Way We Never Were: Native Americans in Popular Culture: A Proposal for a Virtual Reality Based Exhibit

Abstract

This project proposes a museum exhibit that will explore the public memory of Native Americans as influenced by popular culture through commercial entertainment venues. The introductory chapter explains how exposure to popular media affects the public’s perception of Native Americans. Phil Deloria argues that the public formed a pan-Indian viewpoint regarding the varied tribes and nations of the Native American populace. While negative in general, those Native Americans who participated in these entertainment venues benefited individually by this participation. This thesis argues that this public perception of Native Americans is attributable to two distinct reactions of the majority White culture to settler colonialism. The negative stereotypes of Indians from the Wild West shows through the 1950s served as justifications for settler colonialism. The extreme positive stereotypes formed in the 1960s and thereafter were apologies for settler colonialism. The second chapter provides historical background for the exhibit proper. The second chapter begins by examining the created perceptions of Indian culture presented through the traveling Wild West shows of the late 1800s. The next section of the chapter relates the same for the film industry. The third section reviews Indian portrayals in television programming since the 1950s. The penultimate section examines the varied stereotypes presented by the commercial music industry .The last section of chapter two examines the portrayal of Native Americans in European venues. The third chapter presents the design and technical details of the proposed museum exhibit. This chapter also contains an argument in favor a VR exhibit. Additionally, there is an appendix following the bibliography with larger representations of the images from the presentation proposal.