Smoke

Analyzing “Smoke Signals in Context” by Ward Churchill The expository essay “Smoke Signals in Context,” written by Ward Churchill, presents a list of issues that could be discussed and debated for days on end. Being the first of its kind, the movie was directed, filmed, and produced entirely by Native Americans, which had never been done before. Aside from being a professor of Ethic Studies at the University of Colorado, Churchill is also known for his Native American activism (being Creek and Cherokee Metis himself) and for coordinating the American Indian Movement for Colorado. He starts his essay off by giving a brief history of a Winnebago Indian by the name of James Young Deer. Basically this Native American man had a promising future in the film industry before leaving to make documentaries in France during World War I. When he came back from these endeavors he had been put on “Hollywood’s ‘Poverty Row’” as Churchill puts it. The next paragraph is a copy-cat of his first. This time Chickasaw, Edwin Carewe’s career, another promising director, suddenly took a sharp turn for the worse and according to Churchill he was never asked to work with cinema again. Churchill refers to the movies these men made within these two paragraphs. The following two paragraphs, which contain quotations and references to movies and plays, describe the lack of Native Americans in films as significant directors and actors. There was even a lack of Native Americans in the “background.” By now the reader is starting to get a grasp at the main issue, but it hasn’t been fully developed yet. Because Indians had been left out for so long and their roles had been, what Churchill might cling to as, grossly exaggerated and misrepresented, when Native American actors did get casted in films it wasn’t enough for them to bring their characters to life by simply looking the way they naturally did. “When Cherokee actor Victor Daniels (‘Chief Thunder Cloud’) was hired for the non-speaking title role in the 1939 version of Geronimo, he was required to don heavy make-up so that he’d more closely resemble the white actors audiences had grown accustomed to see portraying Indians during Saturday matinees (84-85).” Churchill follows up this paragraph with another paragraph dedicated to the white actors who had portrayed the version/symbol of Indians viewers had come to recognize and know. He labels these white actors as “‘name brand’ Euroamericans [who] had made their mark appearing in redface (85).” Hollywood, for whatever reason, made the choice to exhibit Native Americans the way it did. Churchill claims it was “for clearly definable purposes (85).” He talks about all of the movies, around 2,000, dubbed “Indian themes” that were distributed during the same time period that Indians were all but excluded from the film industry. This, he argues, is why people came to have certain expectations for Indian roles. Audiences only got a white man’s rendition of the Native American man so to say; they did not get a realistic representation from actual Native Americans. He writes, “Given this saturation of imagery, it is fair to say that three consecutive generations of Americans were conditioned to see native people in certain ways (85),” and then gives the reader a taste of what the saturated image is. The taste he gives includes a quote from an Oneida comic named Charlie Hill. Hill describes the Indian roles as nothing more than “pop-up targets” for the heroes (Cowboys and cavalry) to shoot. Afterwards Churchill insists that this portrayal is laced with racism and the movies which incorporated this version of native people were conveying racist messages. That wasn’t the only acceptable image though. A virtue oh-so-loved is loyalty which didn’t change when it was shadowed upon “noble” Indians. The “noble” people he means are the ones who gave into Americans because as natives they were being pushed aside by a superior race, or how about the ones Churchill describes “who not only accepted the innateness of white supremacy, but who used their insights to provide service to Euroamerica, helping the invaders get on with it (86).” Indians were nothing more than a trusty side-kick or a savage foe. Anything else was just not heard of. Something Churchill refers to throughout the entirety of his essay deals with the American Holocaust. He parallels this subject at least three times. The first time he makes mention of movies that do nothing more than portray the same old version of Indians. He appallingly declares that the American Holocaust is just as serious as the European Holocaust and how despite this fact Hollywood still belittles the roles of native people: “Although one can readily imagine the response had Hollywood opted to depict the 1940s European Holocaust in a similar fashion (86).” Another time he incorporates this parallelism is through the reference to a well-known game called “Cowboys and Indians.” He uses a quote from Navajo activist John Redhouse to get his point across. Churchill summarizes Redhouse’s suggestion by emphasizing “that such ideas will make sense when Euroamerica finds it as ‘harmless’ for its children to play ‘Nazis and Jews’ as it always has ‘Cowboys and Indians (87).’” The third reference is placed within the second-to-last paragraph. After calling Hollywood “the titans of tinseltown” he claims that “Hollywood’s fantasies of the master race” will be crushed. By now the issue at hand is pretty evident and could be summed up as “Native American visibility and invisibility in U.S. cinema.” After discussing so many issues with his readers they might also start to develop an idea about his crux. My interpretation of it is “Will Native Americans step up to the plate in order to get rid of the preconceived ideas about Indians by representing realistic versions of themselves' After 18 paragraphs Churchill finally mentions Smoke Signals and from then on out answers his crux within the last eight paragraphs. He believes Smoke Signals to be vitally important because he states it is the first movie of its kind to have a screenplay written by an Indian; a virtually entire cast composed of Indians; and a co-scriptwriter, Chris Eyre, who is an Indian. He insists on the importance of this movie by persuading, “One cannot reasonably avoid concluding that Smoke Signals is a singularly important movie, not just a milestone but a pivot point for Native North America in terms of our long and sorry (mis)representation on the silver screen (89).” Aside from praising Chris Eyre assuring that he has “established his talents quite solidly (89),” Churchill also pokes “critical” U.S. establishments telling them that they have no right to negatively judge cinematic achievements even if they are scanty. To develop this argument Churchill agrees that Smoke Signals is not the best movie. He describes it as “trite in places [and] clichéd in others (89),” but then basically backburners that fact and writes “with that said, so what (89)'” Continuing on he points out that worse movies have been made, and just because this movie is a symbolic/monumental stride for Native Americans does not mean that it deserves or should undergo excessive unnecessary criticism.