Hey guys.
I’m not a designated “blogger”, but I thought I’d share with you all an additional scene to Far Horizons I found on YouTube tonight. It’s an interesting one. Apparently, William Clark (Heston) and Sacajawea (Donna Reed) somehow get cut off from the rest of the Americans and make their way south only to encounter some not so friendly Pueblo Indians.
OK… so maybe this clip isn’t from Far Horizons. But really, for all intents and purposes, it could have been. More blatant to me than the historical inaccuracies of the section we saw were the techniques used to draw distinction between the Americans (humans) and Indians (animals). In contrast to the perfect chest-puffing posture of the Americans, the Indians were dirtier and slouchier (if that’s a word). Also, they seemed much less well-spoken or articulate, but that may just be the case simply by virtue of the fact that they were not played by Charleton Heston.
I thought of particular note though was the equating of the worst of the Americans to the Indian chief (implied to be their best). By having them drum up the sneaky deal they did, the movie puts them on the same plane as crooks and cowards. Essentially this says that the best Indian is only as good as the worst American. Ironically, this reminded me of Blackhawk’s method of dedicating his autobiography to the American military leader as a means of putting himself on the same plane. Obviously this was done in an effort to elevate not degrade prestige.
In Far Horizons, the goal whether consciously realized or not was to dehumanize the Indians through methods like this. So, for this reason, it could be argued that even the monkeys in Planet of the Apes were ascribed greater humanity than the Indians in Far Horizons. That said, I’m definitely going to rent this movie if not for the comedic value alone of its ignorance. Please, no one spoil it for me.
I’m half-expecting to actually catch a “Get your hands off me you damn dirty Indian!” somewhere in there.
What did you guys think of what we saw in class?
-Alex Ronning
Earlynativehistory's Blog 
First of all, I just wanted to say I left a multi-paragraph blog and somehow it got erased!!
Soooo, with frustrations I will briefly sum up what I just spent time writing! Ha, nicely done. Funny blog, made me laugh, almost as hard as some of the parts in Far Horizons. Yes, we all know this is an exteremly tacky and misconstrued version of the reality of the historical events (perhaps with the help of a little nudge from Professor Hoxie) that took place between the Hidatsas’ and Lewis and Clark. However, after hearing his explanation for the method behind the madness of the film, it became slightly more understandable (slighty being an understatement!) why Far Horizons depicted Native Americans in this way. However, by the American directors of this 1950’s film trying to create a “feel good” movie about conquest and celebrating U.S expansion, we have once again down played and insulted Native Americans image and culture.
The sadest part is, before my time in this class, I probably would not have laughed or even been able to pick out many of the tremendous misconceptions in which this movie promotes. At best, I would have just thought it was another realllly corny movie about Indians, which shows me how ignorant many people, including myself, can be so ignorant about the actual historical events that took place regarding Native Americans. WOW.
1950s was THE era of western shooter movies, created for the sole purpose of entertainment and glorifying the United states.
Also the anti-red McCarthyism era…
From what I’ve seen on AMC (TV station) in old-western gunslinger action movies, there isn’t much of a comparison between history and Hollywood, sadly.
“What did you guys think of what we saw in class?”
All of the Hidatsa had black tipped red/white feathers fashioned in elaborate headpieces too. Feeds the stereotype flames…
While we’re on the topic of movies.. I think I’ll make another blog entry about a better “Indian” movie later on…
Sam J