In addition to the many good examples already cited, you might look
at the comic, stereotypical roles for Indians in various Hollywood
comedies of the 1920s-1940s.  Eddie Cantor, Bob Hope, W.C. Fields and
the Marx Bros., among others, exploited such images.
 
For an index of changing attitudes, you could just concentrate on John Ford's
films, especially STAGECOACH (where Geronimo is only "a nice name for a
butcher") to FORT APAPCHE (where Henry Fonda and John Wayne exchange
political affiliations) to CHEYNNE AUTUMN.
 
White guilt resurfaces by the 1970s in a number of films, including SOLDIER
BLUE and TELL THEM WILLIE BOY IS HERE, while a new mythologizing emerges
in A MAN CALLED HORSE, among others.
 
And don't forget that Rambo is described as--"half German, half Indian"
(Commanche, I think).
 
Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)
 
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