Can Natives be the bad guys in film anymore?
Actors and producers speak out about “woke” backlash
By Sandra Hale Schulman
Native Americans have been portrayed as the “savage” bad guys in film since the earliest days of the industry. In stories told by white cowboys and settlers, the only good Indian was a dead Indian.
Starting in the 1970s, a new consciousness arose with films like ‘Little Big Man’ and later on ‘Dances with Wolves’, told a more balanced story, but still one where a white savior did the telling.
After a number of Native produced and acted films have given a new voice to cinema in recent years, some producers and actors are now hearing from studios that they can’t have a story where the Native does anything bad, as they fear backlash from the woke public.
Several top names in the business gave their thoughts on this during a panel at the Native Reel Cinema in Hollywood, FL including Stevie Salas, Apache musician and producer of ‘Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World’.
“When I set out to do RUMBLE I set out to make a film about heroes not victims,” Salas says. “I find that a lot of my colleagues Native and non Native want to make films only about victims and I can understand why with all the anger out there. But I want to make films about us, how we are today.
“We have SUPER successful business owners and amazing family’s across North America but breaking the stereotype in Hollywood isn’t easy. Woke Hollywood buyers feel bad for us knowing the many injustices we have dealt with but I myself don’t feel I need a babysitter to protect me.”
“My producer partner from Rumble, Christina Fon, has made an amazing limited series called “Little Bird”. It’s a story that has to be told about the 60s scoop where children were taken away from their parents. These movies have to be made so people know what happened on everyone’s watch, but sad stories are not our only story.”
“I wrote a series about a family that’s a fake family that’s, but based on real people I know that started to learn about sovereign law and what they could do with being a sovereign nation.
The pilot episode starts with an indigenous guy killing another guy who stole from him. Then a woman at Showtime who is super woke says “I love this story, but is that an Indian killing an Indian in the beginning? Because if it is, I can’t get next to that.”
Actor Gary Farmer, Cayuga, has played good and bad Indians in his decades long career.
“I think our underworld is potentially as dangerous as anyone’s underworld,” Farmer said. “There certainly is an established underworld in native community that is never talked about. In ‘The English’ my character was not all good, he was two-sided, he had to survive in his world.”
“There was an elder in my community that said he didn’t want me to play any characters influenced by alcohol. It’s something I consider now, because alcohol’s a disease and a stereotype of drunk Indians.”
Actor Billy Wirth, Huron descent, starred in ‘War Party’ in 1988, as an Indian boy who unwillingly gets thrown into a life-or-death situation and is forced to commit murder, then goes on the run with his friends. He screened a never-before-seen Directors cut of the cult classic at the Native Reel Cinema Festival in Hollywood, FL in February that changed the end and meaning of the film to make the Indians not guilty of aggressive actions, of being the bad guys.
“In ‘War Party’ it really changed the meaning,” Wirth says. “They had cut the ending to where when we (Wirth and co-star Kevin Dillon) come down off Chief Mountain and we know we’re riding to the next plane of the spirit world. We make a conscious decision to charge the police but not fire a gun, but the cut that they released, they added a muzzle flash to Kevin’s gun, then we charge like a bunch of crazy idiots. In this version, when you see that acknowledgement, when Kevin’s looking down the barrel of his gun, he never pulls a trigger.”
“The woke terms going too far in a way,” Wirth said. “There are good and bad people in every race. Being fully flushed out is to understand the dynamics in psychology, people do bad things and usually it’s because of something prior in their childhood dynamics of the character telling the story and trying to find the truth. But again, it has to be a balance. If you change storytelling by the way they portray someone’s actions, it’s censorship.”
“So, you want a bad guy?” Eugene Braverock, Blackfeet, told ICT. “I brought that guy into ‘Dark Winds’ first season, I didn’t take myself as a bad guy, actually. I took myself as he was a war veteran, he was a hero. He fought for a country that didn’t fight for him, and he was scarred not only on his face, but internally. I know when it comes down to his story, and the bigger story, I think the woke left has gone too far.”
Veteran actor Graham Greene, Oneida, who hosted a screening of the 1992 film ‘Thunderheart’ at Native Reel Cinema Festival said ‘I’ve played the bad guy and had more fun with that. I’ve also died in over 70 movie roles whether I was good or bad.”
Actor, director Justin Deegan, Mandan Hidatsa, says he was playing a character that started as a docile person but was forced into bad acts after being locked up in an insane asylum.
‘What’s really interesting about that character development is he kills as an act of humanity, putting someone down in a humane way. It could be seen as something aggressive and violent, but at the same time, it’s the character and the performer and the actor creating these amazing people.”
“The difference between the studios and the corporate entities that make those decisions are the ones that say, ‘We can’t do that because that’s our money.’ But for me, as an independent writer, producer, filmmaker, director, I see an opportunity for the independent to create something that’ll give people amazing performers and actors the chance to really spread their wings and hopefully make great projects.”
Jeremiah Bitsui, Navajo, has played bad guys in ‘Breaking Bad’ and in ‘Dark Winds’.
“I couldn’t get cast for many years as an Indian,” Bitsui told ICT. “They said I don’t look like one.
Then I played two bad guys, one was Dine. It’s our responsibility to bring our perspective and what we feel, whether it’s a psychopath or not, it’s our job to bring the humanity.”
“Hollywood Buyers seem to think we need them to make sure we are ok and protected and that they know what’s best for us,” Salas concludes. “Good intentions or not..that’s a huge problem and really just another form of colonialism.”
“As far as my future in Hollywood, I do think collaboration is the key to growth. When I was a young musician I learned so much from African Americans like George Clinton and Bootsy Collins and from English musicians like Mick Jagger and Rod Stewart and what they taught me in a short period of time would have taken me a lifetime to learn on my own. I want to make great films and TV shows and I don’t care what the color of anyone’s skin is…I want to work with and learn from the best.”
“Right now Natives in Hollywood are checking a lot of boxes but that doesn’t mean that’s a true way to find success. We have to look to the Elders like Graham Greene, Tantoo Cardinal and Wes Studi. They had to climb through the madness of Hollywood with just their pure talent and grit.”
