Windtalkers Movie Historical Accuracy

Another important aspect of the movies to discuss is whether the films accurately depict true stories and events as well as historically accurate characters. To begin, of the two films Windtalkers is the one that strays the farthest from the trust. In fact, the only truly historically accurate portion of the movie is that the code talkers were real people who played an enormous role in battles like Iwo Jima and World War II. Other than this, the characters of Windtalkers, including Yahzee and Enders, were not even actual people. Similarly, the specific events and situations they were placed in were true. Perhaps the most significant deviation from the historical truth is that many actual Navajo code talkers claimed that they actually never …show more content…
With both films being created in the early 2000’s, this was a time when traditional views of Native Americans were continuing change. As more and more literature and historical facts began to emerge, the major attitudes and opinions on Native Americans began to change too. For example, as I discussed before, in Windtalkers, Chick showers Yahzee with racist remarks and doubts his abilities as a soldier in the beginning of the film, but as the movie progresses they are proven completely wrong by his actions and valor, and extremely close with him. This shows that although the Americans had the stereotype of Native Americans, they learned very quickly that Yahzee was just the same as they were and he was not the primitive savages that they perceived him to be, seeming to reflect changing American opinions at the time. Additionally, the films do not put Yahzee or Ira Hayes in traditional Native American clothing and using tomahawks as weapons, but instead have them in American uniforms using machine guns and grenades. These examples show how the films are trying to upset the belief that Native Americans were savages that were still in the stone age. Instead, they wore the same clothes, the same weapons, ate the same food, and endured the same conditions as the whites. Not only this, but the films also accurately depict the critically important role Native Americans played in the war, one that if they did not participate, the success of the American army would have been decreased significantly. They do not seem to belittle or devalue the efforts of the Native Americans as many have done in the past, which contributes to eliminating the stereotype of the vanishing Indian. The films also expose American society for it’s discrimination and hostility towards Americans, despite how important they were to the war effort and