Can the Native speak? Native American voices and the problem of representation and visibility in Hollywood .

A Case Study of White American Directors Martin Scorsese and Stanley Kubrick in Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) and The Shining (1980)

Abstract

The invasion of the Americas is a distinctive moment in history, which is also a vanishing point for intense cultural clash, dislocation, and trauma. This paper meditates on the thematic concerns of settler colonialism, ethnic genocide, and Native subjection that is concomitant in every imperial project, and the problem of translating Native experience on screen. Invader colonization with cultural imperialism hand-in-gloves with missionization led to the eradication of Native cultures, histories, and identities in America. Two classic films by two white American filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Stanley Kubrick considered Hollywood Auteurs have been analysed in this paper to explore the complexities of depicting Native American History on celluloid. Set as a Western in 1920s Oklahoma, Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) throws a spotlight on the Osage reign of terror; the unsolved murders of Native Americans by White Americans attempting to gain control over their oil rich land. Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980), on the other hand, deviates from its source (Stephen King's novel) to blatantly address the genocide committed on the Natives by the founding fathers of America. This paper explores some of the theoretical concerns of Filmic Orientalism to debate who represented the Native voices best.