Abstract....

Erica Luckett
10632028
CES 372
Margo Tamez
October 12, 2008


“Native American Women on the Big Screen: The Stories of Pocahontas and Sacajawea”


For my project I plan to research two known Native American women, Pocahontas and Sacajawea. What I plan to find out is more about their lives and their struggles and compare it to the Hollywood and Disney versions of their lives. Though they are two different women of two different tribes, they seem to share some of the same trials and tribulations with each other as well as with other Native women. It is apparent that the idea of the “savage Indian” has not died though many Native cultures have. The idea of helpless Indian woman or helpful Indian woman is common in many movies. A majority of our America “heroes” are glorified while the Natives continue to be viewed as the same primitive culture that would not survive without being saved, converted, and reborn into the dominant races culture. As for Native women, they were receptacles for genocide and abuse. Earlier in the semester when we did our collage of what it is to be Native, some things that I found were pictures of European women dressed up in sexy native woman costumes, Native women are printed on the backs of coins for helping Europeans find trails and things, and there was the famous Pocahontas that was created by Disney. Some questions that came to mind were: How do the portrayals of Natives, specifically Native women, help or hurt the Native community? How accurate are these portrayals and how are they drawn up by directors?
Some of the sources that I have found so far are from www.filmreference.com/encyclopedoa, here I found some information about movies created about Native peoples. It talks about the movies mostly being stories of colonization of indigenous people and the designated role of “the Indian”. I also plan to find some information from our readings about events and certain tribes and compare them to what is depicted on the big screen. I also found a bit of information in “Every Day is a Good Day”, where the author, along with some other Native women talk briefly about how American pop culture affects the Native community as well as portrayals in movies. So far I have been able to find lots of information on both Pocahontas and Sacajawea, the hard part is picking out the most reliable sources.