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--- 329:question:329--week_3_questions_comments [2016/09/15 11:46] – [1 Errors in fact] dhawkins
+++ 329:question:329--week_3_questions_comments [2016/09/15 11:55] (current) – [3 Questions about interpretation] dhawkins
@@ Line 63: / Line 63: @@
 From the reading, it felt as if the American Indians usually had certain loyalties to either the French or the British. In the film, Mogua betrays the British and leads them into an ambush. Has there ever been historical evidence that a tribe would try and lead a group of Europeans into a trap in that manner? It seemed more of a way to create a villain for the story then to hold the film to historical accuracies. **How often would tribes need to switch their European loyalties?**  The reading discussed that one group (probably more) had to join the British after the defeat of the French.   --- //[[rpratt@mail.umw.edu|Robert Pratt]] 2016/09/15 03:48//
+My main issue with the interpretation, that no doubt has its roots in the books, is about the character of Nathaniel. Given the time that Cooper was writing and his intended audience, I was not surprised about Nathaniel's portrayal, and I think in some ways the film probably tried to tone down the blatant racism that Cooper injected into his work (based on my reading of parts of Cooper's //Deerslayer//), but in many ways I feel the film still perpetuated problems surrounding the character. Nathaniel in some ways feels more like a superhero than a human being. He fights nearly perfectly in battle, he always comes just in time to save the day. His ruggedness captures Cora's heart (but let's keep in mind she didn't fall in love with an ethnic Native American, but a white man adopted by a Native American family). In one scene, Nathaniel actually runs in slow motion, kills someone, and then grabs Cora and kisses her. In a lot of ways I saw him as kind of comically badass and yet acutely sensitive, with no overt bloodlust like some of the Native Americans and even royal officials. There were a lot of (preemptive?) echoes of a Tarzan and Jane type of relationship, which not only over-simplifies what would have been a complicated situation had it historically occurred, but like the books, perpetuates the idea that white, Anglo-Americans eventually became "more Indian than the Indians," to borrow a phrase from Irish history.
+ --- //[[dhawkins@umw.edu|Hawkins Daniel C.]] 2016/09/15 06:47//
 ====== 4 Movie as a Primary Source about the time in which it was made ======