Assignment 1: Reel Injun

Stack and Kelly (2006) suggest that throughout popular culture there are spaces in which adults and youth can resist the dominant, damaging representations in the media and improvise images that challenge these representations. Reel Injun can be seen as one of the ways in which the director and producers have come together to resist the stereotypes and misrepresentations of Native American people in the media.  The media has a long history of showing Native American people as noble, spiritual, savage and eager to get their land back. They have constructed the headband and fur as Native attire, as well as showcased Native American people as being warriors that hunt buffalo, ride horses, and of not knowing how to use modern day technology. These misrepresentations, as Reel Injun suggests, has have created extreme hostility towards Native American people (Diamond, Bainbridge & Hayes, 2009).

Stack and Kelly would say that Reel Injun makes a good counter narrative to the film industry. Reel Injun challenges media representations of Native American people by criticizing the stereotypes and showing that Native Americans are not savage, do not dress in fur and headbands, are not hippies, and that they are not the enemy, as depicted in movies. They would argue that Reel Injun is a good example of the way that “education can play an important role in providing people with the ability to denaturalize everyday media literacies” by challenging the negative view the media has created and showing that there are movies such as Antarajuat which have revolutionize the way Native Americans are viewed in the world (Stack & Kelly, 2006). Stack and Kelly would say that educators should use Reel Injun as an example of how media literacy should enable students to come to realizations that popular culture can oppress and subordinate others and to be critical about what is out there.

References:

Diamond, N., Bainbridge, C. & Hayes, J. (2009) Reel Injun. USA

Stack, M. and Kelly, DM. (2006) Popular Media, Education and Resistance. Canadian Journal of Education.  29(1): 5-26.