Katherine and I are watching the Academy Award-winning movies in chronological order, beginning with Midnight Cowboy in 1969. Yesterday evening, we watched Dances with Wolves (1990). The movie was so long—almost four hours—that it took three sittings to get through it. I saw this movie not long after it came out, and recall enjoying it. But now it grates on me something awful. The movie is sheer propaganda. It depicts the Indians as peace-loving, nature-respecting, noble, gentle people. Whites, by contrast, are warlike, mean-spirited, wasteful, prejudiced, and ignoble.
What changed between then and now? I became a conservative. That's right. I now see the ways in which I was brainwashed by the prevailing progressive dogmatism of academia. I was a true believer. White males were the scourge of civilization; everyone else was their victim. We now know that the Indians were anything but noble. They were primitive, warlike, sexist (by today's standards), ignorant, lazy, and ecologically destructive. The various tribes fought, killed, tortured, and enslaved each other long before whites set foot in North America.
The obvious intent of this movie was to make whites feel guilty. It worked, too, because the movie did well at the box office and won major awards. Hollywood chooses films that reflect progressive values, including anti-Americanism. Naming this movie Best Picture was a way of telling Middle America that it's stupid, bigoted, and ignorant. Even the film's music told viewers how to feel. When Indians were killing white people, the music was grand and unlifting. When whites were doing bad things to Indians, the music was sinister and foreboding.
This film could have been produced by Hitler or Stalin, so perfect is its propaganda value. I'm sorry I wasted my time watching it.
Here is the trailer.
