July 16, 2014

Stereotypical Studi in Planes: Fire and Rescue

The reviews for Disney's Planes: Fire and Rescue all seemed to agree on one thing:

The most WTF moments of kids' flick Planes: Fire & Rescue Windjammer (Wes Studi), an Apache helicopter, speaks in a broad, Native American accent and, fireside, tells a confounding legend about coyotes and a car that ate its own tires. The insensitivity of the stereotype aside, does this mean that at some point in Cars/Planes history, a bunch of imports chased the native vehicles off their own land?Planes: Fire & RescueThere’s a female air tanker named Lil’ Dipper, and a character that surprised me to see. He’s called Windlifter, an old fire truck that does this Native American broken English voice. It’s strange that we keep talking about the Washington Redskins changing their name because it’s offensive, but there’s a character like this in a Disney movie.REVIEW: "Planes: Fire & Rescue"Windlifter’s pseudo-Native American mumbo-jumbo comes across as distatefully stereotypical.Comment:  I gather the helicopter's name is Windlifter, not Windjammer.

For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Movies.

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