Medicine Boy

<a href="https://embed.stanford.edu/iframe/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpurl.stanford.edu%2Fkw756qy1082" class="su-underline">Show Content</a>

Abstract/Contents

Abstract: A 50-page pilot television script, Medicine Boy seeks to provide an authentic snapshot of the physical and existential struggles that come with being a Native in the 21st century. The story follows the lives of an upper-middle class Native family as the death of a relative forces them to leave the comfort of their Los Angeles home and return to their ancestral homelands on the Crow Reservation. The move escalates tensions between the Ben and Roberta, as they struggle to reconcile their radically different views of their Native identity. The story also follows their 7-year-old son, Manny, as he embarks on a series of wondrously crazy adventures with his troublemaking cousin. Within the reach of the plot lies an abundance of opportunity to both reflect on multitude of recognizable themes, including that of cultural-romanticism, self-hatred, survivor’s guilt, and historical trauma. In addition, the artist statement seeks to add context by briefly summarizing two centuries of Native misrepresentation in popular culture and entertainment.

Type of resource	text
Date created	[ca. August 2017 - May 2018]

Author	Yellowtail, Matthew K

Subject	Native
Subject	Native American
Subject	Indigenous
Subject	Indian
Subject	American Indian
Subject	Crow
Subject	Historical Trauma
Subject	Survivors Guilt
Subject	Comparative Studies of Race and Ethnicity
Subject	Race
Genre	Thesis

Related Publication	Ashby, Leroy. “Building An Entertainment Industry.” With Amusement For All: A History Of American Popular Culture Since 1830, The University Press Of Kentucky, 2006, pp. 72–106.
Related Publication	Cobb, Amanda J. “This Is What It Means to Say Smoke Signals: Native American Cultural Sovereignty.” Hollywood's Indian: The Portrayal of Native Americans in Film, edited by Peter C Rollins and John E O'Connor, The University Press of Kentucky, 2003, pp. 206–227.
Related Publication	Deloria, Philip J, and Philip J Deloria. “American Indians and American Identities.” Playing Indians, Yale Historical Publications, 1998, pp. 1–9.
Related Publication	Deloria, Philip J. Indians in Unexpected Places. Univ. Press of Kansas, 2004.
Related Publication	Smith, Paul Chaat. Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong. University of Minnesota Press, 2009.
Related Publication	Trennert, Robert A. “Selling Indian Education at World's Fairs and Expositions, 1893-1904.” American Indian Quarterly, vol. 11, no. 3, 1987, pp. 203–220., doi:10.2307/1184042.
Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/kw756qy1082

Use and reproduction: User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC-SA).

Preferred Citation: Yellowtail, Matthew K. (). Medicine Boy. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/kw756qy1082

Stanford University, Program in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, Honors Theses

Loading usage metrics...