Representation of North American natives in Hollywood cinema after 1990

Following The Cold War, culture concept replaced economy politics as the focus of the world of thought. While culture became the foundation of the identity-centered studies, "the other" as a concept and "to otherize" as an act, had an increased effect on social sciences after 1990. During the same period, cinema and Hollywood was affected by this transformation as well. North American Natives who are coded as "the other" in US history and referred to as "Indian", found an oppurtunity to be represented culturally in the movie Dances With Wolves whose screening in 1990 paralleled this period. It is thought that the natives, who have predominantly appeared in Hollywood in western genre, earned a new representation ground with the 90s. In the first part of the study, in order to build a theoretical framework, emphasis was placed on concepts of "the other","identity" and "culture". The anthropological approach, which becomes prominent as topic of scientific study of the natives over the course of history, is addressed along with the orientations which bear racist and stereotypical values. Potlatch concept and the fact of shamanism – which are among the cultural values of the natives who went through a historical transformation after Christoph Colomb and following Europeans set foot on American continent – is evaluated through comparison with the discourse of "white man responsibility" and the coding of "noble savage" which West developed as a result of interaction with the natives. In the second part, Hollywood cinematography, which constitutes the style of mainstream cinema and the characteristics of western as the dominant genre of Hollywood is evaluated. Followed is the assesment of the representation of the natives in silent movie period from the beginning of cinema until 1930, and the conservative and liberal representations of the natives in Hollywood in between 1930 and 1990. In the third part of the study, the transformation of Hollywood and western after 1990 is discussed. 13 movies of the period 1990-2017, that are among the native themed which came to prominence with Dances with Wolves are evaluated according to Ryan and Kellner's method of "film criticism directed at cinematographic mapping and diagnostics". The theoretical and conceptual framework of the first part of the thesis was preserved in the discussion section of the thesis which also made use of criticism methods of ideological, genre and historical movie, while the anthropological approach was utilised through movie content analysis and the scientific unearthing of the representation of the natives. This study aims to find out if, within this time period, a transformation in representation of the natives occurred and if so, in which direction. Key Words: North American Natives, Hollywood, Western, Anthropology, The Other, Culture