As the most popular actor in America plays a #native stereotype in #redface as #Tonto in #theloneranger he signals to performers on the American Pop Culture landscape that clowning, buffoonery and dehumanizing of Native People is okay and appropriate. It is NOT okay. Any stereotyping of any culture creates a two dimensional and shallow look at real human beings thus dehumanizing and demeaning a whole culture via filmic clowning and caricature.

#JohnnyDepp in The Lone Ranger, resurrects an archaic #Native #Stereotype , #Tonto ( Tonto: def.: stupid, fool, in Spanish ) via the filmic formula of the Western. Westerns for decades were viewed as pop culture pseudo-historical fact(s) of how the “brave settlers battled savage Indians” for supremacy. These films eventually justified the takeover and subjugation of Indian People and lands. In the character of Tonto we have the remains of the old stereotype: trusty subservient Native sidekick back from the Hollywood dead. It reminds us all how far we’ve come. It reminds us also how far backwards Hollywood has stepped in eradicating Native stereotypes.
Hollywood via Disney has brought the worm-eaten rotting corpse of filmic stereotype and racism to life giving us societal creeps, and its working and has set Natives in media back about 50 years.

/DM1/