'The Lone Ranger' Reviews Call Johnny Depp Film A Flop: Is Tonto Portrayal Disrespectful To Native Americans?
"The Lone Ranger," starring Johnny Depp, is losing money at the box office and the reviews are calling the movie a flop. "The Lone Ranger" has sparked debate among critics' reviews over how Native Americans are represented in the media, through Johnny Depp's character Tonto. Was Tonto's portrayal disrespectful to Native Americans?
"The Lone Ranger" was produced for nearly $250 million, but the film grossed just $29.4 million in its first three-day weekend, The United Press International reports. The Johnny Depp movie premiered July 3, and has earned $48.9 million since then. The film raked in another $24.3 million internationally. According to UPI, the film also had few trailers and limited marketing.
Critics have hounded the movie, with Rotten Tomatoes giving it a rating of only 25 percent. But now critics and fans are saying that the film may be disrespectful to Native Americans. Depp plays Tonto, the famous Native American sidekick to masked Texas ranger (played by Armie Hammer), and has been accused of "race-bending" to fit the Cherokee role. Another critic said "The Lone Ranger" portrays Christians as "hateful or flat-out hypocritically evil," UPI reports.
Adrienne Keene of Native Appropriations claims that Tonto's character perpetuates a long list of stereotypes that overshadow the real issues that Native Americans actually face in the United States, KUNM reports.
"How can we expect mainstream support for sovereignty, self-determination, Nation Building, tribally-controlled education, health care, and jobs when the 90% of Americans only view Native people as one-dimensional stereotypes, situated in the historic past, or even worse, situated in their imaginations? I argue that we can't-and that, to me, is why Tonto matters," Keene said.
NPR's David Edelstein wrote that while the representation of Native Americans is uncomfortable, the real problem is that the film is "bad," plain and simple.
"In this movie, Tonto's people are victims of murderous colonialists - men who run railroads through their native lands and kill off resistance. And what's sold as a broad comedy that reunites Depp with his Pirates of the Caribbean director, Gore Verbinski, features massacres of Native American tribes. The movie is exhaustingly bad, but bad in ways you can't imagine in advance," Edelstein said.
Depp is reportedly part Native American, with a Cherokee great-grandmother, according to a review by Salon. He has also made an effort to show his respect to the Native American community. Reuters reports that Depp assured proceeds from the gala premiere would be donated to the American Indian College Fund.
Salon's Andrew O'Hehir wrote in his review: "It remains problematic, to be sure, to see a white movie star...playing a 19th century Native American in a crow headdress and black-and-white face paint, delivering broken-English witticisms."
However, Associated Press' Felicia Fonseca wrote that Depp did a good job of portraying a Native American in "The Lone Ranger." She described Depp's Tonto as "less subservient, honors the proud American Indian warrior and displays a dry sense of humor seen throughout Indian Country."