Lone Ranger and Sherman Alexie

These two readings were kind of the two poles to the graph. One side was all about a Native American perspective and how Indians were portrayed in Hollywood and popular culture. One was about the typical cowboy hero and his adventures fighting outlaws and Indians. The two could not be farther from being apart, but for some reason, I had trouble taking the two readings as separate, since they both fit on a time line. They melded together in a weird way, almost as if there were undertones from each of the opposite. I think that back in the time of The Lone Ranger (probably circa 1950's or '60's), there was the typical Hollywood view of the "Wild West" and that by the time that Sherman Alexie played Tonto, a growing realization of what really happened back in the day was starting to occur. For example, in the reading about Sherman Alexie's time as Tonto in a movie ("I Hated Tonto (Still Do)" -- An Essay by Sherman Alexie), Alexie started to talk about how the Native Americans were having some problems and that they had "learned to be happy with less." He also said that "We made up excuses", which shows that at some point, people at least started to realize what they had done. In contrast, during the first episode of The Lone Ranger which aired decades sooner, there was still this commonplace ignorance and denial.