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Hollywood’S Invention Of The Native American, And The Myth Of The Cowboy As A History, Kathleen Labbe

All Theses And Dissertations

A major institution in perpetuating beliefs of Native Americans as the “other” during the Twentieth Century was the Hollywood Western. This highly popular genre perpetuated the myth of Native Americans as the “other,” an animal like savage that could be saved only with the intervention and assimilation of White ideals and society. This paper focuses on the following questions. Firstly, why and how has the Native American been continuingly labeled, invented, and accepted as the other both in American academia and the cultural consciousness? Lastly, how has the myth of the good, white, rugged pioneer cowboy versus the savage Native …