Representation of American Indians: The role of mainstream folklore and popular culture

The purpose of this research is to explore issues of representation as they relate specifically to the process of stereotyping. The aim is to compare two sites of enculturation into stereotype: folklore and popular culture. Contemporary Americans share information and experience through folk forms and as a result of the popular culture they have consumed. As elements and processes of culture, both folk and popular forms affect individual and collective behavior. My focus is on the powerful effects of creating new cultural experiences and meanings while remaining grounded in traditional ways of expressing experience and meaning.; This research centers on folk and popular images of American Indians in the United States. The theoretical frameworks for understanding the nexus of folk and popular forms are cultural landscapes, landscapes of power, ethnohistory, and ethnic interaction. As such, the concept of the American frontier becomes central to understanding the perpetuation of stereotypes of American Indians. To better illuminate an American ethos of ethnic interaction it is useful to examine the endless permutations and combinations of ideology and the image available on the cultural landscape of ethnicity. Specifically, this project explores the ways in which ethnic jokes permeate American culture and serve to express culturally embedded beliefs. Additionally, this project examines cinematic contributions to stereotyped images of American Indians to conclude that there are important historical, cultural and social reasons that specific images of native people in the US persist.