HyperCultura (May 2014)
Navajo Portrayals in the Mass Media
Abstract
Abstract The aim of this paper is to analyze Navajo portrayals in the mass media, taking as representative instances an episode from Jamie’s American Road Trip (2009) and a Mars commercial, “The Indian” (1998). I will analyze how the commercial and the episode from the TV series present the Navajo identity and if there can still be found elements from the Noble Savage imagery. The starting point of this analysis is the theoretical framework offered by Philip Deloria’s Playing Indian and Robert Berkhofer’s White Man’s Indian. While these works talk about how Native Americans have been perceived in general, I will argue that the point made by these two authors can be applied in the case of the Navajos, more specifically in order to analyze how the American mass media has been representing them. The Mars commercial manages to present the Navajos as a distinctive group, but at the same time, it uses stereotypes as the Noble Savage and the dying, nature – loving Indian, in order to sell and to be understood by many. Jamie’s American Road Trip, like the Mars commercial, is proof that trying to approach Native American cultures by comparing them with Western culture will result in misleading conclusions.
