# "Indians = savages" movies? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 2, 2013, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indians-savages-movies/670157 "2013-10-02T02:50:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrokenBriton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@BrokenBriton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrokenBriton)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2013, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indians-savages-movies/670157/21 "2013-10-04T17:56:26Z")
fwiw, “treatment by the movie industry” was the first reason given by Brando’s rep when she refused an Oscar on his behalf: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/2QUacU0I4yU/hqdefault.jpg "Marlon Brando's Best Actor Oscar win for "The Godfather" | Sacheen Littlefeather") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QUacU0I4yU) ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2013, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indians-savages-movies/670157/22 "2013-10-04T20:55:56Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The Searchers was very loosely based on a true story. Cynthia Parker was kidnapped as a nine year old during a raid that killed most of her family. She had to watch many of her relatives being tortured to death. She was then taken away by the Comanches and lived with them for 24 years. She was found by a Texas ranger during a raid and lived unhappily back with her relatives until her death. > Most movies depicting Indians did not accurately depict the savagery of the Indian wars. Most raids would end with all the surviving male members tortured to death, and the women raped to death, while the children were forced to watch. Which makes the Indian Wars different from most wars in history because…? Also, cite. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2013, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indians-savages-movies/670157/23 "2013-10-04T21:15:51Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Which makes the Indian Wars different from most wars in history because…? > > Also, cite. Wikipedia article on [Cynthia Parker](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia_Parker). ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2013, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indians-savages-movies/670157/24 "2013-10-04T21:17:31Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > Wikipedia article on [Cynthia Parker](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia_Parker). It was not the story of Cynthia Parker I was commenting on. It was Puddleglum’s (implicit) assertion that North American Indians were, as a rule, unusually savage in their war-making. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2013, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indians-savages-movies/670157/25 "2013-10-04T21:47:58Z")
I don’t have the book anymore, but in _The Son_ by Philipp Meyer (fiction about a boy kidnapped by Indians in Texas in the mid-1800’s), the author lists firsthand accounts as sources. Are you arguing that those things didn’t happen? ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2013, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indians-savages-movies/670157/26 "2013-10-04T21:52:15Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > I don’t have the book anymore, but in _The Son_ by Philipp Meyer (fiction about a boy kidnapped by Indians in Texas in the mid-1800’s), the author lists firsthand accounts as sources. > > Are you arguing that those things didn’t happen? Nope. I’m saying that I don’t think that North American Indians were UNUSUALLY savage in war, on balance and viewed historically–that they were any worse than most other warring powers in history, that they committed atrocities with any more regularity than Europeans. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2013, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indians-savages-movies/670157/27 "2013-10-04T21:59:44Z")
I think I’m slightly off topic, but the U.S. Declaration of Independence calls native Americans savages. > [@](#): > > He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. ---
**Author:** ![BrokenBriton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@BrokenBriton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrokenBriton)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2013, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indians-savages-movies/670157/28 "2013-10-04T23:40:49Z")
^ Right, no doubt they formed an Axis of Evil. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2013, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indians-savages-movies/670157/29 "2013-10-05T00:23:01Z")
In shining contrast, when the colonies made war upon the tribes of western New York, they only destroyed fields, granaries, fruit trees, and farm animals. Depopulating an area by destroying all the food isn’t at all like killing people directly. Much more supportable in a moral sense. (Sarcasm. And sorrow. If the native Americans behaved badly…the Europeans behaved worse.) ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2013, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indians-savages-movies/670157/30 "2013-10-05T13:15:05Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > [Two Rode Together](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055558/) depicts the red men as savages. And the white men as worse. Another John Ford movie, and I think he quite consistently portrayed both sides as savage and bloodthirsty. Of course, the main characters are usually the whites because that’s who the audiences would identify with and cheer for. However, he also did CHEYENNE AUTUMN in which the Indians are totally sympathetic and the whites are the bad guys (and savages.) ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2013, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indians-savages-movies/670157/31 "2013-10-05T13:58:10Z")
It seems to me that even in movies that treat Native Americans sympathetically, Pawnee are usually portrayed as sneaky, violent and unsavory. Dances with Wolves, Little Big Man, Westward Ho The Wagons, and others cast the Pawnee as villains. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2013, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indians-savages-movies/670157/32 "2013-10-05T23:22:34Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > It seems to me that even in movies that treat Native Americans sympathetically, Pawnee are usually portrayed as sneaky, violent and unsavory. Dances with Wolves, Little Big Man, Westward Ho The Wagons, and others cast the Pawnee as villains. Yeah, the Pawnee really need to fire their public relations firm. The problem for the Pawnee is unfortunately they can be slotted into both ends of the “bad indian” spectrum. Early in their contact with American settlers they could be hostile raiders, so they could be safely cast as bad guys in the “savage indian” stereotype. But later they were frequently allied with American authorities, providing scouts to the U.S. army in its wars with other plains tribes, thus casting them as suck-up bad guys in the “noble indian” stereotype. They managed to get hit with both those barrels in the movie **Little Big Man**. In addition the Pawnee were inveterate enemies of the Cheyenne and Sioux, two of the tribes most associated\* with resistance against American expansion. So any film from a Sioux or Cheyenne perspective ( like **Little Big Man** or, obliquely, **Dances with Wolves** ) tends to trash them as well. \*The Comanche and Apache seem to be the only other peoples with similar stature in American mythology. Folks like the Arapaho and Kiowa seem a bit less known. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2013, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indians-savages-movies/670157/33 "2013-10-07T07:06:21Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > **[Broken Arrow](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_Arrow_(1950_film))** from 1950 also shows a sympathetic look at Indians and is sometimes cited as the first Hollywood film to do so. Of course, Ford did it earlier, but the portrayals in his films were on the periphery; **Broken Arrow** brought it all to the fore. > > Lots of older B westerns used Indians like post-WWII films used Nazis – all purpose villains. Savagery, however, was rarely portrayed. Just showing an Indian with maybe a threat to scalp was more than enough; you didn’t have to be graphic about it. It was Hayes Code times. You COULDN’T be graphic about it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indians-savages-movies/670157.md?page=1)