Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Contemporary link: Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron

In the movie Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, which was an animated children's movie made in 2002, I see a lot of the same elements Hundorf analyzes in her books and we've analyzed in class.

Here's the link for the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOn_VJA6jNI

Fandango synopsis of the plot:
http://www.fandango.com/spirit:stallionofthecimarron_v261091/summary

It's been a long time since I've actually seen the movie, but it's clear both from what I remember and what the trailer shows that Spirit, the horse, is meant to symbolically and anthropomorphically represent a western, American, free, and threatened lifestyle. While Spirit actually befriends a Native American character at one point, I think he also is meant to himself represent Native Americans. I think he symbolizes, in a very simple way, the sort of ideal Hundorf says European Americans were looking for--and are still looking for--as they "go native."

Here's an another video with one of the songs from this film, "This is where I belong," with a lot of eagle (symbolically American) imagery that I think most clearly shows this film's goal to identify native culture with American-ness:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4ZjSoNkRa8&feature=related

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