Ironies*

(Hopefully I’m not pulling an Alanis Morissette with this one…)

Last night I watched a very well done documentary about the Hollywood portrayal of United States indigenous peoples named Reel Injun. Watching documentaries that challenge the history I learned in elementary, middle, and high school is always bittersweet. I love history and love learning about how past times contribute to our present; how we got where we are.  The flip side, of course, is learning that the history I embraced as a child was skewed to present people best described as my ancestors in the most positive light possible: highlighting their accomplishments, downplaying and at times, erasing their failures, and perhaps most egregiously, telling others’ stories for them.

Many of the inaccuracies and downright deceptions about which I’ve learned regarding white or mainstream culture’s portrayal of indigenous peoples are documented in Charles C. Mann’s excellent 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. From reporting lower numbers of the baseline population of indigenous peoples in the Americas in an attempt to downplay the atrocity of the genocide committed in this country to dismissing the accomplishments of the native peoples (ex., bridges and other contributions to architecture, maize, and many other advances), white people’s re-writing of American history has been to our benefit and others’ detriment.

Regarding Hollywood, a small factoid about which I’ve known for a spell is that, akin to blackface, white actors were hired and painted to portray Native Americans (called ‘redface’ in Reel Injun). In fact, black- and redface contributed to the creation of laws requiring studios to hire people of the given ethnicity/race to fill the roles written for them. (Unsurprisingly, I guess those laws can be abused a bit, too, but that’s not what this post is about).

Hiring white actors to portray minority people’s experiences can not only white-wash the variety of features and clothing found in that culture, but also prevents actors who have a more intimate understanding of the subject matter from contributing to the telling of the story. The practice reinforces the mainstream re-telling of others’ stories… of their histories… by leaving them out of the process at the simplest of levels (as opposed to writing, producing, directing, etc.). Unfortunately, this process not only distorts mainstream understandings of ours and others’ histories, but if consumed unchallenged by oppressed cultures, can distort their understandings of their histories as well. Losing the stories of our history and origins can compromise people’s sense of identity on both personal and community levels. Better to let people tell their own stories, it seems…

One of my favorite parts of the movie involved learning about Iron Eyes Cody, pictured above. You might remember Iron Eyes from his film career… according to Wikipedia, he acted with John Wayne in The Big Trail, Steve McQueen in Nevada Smith and portrayed Native Americans in many other films. My only memory of Iron Eyes was his portrayal of the protagonist in the Keep America Beautiful commercial. For me, Iron Eyes was the exemplar of the noble Native American.

So I was surprised to learn that Iron Eyes, who died in 1999, was apparently of Italian, more specifically, Sicilian ancestry. He reported Cherokee-Cree heritage and was honored by his (unknowingly adopted) community for his positive portrayal of American Indians. Nice to know I wasn’t the only one fooled, I guess.

 To be clear, I am not judging Tony Cody, born Espera Oscar de Corti. I do find an irony that a cultural icon honored as a primary representative of the Native American peoples was not remotely Native American, at least by blood (he lived as Native). Perhaps mainstream culture had presented indigenous peoples through the white lens so consistently that they could not question someone who presented as native and was not (Reel Injun shows clips of Iron Eyes being painted for his early films). Maybe we just didn't care; He fit our cultural stereotype (helped create it, in fact), so there was no question in the first place.

Iron Eyes denied his Italian heritage. I wonder about that. Did he knowingly disavow his true roots in an attempt to preserve the image he had created for his adopted people and to preserve his legacy? Or had he lived his on-screen persona off-screen for so long that it became his reality? Add that to the list of things I'll never know.

* And the biggest irony of all? The fact that I'm white and wrote a post criticizing white people telling indigenous people's stories. Wait... irony? Or just hypocrisy...? (headdesk)