Dances With Wolves Bucks Movie Stereotype

My topic for this post is about how movies from my childhood, and later in life, portray Native Americans differently.  The very first movie I can remember that had Natives in it was Dances With Wolves, and the second I will talk about is 3:10 to Yuma.  In Dances With Wolves, Kevin Costner’s character is helped tremendously by the Natives he encounters, and becomes fast friends with them.  They are portrayed as a kind and extremely knowledgeable people, living off the land and living a great life.  They help Kevin Costner learn how to live off the plains better, teach him about some of their rituals, but above all else contrary to popular Native stereotypes in other movies, they are never a danger to him.  3:10 to Yuma on the other hand, portrays the typical Native American movie stereotype and actually makes it a pivotal point in the story line.  In the movie Russell Crowe is being transported to Yuma for the jail train, the group escorting him will not go through a certain pass because “That’s Apache territory, no man ever makes it out of there, they’ll have your scalp and eat your heart before we got a mile in!”  They portray the typical movie sterotype of Native Americans being dangerous warriors that only want to kill white settlers.  I find it interesting however that in my experience at least, the older movie shows a “softer” side of the Native American people and a newer movie portrays the typical Hollywood stereotype.