One of the most common portrayals of indigenous people in films can be explored through the ‘Noble Savage’ stereotype. This harmful and dangerous idea describes indigenous figures as wise characters who represent the primitive moral superiority of those who are ‘one with nature’. In exchange for teaching the White explorer the secrets to nature, the ‘Noble Savage’ is saved by their visitor, as Christian or Western values are often forced onto their way of life.
The most pressing question to ask here is quite simple: why would indigenous people need to be saved? The answer: they don’t. By inserting a White Eurocentric narrative into these stories, there is the implication that there is a ’right’ and ‘wrong’ way to live.
Despite originating centuries ago, this stereotype remains prominent in modern film and literature today. It only takes a small think to remind yourself of films such as ‘The Lone Ranger’ or ‘Avatar’ to truly recognise the concept of the White Saviour who brings civilisation to a tribe that has already established its own equilibrium. One of the most identifiable problems with this concept is quite simply that it does not replicate the realities of colonialism. Whilst ‘saving’ indigenous people remains a truly horrendous ideology, throughout colonial history, White colonialists massacred those who many films claim they saved.
These racist stereotypes interact with problematic gender ideas to create a plot device that characterises indigenous women as ‘exotic’ and a sexual conquest. One of the clearest examples of this intersectionality is Pocahontas. Whilst the Disney film claims a harmless love story between her and John Smith, history has shown that the woman, actually named Matoaka, was captured at 17 and forced to move to the UK with her British husband. Converting a story framed around non-consensual conquering into a children’s Disney tale is extremely dangerous for the representation of ethnic power dynamics. Whilst the lack of representation for indigenous people in films is an avid problem, many of the films that do feature them are equally harmful at perpetuating uncomfortable and inaccurate stereotypes. There needs to be a reform that wholly deconstructs past ideas to create a true representation of the way that indigenous people live.
