The Lone Ranger as a Hollywood Indian

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The Lone Ranger, from my perspective, stereotyped Native Americans in a negative way. There are two different movies with the same name but the one that seemed most interesting was the newest version with Johnny Depp. Since we are now the twentieth century, I assumed that they wouldn’t have portrayed Native Americans in any offensive matter and would have stepped away from the Hollywood Indian. After reading different summaries about the movie, I was proved wrong and that was the exact direction they went for. This was contradicting because even Johnny Depp when interviewed, stated that he wanted to show kids and educate them on the true Native American, “In my own small way, it was my attempt to right the wrongs of what had been done with regards to the representation of Native Americans in cinema" (Depp, 1).

            The movie takes place in San Francisco around the 1930’s. A young boy encounters Tonto, as old and elderly, and Tonto starts to flashback into the past. It goes back to when a character John Reid is retuning home by railroad and without knowing it, he is riding with Tonto and an outlaw by the name of Butch Cavendish. Cavendish is on his way for his hanging and it is so happened to be John’s brother arrested him. A gang ends up rescuing Cavendish while Tonto goes to jail. The two brothers along with six others go after the gang and Cavendish. Tonto helps the Texas Ranger capture the gang. The rest of the movie just shows their voyage and dilemmas they face while on the manhunt to capture Cavendish. At the end of the movie it goes back to the young boy and Tonto gives the boy a silver bullet to allow him to realize if he was a myth or not.

            Tonto definitely fits into the category of a Hollywood Indian, which also falls into the Native American stereotype. Although Johnny Depp tried not to portray him as a sidekick, Tonto definitely was. Also, Tonto wore extremely heavy face paint that offended the UCLA American Indian Studies Program when one of them stated, “painted to the nth degree with paint, and he looks like a gothic freak".  In addition, he was shirtless, and wore a headband. From what we learned in the film during class Friday, headbands were only used in actors who portrayed Native Americans, to keep their extensions on. This was something people assumed Native Americans did, but it was actually something that was created by the social media. In addition to stereotypes, Tonto, to an extent, was characterized as a savage because he was seeking revenge against the whites. From the film, “Reel Injun”, we learned that Native American were presented as spiritual and as the horseman. During the film, a white horse would spiritually appear which in a way it implies that he is a horseman, a common stereotype. Tonto conforms to the characteristics of the Hollywood Indian and to even add onto the list, a non Native American played his role. Although Johnny Depp says he has distant lineage of Native American in him, he was not even sure what tribe his ancestors fell in. The Lone Ranger tries to justify the stereotype and tries to keep the Hollywood Indian tradition going. They could of done the film in may different ways if they wanted to keep the image true, but in the end they chose ways that people are use to seeing them as.

Web Cited

Barco, Mandalit Del. "Does Disney's Tonto Reinforce Stereotypes Or Overcome Them?" NPR.

NPR, n.d. Web. 22 Sept. 2014

Tavare, Jay. "Hollywood Indians." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 18 May 2011.

Web. 22 Sept. 2014.