Lori Taguma

Hollywood Comes to the Rez Lori Taguma

This discussion is about the formation of Native American representations in the racialization (class formation) of U. S. culture. The medium of film is used to examine the historical process of shaping Indian imagery, including documentary images and current independent forms. (topics still pertinent today in 2019) In defining the effects of film technique and semiotics, the discussion includes the signification behind realistic models of Indians, and reveals the meaning of portrayals within the context of broader socio-economic policies and goals. While exploring the topic of stereotypic Indian imagery, I discuss the significant social and cultural challenges which independent Indian producers face, in shaping their symbolic images with an underlying sense of historic and temporal reality (reality as art). Issues explored include the nature of native identity in American culture, Hollywood filmic representations of natives, and the new model of Indian imagery currently being created by natives about themselves.