(no subject)

[arethinn]

I've lost the link trail that led me to this, but this opinion article from the NYT in 1991 amused me for a reason the author probably didn't think of then:

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/24/opinion/indians-in-aspic.html?pagewanted=2

When I saw "Dances With Wolves" at an advance screening, I predicted that it would be less than a box-office smash. Though spectacular to look it, it struck me as too long, too predictable, too didactic to attract a large audience. Twelve Academy Award nominations and $100 million in revenue later, was I ever wrong. In fact, the movie probably sells tickets precisely because it delivers the old-fashioned Indians that the ticket-buying audience expects to find. Dunbar is our national myth's everyman -- handsome, sensitive, flexible, right-thinking. He passes the test of the frontier, out-Indians the Indians, achieves a pure soul by encountering and surmounting the wilderness.

Uhm. And then James Cameron did it again and called it "Avatar"?

Comments

[dragonzuela.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, that's hilarious.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Yep, pretty much. Most white people want reassuring stories to assuage guilt and anxiety over racism - it's a winning formula, if also ultimately a pretty darn negative one.

[iro-liyulio.livejournal.com]

Like the part where Mighty Whitey out-reds the reds, thus showing the white superiority the movie was supposed to show isn't there and assuaging guilt by not really doing anything redeeming? I hate these movies: they are so often so racist by attempting not to be racist that it worsens everything.

[elven-ranger.livejournal.com]

not to mention the close similarities between Dances With Wolves and The Last Samurai