This is my friend Elyse holding up a sign I found at the farmers market right here in Kutztown, PA. It brought up a good point that I've been thinking about during the class. While we could say "This is bad, this only shows the past and not contemporary Native American people", this is an artifact of the time, a true vintage. If these were being churned out by the thousand to this day, that would be a different story. While we have to focus on the future, the past did exist. I'm not sure what kind of person would buy this and hang it over their fireplace proudly, but this is a pretty cool piece of art that shows the morality of perhaps the 1960s(?) This brings up the reminiscence that didn't 7Up or something sponsor the Native American occupation of Alcatraz(or did I make that up and remember something wrong) Regardless, this sign shows the past of what used to be acceptable(and probably would be somewhat acceptable today, and thankfully would have some sort of outcry). I'm not sure what a soda product would want with an "Indian Warrior" representing them either, but that's besides the point.

 

I'm not sure what this is trying to convey, perhaps Native Americans burning down the ones that chopped down all of the trees. Still, the clash of traditional Native attire alongside a modern gasoline can worries me. I leave it open to discussion and interpretation.

Native American Burial Grounds in Horror

As an avid horror movie fan, I pride myself in barely getting scared when sitting down the a gore-filled murder-fest in my free time. There's nothing like getting your adrenaline pumping late at night with all the lights out. Recently, while watching the movie Mask Maker on Netflix, something got my adrenaline racing more than the foul-mouthed crude jokes and masked murderers ripping people's faces off. In shot expressing the setting(whatever that is called in actual movie terms, I can't think of it now), the protagonist finds a falcon-head staff. I got this screen-cap of his immediate reaction to this finding.

This leads me to my point, a common theme that is seen in horror many times. Whenever you need to portray an "evil" setting, just put a Native American Burial ground. Not only does this further enforce the idea that Native Americans are not alive today, literally buried in the ground, not in the movie, haunting the characters(ooohhh spooky!), but the idea that the ghosts would be Native Americans makes them scarier.

In reality, movies like this that start off with a Native American burial ground humors me the most when the ghosts turn up. They are almost always white. Okay, so Native Americans can be buried in the ground, but when they actually are in the movie, they are white? I don't understand this, but I guess horror movies will continue to reinforce these stereotypes along with various other things that they do wrong(like most of them sucking, like this one)