Description
Liza Black offers a rare and overlooked perspective on American cinema history by giving voice to creators of movie Indians—the stylists, public relations workers, and the actors themselves. In exploring the inherent racism in sensationalizing Native culture for profit, Black also chronicles the little-known attempts of studios to generate cultural authenticity and historical accuracy in their films. She discusses the studios’ need for actual Indians to participate in, legitimate, and populate such filmic narratives. But studios also told stories that made Indians sound less than Indian because of their skin color, clothing, and inability to do functions and tasks considered authentically Indian by non-Indians. In the ongoing territorial dispossession of Native America, Native people worked in film as an economic strategy toward survival.
Consulting new primary sources, Black has crafted an interdisciplinary experience showcasing what it meant to “play Indian” in post–World War II Hollywood.
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Book Information
ISBN 9780803296800
Author Liza Black
Format Hardback
Page Count 354
Imprint University of Nebraska Press
Publisher University of Nebraska Press