We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Racialized Disgust, Embodied Affect, and the Portrayal of Native Americans in Classic Hollywood Westerns.
- Authors
Flory, Dan
- Abstract
During the early part of the classic Hollywood sound period (1930–60), filmmakers sharpened a standardized way to portray Native American characters in Westerns. Such figures were depicted as disgusting by virtue of being beyond the pale in terms of their "acceptable" moral behavior, as measured by common white sensibilities of the era. This behavior was attributed to their nonwhiteness and therefore presumptively stemmed from their allegedly subhuman, "savage" nature. This stock depiction of Native American characters became one of creatures who communicated by means of silence, war whoops, animal sounds, or unintelligible language, and committed grievous moral transgressions without qualm. In this article I analyze the theoretical structure of such depictions and how these depictions work in terms of typical audience reaction, using recent work in philosophy of film, philosophy of emotion, and cognitive film theory.
- Subjects
NATIVE Americans in motion pictures; WESTERN films; FILM characters; RACE in motion pictures; FILM theory; AVERSION; AFFECT (Psychology); MOTION picture industry
- Publication
Journal of Aesthetics & Art Criticism, 2021, Vol 79, Issue 4, p465
- ISSN
0021-8529
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/jaac/kpab039