Contextualized within the discourse of United States nationalism, particularly the idea of Manifest Destiny in the nineteenth century, contemporary Native American representations from Victor Masayesva (Hopi) and Chris Eyre (Cheyenne/Arapaho) are counter-hegemonic since their representations interrogate stereotypes about Indians as "timeless," "props" who create "color background" for the dominant imagination. For example, in Imagining Indians (1992), Masayesva presents a range of interrogating viewpoints concerning the exploitation, commodification, and Hollywood set treatment of Native Americans. Here, the interviewees are not passive objects but active subjects who interrogate the dominant culture's assumptions about Indians. At the end of his film, images of various nineteenth-century tribal leaders constructed from George Catlin are destroyed through computer graphic manipulation. The camera's possessive gaze is also de-naturalized and rendered powerless. Chris Eyre uses a different representational tactic than Masayesva. Eyre's Skins (2002) seeks to build counter-hegemonic community through the love between two brothers. Despite rampant unemployment, poverty, and alcoholism, the brothers' love sustains them and their family and thus helps them to survive in the fractured community of Pine Ridge. Here, the Lakota philosophy concerning the cultural concepts of tisospaye ("your clan or family") and oyate ("your people") are significant since these ideas help the brothers to overcome personal struggles with alcoholism and the effects of the trickster figure of Iktomi. In the ultimate act of countering the magisterial gaze of U.S. nationalism, Skins ends with the cathartic throwing of blood-ret paint on George Washington in America's much-vaunted Mount Rushmore. In short, these contemporary representations from two key Native American filmmakers are counter-hegemonic since they assert agency in showing "get real" images of Indians and thus building community in the face of domination.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/195409 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Cassadore, Edison Duane |
| Contributors | Babcock, Barbara A, Babcock, Barbara A, Bernardi, Daniel, Harjo, Joy, Moore, Sarah, White, Susan |
| Publisher | The University of Arizona. |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, Electronic Dissertation |
| Rights | Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. |
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