The New Native Intellectualism

ElizabethCook-Lynn, Social Media Movements, and the Millennial Native American Studies Scholar

Bibliographic Data

ID14810771
AuthorsCutcha Risling Baldy (corresponding author), Cutcha Risling Baldy Cutcha Risling Baldy
Year2016
Volume31
Issue1
Pages90
Publication date2016-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueWicazo Sa Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0749-6427 • E-ISSN: 1533-7901
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.5749/wicazosareview.31.1.0090
OpenAlexW2464400409
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited9

The New Native Intellectualism#ElizabethCook-Lynn, Social Media Movements, and the Millennial Native American Studies Scholar Cutcha Risling Baldy (bio) The 2014 Oscars ceremony featured the usual fanfare and celebration of the year’s best films. Host Ellen DeGeneres opened with a monologue, the celebrities’ award speeches included tears and gratitude to agents and family alike, and the audience’s reactions were quickly picked up by the viewing public and made into GIFs, memes, and hashtags. DeGeneres was well aware that Oscar night was not only playing out in the Hollywood theater or on American television screens; it was being reported on around the world through the use of social media. Her most tongue-in-cheek shout-out to the social media audience came halfway through the broadcast when she gathered a group of A-list actors to take a group “selfie”1 and then instructed the audience to tweet the photo in hopes that it would become the most retweeted photo ever posted to Twitter (it quickly surpassed that goal).2 Unbeknownst to many of those in attendance at the Oscars ceremony, there was another social media movement happening on Twitter in response to the Oscars telecast. That year, The Lone Ranger featuring Armie Hammer as the often-befuddled Lone Ranger and Johnny Depp as his strange, newly reimagined Tonto, had been nominated for “Best Makeup.” Though the movie had flopped at the box office and reviews were tepid at best, the Academy had seen fit to nominate this reenvisioning of the old West, and specifically the reenvisioning of Tonto as a painted, dirty, mumbling character who wears a stuffed black bird on his head. This was the only representation of Native people at the [End Page 90] Oscars that year; there were no Native films or actors nominated for awards. Once again, Native people were portrayed in the public imagination as the cartoonish sidekick, although Johnny Depp had expressed that he wanted his Tonto to “reinvent the relationship, to attempt to take some of the ugliness thrown on the Native Americans, not only in The Lone Ranger, but the way Indians were treated throughout history of cinema, and turn it on its head.”3 The fact that Johnny Depp’s Tonto had been the major representation of Native people in popular culture and the mass media that year did not go unnoticed by Native activists and intellectuals. Across the blogosphere, Dr. Adrienne Keene, author of Native Appropriations, a blog that she describes as “a forum for discussing representations of Native peoples, including stereotypes, cultural appropriation, news, activism, and more,” had quickly taken up the task of questioning Disney’s lack of progress in the portrayal of Native people in their films.4 “The Tonto costume,” she wrote, “is a mish-mash of stereotypical Indian garb.” She further noted, “This movie has a budget of like $215 million. That big of a budget, and you couldn’t have hired a Native consultant, or shoot— even asked a Native person from the community you’re purporting to represent (Tonto’s Apache, right?) what the character should look like?”5 Support for Keene’s efforts in Indian Country was widespread. Activists and intellectuals from around the world joined her to “demand more.” In a follow-up blog post, “Why Tonto Matters,” Keene wrote about the importance of introducing this dialogue to a mainstream online community and to the media.6 Though she had received backlash from Native and non-Native people who told her to “STFU and ‘get over it,’ ”7 Keene was steadfast in her efforts to showcase how and why Tonto was a continuing blight in an already-shaky history between Native peoples and their representation in Hollywood. We can’t be complacent with just going to that “excited-happy-place” every time we see any representation of an Indian on screen. We can’t be thankful that fifty Native actors are able to ride around bareback in the background of a film, or be psyched that a big name Hollywood actor put a crow on his head to “honor” us— talk about ongoing colonization of the mind. Our community is so much better than that. We are worth

Art · Art history · Ceremony · Gratitude · Hollywood · Media studies · Political science · Social media · Sociology · Visual arts · Asian American and Pacific Histories · History · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology

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