Smoke Signals

There was a lot of things in Smoke Signals that I noticed when it came to how white people treated Indians and vise versa, that also matched The Searchers.  The first thing I noticed was the Victor told Thomas about how he need to stop smiling and be serious in order for white people to take him seriously. Then he also tells him he needs to lose his braids and get rid of the suit and dress like a normal Indian, basically saying that in order for a white person to take you seriously, you have to both look normal and have a serious face. 

Another example of this came at the scene where Victor and Thomas got in the car accident.  The white guy was very impatient with both Victor and Thomas claiming they couldn't help, and also telling the cops that Victor tried to kill them by hitting them with his car, and then being drunk he also tried to assault them.  The cops didn't want to believe Victor in that what the guy was saying was a lie, but since the girl he was with told the cops he was an asshole for lying, they let both Victor and Thomas go.  So In this movie you can tell that there is definately competition between Indians and white people.

That fact runs true through many other things that happened in both this movie and the book, An Absolutely True Story, when it came to basketball games.  It's almost as if though they know they can't win in life against white people, so instead they try to turn to basketball because maybe from their logic, if they can beat them in basketball, they can beat them at one thing they claim to be best at, and that's enough for them to know.  For example when Victor's dad was describing to Suzy about the basketball game he and Victor played against white people, and he talked Victor up like he was the best and claimed they beat them, when in reality they didn't.

There are many similarities between these two stories, even when it came to alcohol and how Indians really did drink often.  When it came to the fires, that in the book Junior's sister died from a fire and in the movie Thomas's parents died from a fire, and both Junior and Thomas kinda played the same type of role in the movie to the book.