The Searchers

The movie “The Searchers” did like most Westerns portray many stereotypes of Native Americans.  They were in extreme contrast with the settlers.  Some examples include the tribe attacking and killing several of the family members and setting their house on fire, and then when they constantly tried to attack anyone who was following them.  The Natives were shown in a much more savage light, throughout the entire film.  The lighting, camera angles, and the music and sound effects that were associated with the Native Americans made them seem much more wild and violent than they really were in reality.  This film tends to show them as the more violent group, and at times they were, but Ethan and the men trying to find Debbie were much more violent, especially Ethan.  He killed Mr. Futterman just to get his money back and also he shot the already dead Indian, which is truly disrespectful.

Regarding Ethan, he showed great disgust for the Native Americans.  This is shown clearly as he spends the majority of the film hunting down the tribe that killed his family and kidnapped his niece.  The way the plot lays out you would believe that he is going after them for revenge, but once he sees Debbie and realizes the woman she has become he wants to kill her, his own niece.  He has a great hate towards these people and there is really nothing that will stop him.  He also shows this dislike when he is with Martin, who is born a Native American and adopted into the settle family.  Though throughout the whole film Ethan will not accept that an Indian is part of his family, he does not accept Martin and does not let Martin say that he wants to find Debbie because she is family.  All of this hatred towards the Native Americans builds suspense until the end of the film when Ethan has a change of heart and instead of killing Debbie, saves her and brings her back home.  It helps to portray Ethan as the hero in the film, and truly classifies it as a Western.