Marketing The Imaginary Indian Summary

Throughout Daniel Francis’s article “Marketing of the Imaginary Indian” we are led through a number of moments in history detailing times when the stereotyped “Indian” was used for promotional purposes. It is Francis’s final opinion that leads me to believe that he would respond similarly to Drew Hayden Taylor’s article “The Urbane Indian”.

We, as a culture, have always feared the unknown and the First Nations culture is no exception. We may not react to this fear by screaming and hiding such as a child would, but instead we respond by taking away their power. From our first arrival to the New World until 1996 when the last residential school closed, the immediate reaction towards First Nations had always been that they must be educated and transformed to the white culture, “to assimilate to the mainstream”, as stated by Francis. However, Francis ends his article by presenting the hypothesis that perhaps “there … [is] strong impulse … to transform [ourselves] into Indians”. From the marketing of shoes to cars to medicine, the “Imaginary Indian” was such a strong promotional tool due to its association to with “the out-of-doors, … strength and courage, [and] … [the] innocence of nature” (Marketing the Imaginary Indian), all of which are things that we would like to become. …show more content…
For example, as described in the article “The Urbane Indian”, during protests over the economical situation we began to see the “appearances of tipis at many of these occupation sites”. I believe that Francis would see this situation as further reinforcement to his hypothesis, as the First Nations once “lived in those domiciles until [they were told to] grow up and get civilized” (The Urbane Indian) by the same people that were now using