Television Studies

According to an early 1990s study, 95 percent of what college students know about Native Americans was acquired through the media, leading to widespread misunderstandings of First Nations peoples. Sierra Adare contends that negative "Indian" stereotypes do physical, mental, emotional, and financial harm to First Nations individuals. At its core, this book is a social study whose purpose is to explore the responses of First Nations peoples to representative "Indian" stereotypes portrayed within the TV science fiction genre. ...

The American Indian has figured prominently in many films and television shows, portrayed variously as a villain, subservient friend, or a hapless victim of progress. Many Indian stereotypes that were derived from European colonial discourse--some hundreds of years old--still exist in the media today. Even when set in the contemporary era, novels, films, and programs tend to purvey rehashed tropes such as Pocahontas or man Friday. In Native Americans on Network TV: Stereotypes, Myths, and the "Good Indian," Michael Ray FitzGerald argues that the colonial power of the U.S. is clearly evident in network television's portrayals of Native Americans. ...

In Outside Looking In: Viewing First Nations Peoples in Canadian Dramatic Television Series Mary Jane Miller traces the evolution of perceptions of Indians in series television over 50 years. The series examined are Radisson (1957); Forest Rangers and other childrens series in the 60s and early 70s; ...

Native Americans have been a constant fixture on television, from the dawn of broadcasting, when the iconic Indian head test pattern was frequently used during station sign-ons and sign-offs, to the present.

Begins powerfully with the Sioux triumph over General Custer at Little Big Horn and goes on to center around three powerful men. Charles Eastman is a young, Dartmouth-educated Sioux doctor. Sitting Bull is the proud Lakota chief who refuses to submit to U.S. government policies designed to strip his people of thier identity, dignity and sacred land. Senator Henry Dawes is one of the men responsible for the government policy on Indian affairs. While Eastman and schoolteacher Elaine Goodale work to improve life for the Sioux on the reservation, Senator Dawes lobbies President Grant for kinder Indian treatment.

The year is 1971 on a remote outpost of the Navajo Nation near Monument Valley. Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of the Tribal Police is besieged by a series of seemingly unrelated crimes. The closer he digs to the truth, the more he exposes the wounds of his past. He is joined on this journey by his new deputy, Jim Chee. Chee, too, has old scores to settle from his youth on the reservation. Together, the two men battle the forces of evil, each other, and their demons on the path to salvation.

Nunavut, a 13-part dramatic television series brings to life the people, setting and continuing story of how Inuit in the Igloolik region of the Canadian Arctic lived on the land in the 1940s. Following the lives of five fictional families played by contemporary Inuit, the series takes us through the different seasons of the Arctic year.

Travelling through the heartland of America, Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond examines how the myth of the movie "Injun" has influenced the world's understanding - and misunderstanding - of Natives. With clips from hundreds of classic and recent films, and candid interviews with celebrated Native and non-Native directors, writers, actors and activists, including Clint Eastwood, Robbie Robertson, Sacheen Littlefeather, John Trudell, Charlie Hill and Russell Means, Reel Injun traces the evolution of cinema's depiction of Native people from the silent film era to the present day.

The Rez follows the lives of three teenagers growing up on a First Nations reservation in Northern Ontario.

This film chronicles the origins and achievements of the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation (IBC), a model for aboriginal broadcasters the world over.

Navajo tribal cops Joe Leaphorn (Wes Studi) and Jim Chee (Adam Beach) delve into the netherworld of illegal archaeological excavations, purloined pots, and slain pot hunters, set against a backdrop of Navajo witches, spirits, and lore.

Follows the Dutton family, led by John Dutton, who controls the largest contiguous ranch in the United States, under constant attack by those it borders--land developers, an Indian reservation, and America's first National Park. It is an intense study of a violent world far from media scrutiny--where land grabs make developers billions, and politicians are bought and sold by the world's largest oil and lumber corporations. Where drinking water poisoned by fracking wells and unsolved murders are not news: they are a consequence of living in the new frontier. It is the best and worst of America seen through the eyes of a family that represents both.