Sterotypes

Many young children grow up watching Disney movies, and the Indian cultures in their films do not portray a positive message.  While watching either Peter Pan or Pocahontas children will receive a negative portrayal of the Indian’s.   Many times in films Indians are looked at as the savages.  A majority of the time they are shown around fires, chanting, banging drums, and even smoking.  In Peter Pan, a story about never growing up, the song “What Makes a Red Man Red?” shows these things.  The children in the film are learning from the Indian’s themselves the answer to the question, the Indians are once again seen in the beginning smoking, banging on drums, and even are chanting and dancing throughout the entire song.  Even though Pocahontas was one the first Disney movies to have Indians as the main characters, and even a Disney Princess an Indian, they were not seen in a positive light.  They were still shown as savages by the whites in the film, which then can lead the views to still hold the same idea.

Not only are children viewing Native Americans in a negative way, but there are many music videos that adults and young adults are viewing too.  In many of the videos like; Cher "Half-Breed", SugarHill Gang "Apache", Tommy Seebach "Apache", and Tim McGraw "Indian Outlaw".  All of these singers and groups, excluding Cher, are not even from a Native American background but are representing the culture.  They are all singing about Indians, and many of the views they are shown dressed up in feathers, with tee pees, and many other things commonly thought to associated with Native Americans.  All of these things are not truly what the culture has to show, but is what we are all used to seeing.  The wrong message through music and music videos has even come up in the new dancing game Just Dance.  The SugarHill Gang’s song “Apache” is featured in the game and while playing it users get to see a person dressed in full Indian “gear”, even a full feather headdress.  The way Indian culture is displayed in the game shows that still today it is simply thought of as headdresses, feathers, and the way we have seen them dance in movies.