Indigenous Cinema and the Studio System

Abstract

Indigenous participation in Hollywood has been the subject of significant archive research and historical recovery in recent scholarship. In addition to longstanding emphases on images of Indians and critiques of onscreen stereotypes, recent scholarship has focused on recovering and re/assessing offscreen practices, closely examining the lives and work of Indigenous performers, consultants, writers, directors, fans and others who have participated in the systems that produce screen images. Faced with images of “vanishing Indians,” Indigenous media scholars have found evidence of Indigenous presence, from early cinema to the Hollywood studio system to contemporary television and digital media.