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Sunday, March 27, 2011

"Wounded Bird" in RANGO, and a note about Johnny Depp playing Tonto

Several people have written to ask me if I've seen Rango.

I haven't, but I just came across a critique of the character, Wounded Bird, at the Drawing on Indians blog where blogger Stephen Bridenstine says "Wounded Bird draws his inspiration directly from the scores of Indian depictions in countless Hollywood Westerns."

The image here is from Bridenstine's site. See the bone choker? (Imagine me groaning.) Bone chokers have become one of the things anyone (and anything) who wants to be marked as "Indian" wears (or is shown wearing.)

Johnny Depp does the voice for Rango in that film. Depp has gotten a lot of press lately because he's playing the part of Tonto (the Lone Ranger's Indian sidekick) in a remake of the Lone Ranger. Depp says he's seen stereotypical portrayals of American Indians in films and plans to do something different in his portrayal. I wonder what it'll be? Depp was in Dead Man with Gary Farmer. I wonder if he learned anything from Gary? For those who don't know Gary's work, watch him in Smoke Signals.
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4 comments:

  1. LayogenicSunday, March 27, 2011 at 10:50:00 PM CDT

    I daresay if he wanted to do something "different" with the role in a positive fashion he'd give it to somebody else. Conversely, take the minority/first nation connotation out entirely.

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  2. jpmMonday, March 28, 2011 at 6:47:00 PM CDT

    We saw Rango yesterday. The bird is definitely a stereotypical character and so were most of the other characters -- Old West stereotypes of one kind or another, some appealing and some visually grotesque. He was certainly easier to look at than some of the other characters. And he had some lines that reminded me of Gary Farmer type humor. So even though looking at the character, you could recognize the stereotype, there were a couple of surprises. I'm not sure what to think of it, though.

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  3. Vera in CAMonday, March 28, 2011 at 7:47:00 PM CDT

    My GF is Cherokee and thought WB was hilarious. Sure it's stereotypical, so are a lot of the characters. Basically, two words: "Peter Pan." (Shudder). By that comparison, this is the most non-stereotypical cartoon ever made...

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  4. AnonymousMonday, April 4, 2011 at 2:58:00 PM CDT

    The stereotyping was not so bad (in that we're all used to it and immune to it). What was really upsetting to me was at some point in the movie Wounded Bird is referred to as "stupid Indian."

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