Native Americans in Chris Eyre’s Smoke Signals

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Milán Földesi

Abstract

Chris Eyre’s Smoke Signals (1998) could and should have been a milestone for Native American filmmaking. It differentiates itself from other Indian focused movies such as Dances with Wolves (1990) or The Last of the Mohicans (1992) by presenting life in a reservation with all its wonders and problems. Eyre, by adapting several stories from Sherman Alexie’s “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” (1993), shows aspects and issues of the contemporary Native Americans, such as the importance of their hair and their constant fight against alcoholism through the main characters, Victor Joseph and Thomas Builds-the-Fire. The aim of this article is to stress Smoke Signal’s legacy and to find out why it failed to change the way non-Natives look at the American Indians.

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How to Cite
Földesi, Milán. 2018. “Native Americans in Chris Eyre’s Smoke Signals”. AMERICANA E-Journal of American Studies in Hungary 14 (2). https://iskolakultura.hu/index.php/americanaejournal/article/view/45421.
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Essays
Author Biography

Milán Földesi

Milán Földesi is an MA student at the Department of American Studies, Institute of English and American Studies, University of Szeged. His main research interest are Native American culture and history, film studies, comic adaptations and the issues of minority representation in American movies. Email: foldesi.milan@gmail.com