Contemporary Connections: Sherman Alexie and Tonto Fistfight in Hollywood

Sherman Alexie as a child (Source: https://twitter.com/sherman_alexie)

A constant struggle within the Native American community is the identity of Native Americans and the question of authenticity. How do the First People fit into the larger scheme of America, adapting to American culture without betraying their own heritage?

Patricia Monture Angus quotes Robert Allen Warrior in her essay "Native America and Literary Tradition" : "Both American Indian and Native American discourse continued to be preoccupied with parochial questions of identity and authenticity...and to establish why someone or something is 'Indian.'"

The identity of Native Americans, especially in old novels and any movie regarding their heritage is whitewashed to fit the generalized and monetary needs of mainstream America. The whitewashing of Native Americans dates back into the early western movies and dime novels, but it has a profound effect on the current generation of Native American's who saw this as the only way to consume Native American culture in mainstream media.

Sherman Alexie writes about his experience of growing up with these dime novels in his article for the L.A Times "I Hated Tonto (Still Do)": "The handsome, blue-eyed warrior (the Indians in romance novels are always blue-eyed because half-breeds are somehow sexier than full-blooded Indians)... Of course, after reading such novels, I imagined myself to be a blue-eyed warrior nuzzling the necks of various random, primitive and ecstatic white women."

Alexie also reflects on his childhood and how the old western movies shaped his image of Native Americans and his hatred for Tonto: "I know of at least one Indian boy who always imagined himself to be a cinematic Indian warrior. Me. I watched the movies and saw the kind of Indian I was supposed to be... I mean, I knew I could never be as brave, as strong, as wise, as visionary, as white as the Indians in the movies. I was just one little Indian boy who hated Tonto because Tonto was the only cinematic Indian who looked like me

Jay Silverheels was a prominent Native American actor and the original Tonto, and though the character was racially slandered with his monosyllables and ridiculous antics, a real Native American played him. However, the character's tainted history is now worse off because Hollywood decided to cast Johnny Depp as Tonto in the 2013 reboot of The Lone Ranger.

In 1998, Alexie comments on his childhood thinking when he saw a white man playing a Native American in Hollywood, how he didn't care, "I mean, Tom Laughlin did have a nice tan and he spoke in monosyllables and wore cowboy boots and a jean jacket just like Indians. And he did have a Cherokee grandmother or grandfather or butcher, so he was Indian by proximity, and that was good enough in 1972."

Johnny Depp is a white man who has a nice tan.

That shouldn't have been good enough in 1972, and it should never have been an option in 2013. Jay Silverheels himself helped establish an actors studio in California specifically for Native American Actors and Actresses to hone their craft, but I'm sure they were all too busy to be in a Hollywood Blockbuster. So now Sherman Alexie cannot even say that he hates Tonto for looking like him, he just hates him.

Here is the trailer for The Lone Ranger, listen to Tonto's dialogue, because it's all kinds of racist and awful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjFsNSoDZK8

Sherman Alexie's wonderful article "I Hated Tonto (Still Do)" : http://articles.latimes.com/1998/jun/28/entertainment/ca-64216