Old Hollywood Western Film Analysis

Most assumptions on Native Americans that I have encountered come from old Hollywood western films. Whenever meet strangers they often question my racial identity and when the find out that I’m Native American their positionality as non-Natives leaves them somewhat ignorant of modern Natives. They will usually connect my “Nativeness” to the Native Americans they see represented on-screen. Media representations of Natives are almost always inaccurate and exaggerated. Unfortunately, these false representations are what made led me away from parts of my own avowed cultural identity like my accent.
Growing up, for some unknown reason, my father would watch old Hollywood westerns. Westerns were bar far his favorite genre of film the point that our family vacations were dedicated to touring old western filming locations like Monument Valley, UT and Tombstone, AZ. These locations are historic outside of Hollywood, however, to my father the fact that they were filming locations outweighed any historicism. When I watched these films with my father I wasn’t hyper aware of my cultural background as a Navajo and therefore made no connection between my own “Nativeness” and the Native’s on-screen. …show more content…
During this time my family went on vacation to Seattle, Washington, it was the furthest we’d traveled from home. My family had never ventured outside of the Four Corners area where minorities like Hispanics, Latinx Americans, and Native Americans were usually a majority. Because of this most residents of the Four Corners knew enough about Native Americans to not make assumptions. They were able to distinguish between Native on-screen and actual Native Americans. This, unfortunately, wasn’t for people living in the state of Washington, despite their own Native American