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Authors: Thomas King
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Cardinal, Tina Louise Bomberry, Shirley Cheechoo, Rodney Grant, Michael Horse, Billy Marasty, Elaine Miles, Floyd Red Crow Westerman, Ted Thin Elk, John Trudell, Eric Schweig, Tom Jackson, Alex Rice, Russell Means—were cast, and for the most part continue to be cast, with stunning regularity, as Indians. In mostly minor roles.
So, is there a dearth of talent in Indian country? Well, Chief Dan George (Salish) was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as Old Lodgeskins in the 1970 film
Little Big Man
, while Graham Greene was nominated for the same award for his role as Kicking Bird in the 1991 film
Dances With Wolves
. Of course both of these roles were nineteenth-century Indians, and there is a troubling assumption that an Indian playing an Indian is an infinitely easier acting job than, say, an Italian actor playing a mobster or an Irish actor playing a cop. I spent a fair amount of time trying to find Indian actors, apart from Will Rogers, who have been given leading or supporting roles as characters who were not Indian, and I couldn’t find many. Gary Farmer (Cayuga) played a Fagin-like character in
Twist
and a police chief in the television series
Forever Knight
. Graham Greene played a cop in
Die Hard: With a Vengeance
and was the narrator on the television crime show
Exhibit A
. Jennifer Podemski (Saulteaux) has played non-Native characters in the television series
Degrassi: The Next Generation
and
Riverdale
, and in the 1999 television movie
Mind Prey
. Still, none of these is a major breach in the garrison that is Hollywood.
A good friend of mine, the Choctaw-Cherokee writer Louis Owens, once suggested that Indians were viewed in much the same way as the livestock that had to be requisitioned for a Western film—cattle, a herd of buffalo, a couple of dogs, a dozen horses, maybe a wolf or a bear. You don’t cast a cow to play a horse, Louis said, no matter how great an actor the cow is. It was a joke. And we both had a good laugh.
Still, Louis’s joke reminds me of the actor Daniel Simmons (Yakama), who went under the name Chief Yowlachie. Originally trained for opera, he switched to acting in the 1920s, and for thenext forty years or so, you could find him working away in the
Ma and Pa Kettle
films (1949) as Crowbar, in
Yellowstone Kelly
(1959) as a medicine man, in
Oregon Trail Scouts
(1947) as Red Skin, in
Rose Marie
(1954) as Black Eagle, in
The Invaders
(1929) as Chief Yowlache, in
Forlorn River
(1926) as Modoc Joe, in
The Prairie
(1947) as Matoreeh, in
The Lone Ranger
(1949) as Chief Lame Bear, and in
The Yellow Sky
(1949) as Colorado. He had over a hundred film and television credits. And in each and every one, he played an Indian.
“Even if the cow was a great actor …” It’s a good joke, and it sits at the back of my mind like a benign tumour.
If you wanted to, you could break down the Indian roles that Indians get to play into two categories: historical Indians and contemporary Indians. As you might expect, most Indian actors wind up in historical roles. Provided they look Indian. That’s the catch. If you don’t look Indian, you don’t get historical Indian roles. These are roles in which Italians, Mexicans, Spaniards, Greeks, mixed-blood Asians, and the like will do just as well. One of my favourite examples is that of Mel Brooks in
Blazing Saddles
, where he plays two different parts. Turn him loose with a little paint and a headdress and you have a perfectly respectable Indian chief. Comb his hair and dress him up in a three-piece suit and you have a perfectly sleazy White politician.
For casting the historical Indian, then, race need never be an issue. Things are a little different, however, for the contemporary Indian in film and television.
Now it is true that in the last twenty years Indian actors have found roles that do not involve the nineteenth century, roles that don’t require loincloths and full feather headdresses. Canadian broadcasters, in particular, have been
So, is there a dearth of talent in Indian country? Well, Chief Dan George (Salish) was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as Old Lodgeskins in the 1970 film
Little Big Man
, while Graham Greene was nominated for the same award for his role as Kicking Bird in the 1991 film
Dances With Wolves
. Of course both of these roles were nineteenth-century Indians, and there is a troubling assumption that an Indian playing an Indian is an infinitely easier acting job than, say, an Italian actor playing a mobster or an Irish actor playing a cop. I spent a fair amount of time trying to find Indian actors, apart from Will Rogers, who have been given leading or supporting roles as characters who were not Indian, and I couldn’t find many. Gary Farmer (Cayuga) played a Fagin-like character in
Twist
and a police chief in the television series
Forever Knight
. Graham Greene played a cop in
Die Hard: With a Vengeance
and was the narrator on the television crime show
Exhibit A
. Jennifer Podemski (Saulteaux) has played non-Native characters in the television series
Degrassi: The Next Generation
and
Riverdale
, and in the 1999 television movie
Mind Prey
. Still, none of these is a major breach in the garrison that is Hollywood.
A good friend of mine, the Choctaw-Cherokee writer Louis Owens, once suggested that Indians were viewed in much the same way as the livestock that had to be requisitioned for a Western film—cattle, a herd of buffalo, a couple of dogs, a dozen horses, maybe a wolf or a bear. You don’t cast a cow to play a horse, Louis said, no matter how great an actor the cow is. It was a joke. And we both had a good laugh.
Still, Louis’s joke reminds me of the actor Daniel Simmons (Yakama), who went under the name Chief Yowlachie. Originally trained for opera, he switched to acting in the 1920s, and for thenext forty years or so, you could find him working away in the
Ma and Pa Kettle
films (1949) as Crowbar, in
Yellowstone Kelly
(1959) as a medicine man, in
Oregon Trail Scouts
(1947) as Red Skin, in
Rose Marie
(1954) as Black Eagle, in
The Invaders
(1929) as Chief Yowlache, in
Forlorn River
(1926) as Modoc Joe, in
The Prairie
(1947) as Matoreeh, in
The Lone Ranger
(1949) as Chief Lame Bear, and in
The Yellow Sky
(1949) as Colorado. He had over a hundred film and television credits. And in each and every one, he played an Indian.
“Even if the cow was a great actor …” It’s a good joke, and it sits at the back of my mind like a benign tumour.
If you wanted to, you could break down the Indian roles that Indians get to play into two categories: historical Indians and contemporary Indians. As you might expect, most Indian actors wind up in historical roles. Provided they look Indian. That’s the catch. If you don’t look Indian, you don’t get historical Indian roles. These are roles in which Italians, Mexicans, Spaniards, Greeks, mixed-blood Asians, and the like will do just as well. One of my favourite examples is that of Mel Brooks in
Blazing Saddles
, where he plays two different parts. Turn him loose with a little paint and a headdress and you have a perfectly respectable Indian chief. Comb his hair and dress him up in a three-piece suit and you have a perfectly sleazy White politician.
For casting the historical Indian, then, race need never be an issue. Things are a little different, however, for the contemporary Indian in film and television.
Now it is true that in the last twenty years Indian actors have found roles that do not involve the nineteenth century, roles that don’t require loincloths and full feather headdresses. Canadian broadcasters, in particular, have been
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