Sunday, November 7, 2004

Native Americans in Animation (and elsewhere in entertainment)

No, this isn't part of the Cartoon Chronicles. I'm just going to discuss Native Americans and how they're portrayed in cartoons. I was watching Boomerang, an off-shoot of Cartoon Network that airs classic Hanna Barbera cartoons and old Looney Tunes, when a little Native American guy popped up in some scene on some HB toon I've never heard of. I think it was some kind of modern day (and by "modern" I mean "1969") adapation of Around the World in 80 Days. Thankfully, this version didn't include a Hong Kong film star whose role was built up to awkward proportions simply to draw audiences in. But I digress. There was some Native American guy named Chief Droopy Eagle, no relation to Droopy Dog. As you can imagine, the guy wore feathers in his hair and spoke horrible broken English. Can someone please explain to me why voice actors and animation directors in the 1960s thought Native Americans, who grew up on modern day US reservations, spoke horrible English? He lived in a freaking teepee, by the way. Who lives in teepees? Last time I checked, poorer reservations (those without casino revenue) looked like the hood; only with more dry, arid, and unfavorable desert land surrouding it. They have freaking houses. For that matter, most tribes throughout the Americas built houses long before that prick Columbus set sail for India. Anyway, Chief D. Eagle had a daughter (with even worse English skills) named Many Giggles. Where the hell do they get these names? The Assistant Manager at my old job was Native American, and his name was freaking Brent. Read an X-Men comic every now and then. I'm serious. Pick one up. There are like 80 Cheyenne and Apache characters in the X-Men, all of whom speak perfect English: Forge, Thunderbird I (John Proudstar), Thunderbird II (Neal Shara), Warpath (James Proudstar), Mirage (Danielle Moonstar). I borrowed my friend's X-Men encyclopedia, and found more well-portrayed (albiet uncreatively named) NAs than Asians, blacks, and Latinos. As a black man, I find it interesting the only black X-Men are Storm and Bishop. To all my Asian homies: Karma and fucking Jubilee. Don't even ask me to name any Latinos. I think there's one in there... somewhere. Be real. How many eskimos do you honestly think live in ice-made huts (igloos) in Alaska today? All of them? Ha! Ha, I say! So remember: Next time you write a Native American character in any of your works (fan fiction, original stories, and any of you TV writers out there), don't make them act like a 19th century native who grew up on the western plains. They're not some kind of outcasts in today's society. It's just that, for some reason possibly involving manifest destiny, there are very few of them left, and you probably don't see them everyday. You can find plenty of tribes who adhere to their traditions and hold onto their culture, but it doesn't mean you won't find them sporting shoes advertised by some NBA baller who stole all of Kobe and Jordan's old endorsement deals. I'd rather those faux kung-fu film commercials weren't made in the first place, but that's a whole different rant. Much Love

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