Turkewitz written on the first of this month. She talked about how in the Native American

culture they live a dozen to a home. Many have no running water and have poor home quality

and lack of space. This also portrayed several negative stereotypes that were seen in the previous

article. If one only saw these articles or shows they would have mainly negative perspectives on

Native American culture.

Since I was finding was mostly negative I turned to the peer-reviewed journals. The first

article I found from the Journalism and Mass Communications Quarterly was about Native

American stereotypes and TV portrayals. The article mentioned five stereotypes that are

typically seen and talked about. First, Native Americans are alcoholic, a stereotype most likely

perpetrated by press coverage of drinking in Native American cultures. (Fujioka, Lucht, Tan,

1997, p266) This is something that those of the culture will admit that they have been struggling

with and feel that it is a serious problem in their communities. However, the drinking patterns are

different from tribe to tribe and person to person. The author notes that a second stereotype,

they have super citizen status and cradle to grave benefits, and they receive government

per capita checks just for being a Native American. (Fujioka, Lucht, Tan, 1997) The facts that

I found from this article is that they do not have any special rights, they are able to fish, hunt or

have other rights because they are recognized as political bodies that have signed treaties with

the US. The truth behind this is they may get checks each month but that is due to the lease of
Native Americans in the Media

their land, owned by their ancestors, by the government. The third stereotype the author

discussed was, Indians are lazy, dont work hard, and cant keep a steady job. It was

mentioned that they do feel that their families are more important so they may leave their jobs to

take care of their familys needs. This connects well with other cultures that we have read about

in our required readings by Banks and Banks. The fourth stereotype the author discussed was,

Native Americans are out of work and on welfare. The rate of unemployment in this culture is

very high at over 80 percent as found from a previous article. This could be contributed to the

need to take care of their family first, work always comes last in their line of priorities. This

connects with how the culture raises their children and how they are educated on the

reservations. They are taught that their family and culture is more important than any job or other

person. This I have found from my mother, who happened to teach at the Bureau of Indian

Affairs school in Pierre, South Dakota. She told me how it was not uncommon to have a student

be gone due to their mother being ill or grandparent as they would need to stay home to care for

the rest of the children or their parent/grandparent. The last stereotype that the author discussed

was, Indians live on reservations because they cant make it on the outside, they are

uneducated, and they have no other choice. Most Native Americans enjoy being with their own

people on their own land and want to maintain their way of life and culture. This goes back to

being a spiritual culture who is very close to their tribal family and extend family. They are a

proud culture that likes to maintain their cultural values and traditions (Fujioka, Lucht, Tan

p.266.)

The images one gets from the shows, movies and articles that I have read and seen tend to

be viewed primarily negative. Native Americans have had open negativity towards them in the

press for some time, now this is decreasing, yet, in Hollywood it continues the negative path of
Native Americans in the Media

stereotypes and negative images. As I noticed first hand with the two shows I watched off

Netflix.

I was interested if there was data to show how their culture is represented in the media.

That was how I found the last article I will talk about from the Journal of Social Issues written by

Leavitt, P. A., Covarrubias, R., Perez, Y. A., & Fryberg, S. A. It was eye opening to see how it was felt

that the representation of Native American culture is frozen in time. The article stated The

invisibility of Native Americans in mass media provides a unique vantage point for examining

how media representations impact both identity and self-understanding. Native Americans are

typically depicted as 18th and 19th century figures (i.e., as teepee dwelling, buckskin and feather

wearing, horse riding, people) and, in the rare cases in which they are shown as contemporary

people, they are negatively stereotyped as poor, uneducated and prone to addictions. Fryberg

and Townsend call this relative invisibility, this affects many cultures, what makes Native

Americans different is that they have absolute invisibility in many domains of the American

Life, rarely are they seen in the media as contemporary figures or mainstream public spaces.

Native Americans, more than other social groups, are seen and learn to see themselves

through the lens of negative stereotypes or they look to the messages projected about the

contemporary world and simply do not see themselves represented. The article talked about

how many peoples perceptions of the culture have been the result of vicarious experiences,

instead of direct and in person contact. These views are being made only by those negative

stereotypes and not by the experience with who they truly are. The article continued to state how

you rarely see the Native American culture in a positive light which puts their culture in an

inequality state or a psychological disadvantage as they do not have a positive representation.

(Covarrubias, Fryberg, Leavitt and Perez, 2015.) The article talked about how the Native
Native Americans in the Media

American culture only makes up a small percentage of all the ethnic categories in America (see

figure 1.) In figure two I wanted to have a visual to show how little the Native American culture

is represented with characters on the big screen. From seeing these numbers, it tells a story on

why people have the image in their minds that are negative of this

The Ethnic Categories of America

whites (only) African American Asian American

Native American Pacific Islander Two or more different races
different race

Figure 1 (Whites (only) 72%, African American 13%, Asian American 5%, Native American 1%, Two or more

different races 3% and Different race 6%)

culture. Most all Americans have access to the internet, television, news articles, movies, etc.

(See figure 3.) When what they see is mainly all negative there is a reason they view the culture

that way.

To summarize the Native American culture is put in a very negative light not only due to the

stereotypes that are put in the media, but because they are such a small fraction of America, that

they do not get mentioned in the media or in print unless there is something negative to be

announced, for example the poor condition with the state that the camp was left from the Dakota
Native Americans in the Media

Pipeline protesters. This got national attention from celebrities, empathetic parties and tribes

across the country. Those who just wanted the attention and those that truly cared. However, the

only time you saw anything about it was to discuss what the concern were with the state of the

camp and how they were acting the opposite of what they were protesting (all the trash, burning

of buildings, etc.) It connects with the video we watched in the last module of class on who will

step up and do something about what was going on. The children in the video, who happened to

be white were vandalizing a car in the daylight and only one person thought to report the

incident.

Character representation

37%

50%

0%
6%
2%
5%

Whites Native Americans African American Asian American Latino American

Figure 2 (Native American is 0.9%) (Leavitt, P. A., Covarrubias, R., Perez, Y. A., & Fryberg, S. A., 2015)

Then they exchanged the three white children with those that were African American to see if

people would report it then. There was an alarming amount of people that would report that

vandalism but not that same one that was committed by the other race. This was shocking to see,

yet, not that surprising as they have the negative stereotypes in mind. Therefore, teachers need
Native Americans in the Media

to step it up and provide the multicultural education as Banks and Banks described. As Banks

and Banks described in their chapter on Levels of integration, in

the section on the social action approach, teachers need to talk and teach about prejudice,

discrimination and what causes these. Now, going as far as Jane Elliot, from Iowa, did with her

class may not be the direction to go as that could be more detrimental on your students. With the

Chart Title
use internet on their cell
Have a cell phone
Use the internet for news
use the internet regularly
Have a personal computer
Watch television regularly
Television in their home

0 20 40 60 80 100 120

Figure 3

Social Approach, it will allow and question the students to look deeper and consider the different

cultures. Not only could they be considering discrimination and what causes it they could be

considering the different stereotypes and see if they are myths or truths. Having a student

directed learning project on different cultures and having them each share with the class could

help with the negative images on different cultures.

Native Americans in the Media

Resources

Baldwin, H., & Coveny, J. (Writers). (n.d.). Longmire [Television series]. New Mexico: Netflix.

Bosman, J. (2017, March 25). Nebraska May Stanch One Towns Flow of Beer to Its Vulnerable

Neighbors. The New York Times.

Brooks, M. (Director). (1974). Blazing saddles [Video file]. United States: Warner Bros.

Leavitt, P. A., Covarrubias, R., Perez, Y. A., & Fryberg, S. A. (2015). Frozen in Time The Native

American Impact Media Representations on Identity and Self- Identity. Social Issues,71(1),

39-53. doi:10.1111/josi.12095

Tan, A., Fujioka, Y., & Lucht, N. (1997). Native American Stereotypes, TV Portrayals, and Personal

Contact . Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly,72(2), 265-282.

Turkewitz, J. (2017, April 1). Tribes That Live Off Coal Hold Tight to Trumps Promises. The New

York Times.