Deconstructing Stereotypes in Print and Visual Culture.

INDIGENOUS MASCULINITIESDeconstructing Stereotypes in Print and Visual Culture

OVERVIEW

(Podcast, part 1) Isinamowin – The Whiteman’s Indian Where do these stereotypes come from? (Broad Historical Context)

What are the contemporary ways you see some of these stereotypes represented or used?

What are the repercussions of these kinds of stereotypes on Indigenous male identity?

Isinamowin – The Whiteman’s Indian

The Indian of imagination and ideology has been as real, perhaps more real, than the Native American of actual existence and contact. As preconception became conception and conception became fact, the Indian was used for the ends of argument, art, and entertainment by White painters, philosophers, poets, novelists, and movie makers among many.”

–Robert Berkhofer, The White Man’s Indian (1978)

THE WILD INDIAN

• The Brutal Warrior

• The Savage Scalper

• The Uncontrollable Drunk

• The Contemptible Dumb Indian

North West Resistance of 1885

ê-mâyahkamikahk, Cree word for ‘where it went wrong’

“The Worst fears of the people of the Northwest are seemingly about to be realized. A general Indian uprising may yet be avoided; but the tribes that are up, having now tasted the blood of the whites, will be hard to pacify.” –Winnipeg Daily Times, April 11, 1885

“Two White Women Sold by the Indians to Half Breeds for Wives.” –Leader, March 1885

“Uncivilized Warfare”“Butchers”

“Mischievous Wretches”

“savages”

“cowards”

“Let any eastern man, no matter how enthusiastic on the Indian question, live for six months among them, see them beg, see them steal, sell their women and lie around, too lazy and shiftless to make an effort to earn the slightest part of their own living…this may sound like strong language, but it’s the truth.

-Calgary Weekly Herald, March 12, 1885

“On the line of the March: the noble Red Man’s idea of fair division of labor”

Depiction of Duck Lake Massacre

Artists portrayal of an ‘Indian Raid’

BUFFALO BILL’S WILD WEST-marketed as containing actual and realistic scenes from life with genuine characters.

-program booklets included a wide array of historical and educational material, from biographical profiles, to essays on Indigenous languages and religious ceremonies.

-performers were encouraged to walk about in their costumes.

-solidified the image of the ‘Plains Indian’ in the public psyche.

-Final Wild West tour was in 1906.

The Lone Ranger and Tonto, 1950s

The Lone Ranger and Tonto, 2013

What are the repercussions of these kinds of stereotypes on Indigenous male identity?