Offensiveness

They’re making a new Lone Ranger movie. What’s worse, Johnny Depp, a decidedly non-native, has been cast as Tonto, the Lone Ranger’s trusted injun assistant. What’s worse, a photo of Johnny Depp in costume as Tonto has been released, and it looks like this: 

 

Of course, I myself was outraged over this, but the uproar among American Indians was far less than I thought it’d be. There were a scattered handful of blog entries and newspaper articles condemning the casting and costuming, but I could find almost as many defenses of it as well. (Among the articles condemning the film, though, I highly recommend this exquisite McSweeney’s letter, where I first found out about the film. Despite being very justifiably angry, it sparkles with wit and is a wonderful read: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-open-letter-to-johnny-depps-tonto) But for the most part, there was a noncommittal sigh from the Indian community, and I was curious why.

This would be the part where I would talk to my American Indian best friend, to laugh and come to warm realizations about him and myself. However I’m white, and have lived in the isolated southern communities my parents chose for us for most of my life—my interactions, let alone friendships, with American Indians have been sporadic at best. I do know, however, that the Lone Ranger is a touchy subject for many Native Americans (see: virtually all of Sherman Alexie’s Tonto and the Lone Ranger Fistfight in Heaven). The show has been long criticized for its racist attitudes towards Indians, with Tonto being portrayed as a stoic fool and the Lone Ranger his white savior. Even the name “Tonto” is offensive—according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it means “foolish” (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Tonto&allowed_in_frame=0). The new Lone Ranger film is seeming like worse and worse an idea.

So why hasn’t there been much uproar over this so far? I suspect at this time that the American Indians (and I hate to use such a blanket term to describe many different peoples) are simply too worn out to say or do anything about this. After centuries of oppression, bigotry and hate,             perhaps a person becomes too exhausted to respond to another offense against their race and culture. After all, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, that old holdover from our Andrew Jackson days, still exists. Of course, the organization is almost all-white. Just based of the website alone, prominently featuring the bone-colored face of the Bureau President, things seem unlikely to change.