How the main character, Lieutenant John Dunbar, got his Sioux name.
This movie is all about how one soldier who had learned to despise the 'Red Indians' getting to know them and in the end be a part of their culture. Before and during the warming up with the native Americans, all of them and John displayed many cute and hilarious scenes, which comes to show that they are really trying to understand and know about each other as well as what they are saying or thinking. I really like to see how different people and culture blend with each other and this film have the transition of who/what are you, what are you saying, can you be trusted, until they blended in with each other where John learned Lakota and Kicking Bird learned English.
It was somehow intriguing to see how John Dunbar slowly threw away his soldier identity and became one of them obviously through his clothing and his shaved beard. It was also fun to see how the Siouan learned and applied John's english in a short time. However, until now I still don't understand why must one start war or kill each other. When fighting against the other native American clan, they said it was an honor and pride to do so as to protect their family and food supplies. Since they are capable enough, why can't they just provide information where the bulls are and not kill each other? Unless the other tribe's culture encourages killing of others {which is also stupid, but it's their culture} to get what they want and need.
Intergroup Contact Theory
Many researchers including the our known researcher, Allport, had run various researches regarding the intergroup contact theory in order to reduce prejudice and racism. Pettigrew & Tropp ran many meta-analysis and research to find that intergroup contact could reduce racism surrounding 3 types of themes, which are knowledge of others' culture, reduces intergroup anxiety, as well as empathy towards others. Through association within a group, members will get to know about the other person whether or not they are from a same culture or otherwise. For example, John and the native Americans had a few meetings before he could visit their village again still without learning each other's language yet. This also means to understand others, verbal language is not the most essential element but it is still in top 2. There are many scenes where John waved at their people and slowly everyone learned it and waved back.
Anxiety towards other culture can be reduced when groups of individuals associate together for a certain goal. Like when John Dunbar at first was ready to attack back at the 'Red Indians' and when they Siouan steal his horse. These scenes were full of fear and anxiety towards the other party. But slowly after the first meeting {Tatanka} and the coffee with sugar meeting, they slowly open up to each other and .... all of us know what happened in the end.
Empathy and Perspective Taking happens especially in cross-group friendship. Befriending each other always happens and sometimes started off by taking their perspective into thought and empathize their feelings. The only scene I could think of so far is how John understood their need for food and fur of the bulls. He risked his safety barging into the village (as he was still a suspicious white man) to tell them bulls are around the corner.
Throughout these recent movies, we should by then realize there is no our group against theirs or them against us. We are still humans with different cultures, ethnic, race, gender, age, and skin color and so on and so forth. Though there are some "inhumane" rules in some tribes and culture, we are all still a part of this cruel reality.
"We Are The World" by Michael Jackson
Reference
1 - Pettigrew, T. F. & Tropp, L.
R. (2008, October). How does intergroup contact reduce prejudice? Meta-analytic
tests of three mediators. European
Journal of Social Psychology, 38 (6),
922-934. doi:
10.1002/ejsp.504
No comments:
Post a Comment