Its our land but yet we are portrayed like this!

Throughout history, we’ve seen many racial groups be abused, conquered and in some scenarios forgotten about. In a sense it’s as if America tried to erase some from history so that their group was seen as dinosaurs, a group of the past that no longer live in this current society. One group that the American society tends to forget about is the Native American population. Their either portrayed as members of society only in the past, mythical humans, savages, sexually explicit or just looked at inferior when it comes to “White” Americans.

The famous movie series “Twilight” portrayed the Native American people in a typical stereotypical way. They were portrayed as savages, mythical, sexually explicit and rare. The movie is about a young White American girl, Bella Swan, living with her father in Washington whom is starting to fall in love with a vampire, Edward Collins, and a Native American boy, Jacob Black, who also can turn into a gigantic werewolf. Throughout the movie it shows the stereotypical views that society has on Natives. The movie shows the portrayal of the Natives as mythical creatures, by allowing the natives the ability to turn into vicious werewolves. Also in the movie the Natives are given the ability to “imprint”, which is an “involuntary mechanism by which the Quileute find their soul-mates”. This also correlates with the stereotype that Natives have “magical and spiritual” powers. Instead of shifting the views and stereotypes towards Natives the movie Twilight and the character Jacob Black resembles the old stereotypes that society has made up about Natives. Throughout the movie the character Jacob Black fits the stereotype of being a “sidekick”. In the movie he was known as being the “backup” guy that the main character Bella used when she couldn’t to the guy she was in love with. Another example of Jacob being and the Natives being put into the sidekick position was in the scene when the vampires had to fight off the “bad” vampires. The vampires took the lead and the (werewolves) Natives followed.

The main thing one must note about the movie and the portrayal of Native Americans in the movie is the rise of Native Americans being featured in the movie. Even though the main character, Jacob Black who is played by Taylor Lautner claims to have “distant” Native American descendent, but the actor “has no confirmed Native American ancestry”. Besides the main character possible being Native American, the movie did raise awareness about having Native Americans play Native characters. Unlike many other movies where they usually cast White characters to play, Twilight did attempt to gain more “authentic” actors. Besides the harsh reviews that the movie received ,many of the Native actors did become advocates for the Native American community. 

Being an African American female and seeing the portrayal of Natives within the media, I understand the frustration of those apart of a community whom would like for the media to stop portraying our community in the way that they are doing. I think that no matter what we want , most will never understand the frustration and wont try to stop the trying to portray our community in the way that they are doing. I feel as long as those who are “truly” apart of that community speaks up and becomes advocates for those who’s voices aren’t heard, then maybe things may change. As a society we need to evaluate the things that we accept to put out into the media. Sometimes media is the only form of education or engagement that some will get to seeing a certain groups lifestyle or customs. I know from my experience from working in a TANF office that there are many different types of Native Americans, but some will never in their life encounter that same experience and their only interaction of Natives will be from movies that don’t truly portray the Native American lifestyle.

Native Americans may be the most misrepresented group in the United States, and in my opinion its extremely sad fact. From the stereotypes that the media decides to portray their community to the White actors playing them, the portrayal of Natives needs to change. We seen that having Whites play Black character was wrong, we should see the harsh and disrespect towards Natives when Whites mimic their customs, culture and community.