JIM THORPE ALL AMERICAN
1953

Michael Curtiz (director)

Minorities in Film

Since Jim THorpe - All American is the story of a Sauk and Fox Indian, several points need to be raised about minorities in films in general. There are two distinct problems involved - one has to do with the question of whether anyone can play any role, while the other is a question of economics and employment.

. Traditionally major Hollywood studio films have ignored minority actors in film, often casting people who are not from the ethnic or racial background of the character - but only in one direction. That is to say, Anglo actors were hied to play none Anglos. Non Anglo actors were not hired to anyhting but their own background. There are of course a few minor exceptions to this, but typically someone like Charlie Chan will be played by an Anglo actor, while his variously numbered sons are played by Chinese actors. The question of whether an actor can play something he or she is not, is almost ludicrous since that is what acting is about. Should they have hired John Wayne Gacey to play Hannibal Lechter in order to have a real serial killer playing a serial killer?

The problem whic has been voiced by many performers is that on those rare instances when a minority character appears in a leading role (like Charlie Chan), thw actor chosen is generally not of that ethniocity leaving actors of the background out of work. The problem is economic at that point not a question of whether actors can play parts in which the character comes from a different background.

This has led to a process known as "color bliond casting" which means any actor regardless of looks can play any character no matter how it complicates the situation. To have identical twins - one of whom is African American Nd one of whom is White puts a strain on credulity and makes one suspect that SOMEONE would have commented on this situation. Color blind casting might work fine on radio, but once the visual is added it is not so clear. This is not to say that there aren't thousadns of parts for which the racial appearance of the character is not irrelevant. People of all kinds of backgrounds are in all kinds of jobs. However, if a White actor played the role of Mr. Tibbs (played by Sidney Poitier) in The Heat of the Night, the film would be idiotic as it would if an African American played the Rod Steiger role of Sgt. Bill Gillespie. In a sense it would be just as foolish to cast a 350 pound woman as the premier ballerina of a major ballet company. It has been argued (although rarely tried) to make up an actor to look like a member of a different racial or ethnic group.

It has been generally argued that until r4ecently minorities actors have not been well enough known to merit risking major production with them in lead roles until recently when Wes Studi played Geronimo and Will Smith played Ali.

Neither Burt Lancaster (Jim THorpe) and Dick Wesson (Ed Guyac) who play the two main Indians in the film, are Indian and Lancaster is reported to have lamented both the fact that there had been no Indians of sufficient name recognition to play the parts and that he thought it was terrible that the Olymoc committee had waited until well after Thorpe's death to reinstate him.

The word Indian vs. Native American

Most Indians say Indian and not Native American which is largely a term used by liberal Anglos. Most Indians will identify themselves tribally to other Indians. Both Russell Means (the head of the political organization A.I.M - American Indian Movement) and the actor Wes Studi have said publically they prefer "Indian" to "Native American".

Variation in Indian cultures and languages. (not dialects)

There are some biographies of people from various racial and ethnic backgrounds like Jackie Robinson, but they are rare. Many are of the films which feature biographies of Hispanics and so on, deal with people who are not in the U.S. but in countries where in fact that are not monorities - e.g. Viva Zapata in which MArlon Brando is cast (although Anthony Quinn who is Mexican-Irish also appears).

Carlisle Indian School was founded by General Richard Henry Pratt who had worked with some Indians during the war. He taught them some English, business and religion as a method of assimilation

(Assimilation, acculturatioj. Enculturation)

Many of his students who were captured Indians went on to the East coast and schools there. He decided to build Carlisle as a “noble experminet” to “kill the Indian but save the man”

The question of assimilation and cultural identity remains today. And the US has had periods of pushing for assimilation and for not pushing for assimilation.

Either situation leads to one of cultural contact and often conflict in value systems.

Carlisle was dead set against Indians using “Indian” language.

Results

By the time the “noble experiment” at Carlisle ended, over 10,000 children had been through the school. Less than 8% graduated while well over twice that many ran away.
Pratt experienced conflict with government officials over his outspoken views on the need for Native Americans to assimilate. This led to Pratt's forced retirement as superintendent of the Carlisle School on June 30, 1904. After Pratt was forced the school became popular for football, sports, their outing, and their trade industries.
Some Information about Indians

Culturally and linguistically Indians are very diversified. In the United States along there are over 55 language families (like "Romance languages). Apache and Mohawk for example are about as closely related as English and Chinese. Indians speak a wide variety of lanaguages many of which have dialectal variation. Despite this, Indians (and Abglos) often talk about speaking "Indian" as thought it were a single language with each tribe having its own dialect. This is simply not true.

It is also not true that Indian languages are deficient in some way and have less than 400 words (a claim which is often made by people who know nothing abouth them)!

Culturally, there is great diversity as well in precontact times from nomadic hunters to city building farmers. Even outside of the great cities in Latin America, there are a number fo pyramid structures found in the Ohio Valley and so on.

Mostly people classify Indians by (a) lanaguage and (b) cultlure area - that is to say a geographic area in which cultures share a number of features such as Woodland, Plains, Great Basin, Southwest, N.W. Coast, California and so on.

After the film:

Thorpe was actually married 3 times:

How is the biography told??? Although all biographies are narrated by someone other than the subject, in this film the film writer uses the device of having a character in story ("Pop" Warner) tell the biography. In effect the story is doubly removed from Thorpe (once by Warner and once by the writer of the film script) alienating Thorpe from his own story and having it told by someone who does not see things culturally the same way Thorpe did. As a result, Thorpe is not only displaced from his own biography but the story is also removed also from Thorpe's own ethnicity - a fact which was apparently (even in the bio-pic) something that was significant to him. It also measn that Warner has to tell about the events in Thorpe's younger days when Warner had not known him.

So once again the problem of who narrates the story becomes significant. Here it is not only whether the story is accurate or not but how far from the subject has the perception of his life gone?

Many lines in the film are "slipped in" to make comment. Actual problems underlying the line are not discussed

The lines describing Indians are often used with metaphors to animals "graceful deer" "unrtained stallion" and so on The background music is often typically Hollywood "Indian" music with a strong 1,2,3,4 beat heavily accented on the first beat. It contrasts with the actual singing at the vacation party.