Redskin (film)

Infobox Film
name = Redskin

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producer =
director = Victor Schertzinger
writer = Elizabeth Pickett
starring = Richard Dix
Julie Carter
music = Louis De Francesco
J.S. Zamecnik
cinematography = Ray Rennahan
Edward T. Estabrook
editing = Otho Lovering
distributor = Paramount
released = February 23, 1929
runtime = 90 min.
language = English
country=USA
imdb_id = 0020320|

"Redskin" is a 1929 feature film with a synchronized score and sound effects that was photographed partially in Technicolor. Color film was used for the scenes taking place on the Indians' land, while black and white was used only in the scenes set in the white man's world. Roughly two-thirds of the film is in color.

The title of the film is not meant to be degrading to Native Americans. It refers to the film's hero, Wing Foot (Richard Dix), who is a Navaho educated in an otherwise all-white school. In the course of the story he experiences prejudice from both the whites (because of his race) and the Navahos (who disown him because of his upbringing). Thus, Wing Foot is looked upon as neither Indian nor white, but simply a "redskin."

Made in the first liberal decade of the twentieth century, the film deals sympathetically with the American Indians in an era of filmmaking that far too many people think was one where Indians were shown as murderous savages. The conservatism of the 1940s and 1950s relegated the image of the American Indian as a murderous savage once again. It wouldn't be until the late 1960s and 1970s (when liberalism returned to the forefront) that films as sympathetic as "Redskin" would be made once again.

Not only does "Redskin" avoid this stereotype, but it also sidesteps the more contemporary, "politically correct" stereotype. In those films the Indians are generally depicted as being mainly peaceful and morally right, while the whites (save the main protagonist) are seen as the bloodthirsty savages - greedy bigots with little or no redeeming values. Instead of showing the red man as evil and the white man good - or vice versa - "Redskin" presents good and bad in both. The government agent who beats Wing Foot in the beginning of the picture eventually emerges as a decent man - some one who made a mistake and later regretted it. At the end he redeems himself by aiding Wing Foot in his attempt to register his oil claim. "Redskin" presents not only the conflict between whites and Indians, but also between the Indian races (Navajos and Pueblos are shown to dislike each other).

"Redskin" is currently available in the United States on disc 4 of the DVD collection "Treasures III: Social Issues in American Film, 1900-1934."