So the heroes of this movie are actually Abahachi, and his best friend Ranger. Now, I’m watching the Extra Large version which is slightly different than the theatrical release and… this doesn’t matter. I suppose here is a pretty good spot to mention that these started as sketches on a TV show and the audience asked for this movie, which is why they made it. I have no idea how popular they still are over there, but they’re well known enough that Germans got this movie, which is a parody not only of Karl May, but of Westerns in general and other things as well. The Winnetou books remained popular in Germany and were made into movies and TV shows. Still with me? You need to be, because we need to go a little further. Now these books were very popular, so popular that even the Nazis couldn’t actually ban them and as a result that’s the guy who gets name dropped during that one scene in Inglourious Basterds when the soldiers are playing that guessing game in the bar. Okay, there is a German writer called Karl May and he wrote a series of books about Winnetou, who was the chief of the Mescalero tribe of the Apache people. Look, maybe its better if I explain from the beginning… You know that there is something terribly wrong with what’s being done, but the people who are doing it can’t begin to understand, and they’re being genuinely funny anyway. The best way I can describe it is that it’s like watching a hilarious movie about slave conditions in the Antebellum South made by Italians in blackface. But it’s made by Germans, so they have like no connection to the actual history of the Native Americans and the movie is actually pretty funny since its jokes rarely ever touch on the known stereotypes beyond basic visuals and the Apache characters are the heroes. I’m not going to go into a lengthy discussion on it, but I sort of am because I’m talking about a movie that is set in the old west and involves made up Apaches. Them and the Orientals get that weird, condescending attribute of being strangely wise, or mystical while also insulting them with the old ‘but of course they’re like children’ refrain as well. I said Native American, and what did you think of? Buck skin wearing, noble savages with long straight black hair and a rudimentary grasp of language at best? Well, shame on you! They also talk about the Great Spirit at the drop of a hat and want to sing you the song of their people. But really, it’s the stereotype that bothers most of us, I think. There is also the problem that the term Native Americans can rub a cheese grater over the nerves of their souls. Native Americans are a dicey subject in fiction, mainly because of the stereotyping. Der Schuh des Manitu (2001/ Constantin Film/ Dir.
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