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External Markers of Identity in Smoke Signals

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Smoke Signals

An important and telling scene about American identities in Smoke Signals comes when Victor and Thomas are on the bus to Phoenix together. We see Thomas dressed in a suit, with large round glasses, his hair in two braids, an ever-present grin on his face. In contrast we see Victor, who lets his long hair fall on his shoulders, stands tall and sternly, and holds a harsh look on his face. The two do not seem to have much in common aside from the fact that they both come from the Spokane Indian reservation, but to the outsiders on the bus they look like they belong with each other. Thomas eagerly makes friends with a gymnast sitting next to them until Victor quickly shoots her down, causing her to sit elsewhere. This is when Victor scolds Thomas (yet again), telling him that the way he looks is not like a “real Indian”. Victor asserts that in order to be an Indian Thomas has to let his hair down, change out of his suit, and “look like you’ve just come back from killing a buffalo,” even though the Spokane were fisherman, which Thomas is quick to point out. When the bus stops, Thomas goes to the bathroom and comes out with his hair down, a t-shirt on, no glasses, complete with stoic look. The transformation really is incredible; Thomas has gone from looking like a harmless, goofy and almost androgynous Indian, to mean and a little intimidating like Victor, all with just a few easy alterations. It seems that Victor uses this stereotypical Native American look as a protective mechanism, a scary mask he can hind behind to protect him in the white man’s world outside the reservation. In reality, although Victor may be a little more rough around the edges than Thomas, he really is not all that intimidating or dangerous at all, he just has deep seated issues over his father’s abandonment. Victor also talks in a very different way than many of the other characters we meet on the reservation. His voice is almost coarse and hard, unlike the sing-songy, story telling voices of the Spokane. Victor is using all these external markers of identity to present an image of himself that people would not want to mess with, but it is not a true reflection of his personality at all. When we do see Victor smiling he is handsome and looks much younger than his usual furrowed brow. Although Victor lashes out against Thomas, he genuinely cares about him and would not let anyone besides himself mess with Thomas. Victor has just as many insecurities and fears as the next person, but he someone manages to hide all this by his appearance. He is also accentuating pre-existing stereotypes about Native Americans, reinforcing what people already believe to be true and almost harming the reputation. His external markers of identity do not match who he really is, and by playing into American stereotypes about Native Americans he is actually doing a disservice to himself and his people.

Anna Thibeault

Identity and Smoke Signals

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Smoke Signals is expressing identity throughout the whole movie. Victor and Thomas are searching for different things, but they both end up finding out who they really are. Indians have a specific way of living and are very proud of where they come from, their culture. They see being “Indian” as their main identity. In the scene when Victor and Thomas are on the bus on their way to Arizona, Victor is explaining to Thomas what it really means to be an Indian and how to portray himself as a true Indian. Thomas always wears a suit, his hair in pigtail braids and always has a grin on his face; the exact opposite of an Indian. Victor explains to Thomas that a real Indian lets his hair down, flowing in the wind, absolutely no suits and always has an angry expression on his face to show he isn’t afraid of anyone and the white people should fear him. That is what Victor believes makes an Indian, he doesn’t see that there could be different types of Indians in the world, that not everybody is the same.

Throughout Victor’s life he has only been experienced to one type of Indian, his father. He grew up seeing his father as a drunk, abusing his mother and himself at any moment his father liked. A stereotypical Indian, Victor thinks, an angry, drunk Indian who takes out his anger on other people, his family. Usually, boys look up to their fathers as a role model, someone they want to become when they get older. The boys look at their father and think they must be the same person. So when Victor looked at his father when he was a boy he hated to think he was anything like him. His identity was based on his father’s and he despised it. He didn’t want to be associated with a man who throws everything away and walks out on his family. He will always remember the fact that his father didn’t go into the fire to save him, his mother saved him. Although Victor despised his father so much, he still ran after the car when his father left begging for him to stay. That shows the love between a father and son no matter what else has happened, it is an unconditional love. And again, Victor hated how he still loved his father.

Finally, at the end of the movie once Victor finds out the truth about his father, how he started the fire and killed Thomas’ parents, he finds out who he really is. He hears the stories about his father crying over the fire and some other stories showing he was a good man and that makes Victor happy but also upset that he wasn’t able to be a good man and be his father. Victor realizes he has to put the past behind him and move forward as his own man, not worry about his father anymore. His father died and now it is time for him to make something of himself, be whoever he wants to be.

Hair and It’s Importance in Smoke Signals

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I found the most fascinating part of the film to be in the very beginning. It really sets up the audience for the rest of the film. I wanted to actually focus on one specific part of the film that is not actually shown in the film. Probably the most symbolic part of the whole film is when Arnold Joseph cuts off his hair. To find out more information on hair in American Indian culture, I watched an episode on Native Voice. I do not know much about American Indian cultures, but I do know that each Indian tribe has its own culture, therefore making up a variety of different cultures. The audience can probably assume from the content clues in this film that hair is a very important aspect of this tribe’s culture. Some American Indians believe that hair represents strength and knowledge. A person never cuts their hair, so other people know how long they have been on this Earth. Therefore, it shows how knowledgeable people are. The fact that Arnold Joseph cuts all his hair off and never grows it back could show that he is a weak, unintelligent person. The ceremony of cutting one’s hair off, however, is very personal and private according to Native Voice. The person decides to cut their own hair. That could be one of the reasons why Joseph’s hair cutting is left out of the movie. It was too emotional for him, and he did it in complete privacy. So, it could be that Arnold Joseph sees himself as weak. He started the fire because he was drunk, yet even after the fire he could not stop drinking. He could have seen this as a weakness within himself. He also might see himself as foolish and unworthy of having the long hair of an intelligent person. He killed two people and caused their son to be an orphan. He also almost killed Thomas and Victor and countless other people in that fire. Long hair is also a sign of respect. If Joseph does not respect himself, then who will? Arnold cutting off his hair has a tremendous effect on both his son and Thomas. It shows Thomas how much he really atoned for his sin of starting the fire. Even twenty-two years later, Joseph still refuses to grow back his hair. Many American Indians would cut their hair after a real life changing event or in mourning of someone who died. Yet, for Victor, it also shows how his dad cannot leave the pat behind. He brings this little bit of history with him that effects his relationship with his son. In this scene, I think Sherman Alexie is commenting on the unreliable nature of stereotypes that Americans have developed. Here, the hair functions as a floating signifier because it can easily be altered. A lot of Americans think of American Indians as having long hair. So, when an Indian decides to cut off their hair, they can “pass” as being a white American. The hair is a physical attribute that cannot be reliably used as a sign of a person’s race. American identities are not easily definable. Sherman Alexie might be saying that even though all American cultures are different, we all have our own ways of mourning which are equally symbolic, important aspects of our lives.

“Native Voice TV the significance of hair in Native American Culture”. Myrezspace.com. Myrezspace, 21 June 2010. Web. 2 Dec. 2010.

The Role of Identity in “Imitation of Life”

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One of the most serious and critical scenes in “Imitation of Life” is when Sarah Jane and her boyfriend are talking in the alley and he tells her that he heard her mother is black. Sarah Jane doesn’t know how to control herself, she starts screaming saying just because her mother is black doesn’t make her black, her skin as white as his. Her boyfriend calls her a “nigger” and begins to slap her across the face; he is extremely mad that she lied to him and embarrassed that he was fooled. He couldn’t stand the fact that he was with a Negro; his feelings changed for Sarah Jane in that instant just because her true blood was that of a black person. People base their opinions on others just by what they can see, not by who they are.

This scene is a great example of a floating signifier. Race is a tool and everybody bases their opinion of race on what they can see. Sarah Jane looks white from the outside, so at first glance nobody can tell her secret, she is a tragic mulatto, somebody that can pass for white but their origin is really black. Sarah Jane takes advantage of this “gift” she has because nobody will ever know her true self. At the moment that her boyfriend leaves her she wishes she were white, that her mother wasn’t her real mother and that she was a “normal” girl. She feels that being black is a curse and that she doesn’t deserve the torture and abuse she gets from it. She is struggling with an internal conflict, she doesn’t know who she really is. Sarah Jane is trying to figure out her identity by forcing to convince herself and everybody else that she is white.

Sarah Jane believes if she was white than her boyfriend wouldn’t have hit her or left her and her life would perfect. In reality, she can’t run away from who she is and instead of trying to come to terms with herself and loving her background, she invents this new identity of a plain white girl, someone she always dreamed of being. She feels the solution to escape her Negro life is to have a false identity, when really it just makes her life harder because she looses all connection with her mother and leaves her true identity behind her.

In the scene when her boyfriend calls her a “nigger”, she doesn’t even defend her mother, her blood, the person that brought her to life, she is only concerned with trying to keep her boyfriend with her. She calls her mother a “nigger” and tries to convince the boy that she hates her mother and that she truly thinks of herself as white. Sarah Jane says that what people can see on the outside is what she really is, it doesn’t matter what’s in the inside. Her identity is the most important thing to her; meanwhile it is all a lie.

Planet of the Apes Analysis

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One of the most memorable and controversial scenes in Planet of the Apes comes when the Apes are rounding up the people as they are scavenging for food in the corn fields. “Bright Eyes” or Taylor and his two crew members watch with terror as the apes openly beat, enslave, and kill the humans. The apes pictured in this scene are markedly different than the educated apes we see in most of the rest of the movie, instead they have black fur, black faces, black clothing head to to, and they ride black horses. These threatening apes terrorize the group of humans by throwing nets over them, shooting their guns at them, and beating them senselessly. When they are finished, the original mass of humans has been significantly reduced. As the apes pack up their newly enslaved humans, they also carry off the bodies of the humans they have killed. The dead humans are hoisted onto a thick branch of wood with their hands and feet tied together, so that their bodies hang the way a pig’s body might be hanging as it is being roasted. The black apes take turns getting pictures with the dead bodies in a not so subtle reference to the lynching culture in America. The bodies are hanging from pieces of wood, not unlike people who were lynched hanging from trees, with their limbs tied together with rope, similar to the rope nooses used on lynching victims. The imagery is almost too graphic as it is, but becomes even worse when the Apes begin taking souvenir photos with the dead bodies. This is a less known aspect of lynching culture, but postcards and photographs and even pieces of the body were taken as souvenirs, and Planet of the Apes seems to be imitating this a little too closely. The racism depicted in the film is obvious, and the comparison of Apes and Africans is extremely offensive. Early 1900s writing often warned that liberating African Americans from slavery was dangerous to the white community because they would threaten white dominance. This idea manifests itself strongly in Planet of the Apes, and considering the time period of the movie, it does not speak favorably of the Civil Rights movement. It is not surprising that the black community was extremely offended by the degrading nature of the film and the deepening of existing stereotypes. The movie was extremely publicized and popular because of the popular actors Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter, and it was highly anticipated. Since it was such a widely seen and talked about film, it certainly inspired a subconscious fear of an African American world take over, and it did not paint it in a good light. The film’s depiction of the future of the world for the white people is not unlike the past was for African Americans, and it is portrayed as a frightening reality. The film really reverses the history between whites and blacks, and does so in an offensive and biting manner.

Anna Thibeault

The Matrix Analysis

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A scene that is key in understanding what exactly the matrix is happens when Cypher is selling out Morpheus and the others to Agent Smith. He is sitting at dinner with this conspirator, eating a juicy steak. With every bite of the steak he chews in an exaggerated motion, and comments on how good it tastes, even with the knowledge that nothing about it is real. This scene is basically the turning point; where Cypher becomes the villain, and there is a stronger sense of good and evil for the remainder of the film. Although we see from the start that the agents are hunting down Neo and Morpheus, and it seems obvious that these Agents are the bad guys, it is worse to be a traitor. Cypher willingly accepts an opportunity to abandon the life he chose, and from then on he is the person the viewer puts the blame on. At closer consideration, however, what we see of Zion is bleak, and even though the matrix is not real is considerably more pleasant. It’s not hard to identify with the fact that Cypher wanted a way out, a way to not only escape the life he has, but to totally forget that he ever knew something outside of the matrix. Even better, he cuts a deal that lets him return to the matrix as someone important; an actor. He probably found his way to Morpheus and the others because he didn’t feel fulfilled in the matrix, so he searched for a way out. When the reality hits that Zion is life outside the matrix, Cypher wants to ensure that he will feel fulfilled and happy in his reincarnated life, and he thinks by being “someone important” he won’t ever want anything else. After seeing Zion, it is impossible to argue that we wouldn’t do the exact same thing. Who wouldn’t choose to eat that juicy, delicious steak over the slop they get outside the matrix? The matrix is the world that we as the viewer are living in, and the comforts, luxuries, and everyday happiness is worth too much to trade in for life outside of it. The saying what you don’t know won’t hurt you comes to mind because in the end, why would you want to know the matrix isn’t real? With all the knowledge we have of the difference between Zion and the matrix, it is safe to say any right-minded person would prefer the matrix. Even the oracle, the character possessing more knowledge than any other, who knows exactly everything about life outside the matrix, chooses to live in the matrix because it is just a superior lifestyle. If this superior person chooses life in the matrix, how can we put Cypher at fault for doing the same thing? If his only way out was through Agent Smith, then he did what he had to do. All things considered, the audience should be putting Neo, Trinity, Morpheus and the others at fault for choosing to live on the outside. That fact alone should lead us to believe that they are the bad guys, not Cypher. If anything, we should identify with Cypher for wanting a way back to the lifestyle of the matrix. Life outside the matrix is too hopeless and grim for anyone good to want to be part of it.

Anna Thibeault