Thunder Heart Conflict

Ruiqi Luo
March 24, 2016
PUP 200
Thunder Heart: Analysis of Urban Culture Conflict
Thunder Heart is a movie in which vividly shows the living condition of American Indians in the reservation in 1970s. On the surface, Thunder Heart tells about how an FBI agent solved a murder case. However, as a matter of fact, in a deeper meaning it describes the internal conflict between the pro-government Indian and the Aboriginal Rights Movements Indian, and as well as accuses the policies in which the U.S. government intended to deny the nationality. In such strong racial, political and cultural conflicts in the Native American reservation in South Dakota, this city shows a unique urban landscape. This paper will focus on the presentation of urban cultural
There is many obvious difference in almost all aspects of life between in the Indian reservation and in other American metropolises. In the beginning, the movie shows a distinct urban landscape of the Indian reservation. It lies in barren hills, the roads are unpaved, the houses are scattered and dusted, and the children just run wildly around. There are also many sedan cars surprisingly, which indicates the infiltration of modern culture and modern urban living styles (but the cars are useful for the Indians because they live scattered). The Indian police is so not like a “police” that the agents instantly think he is a suspect, because he dresses like a hippie (Thunder Heart). The agents’ rough attitude towards him and the ceremony can be interpreted as ignorance and disrespect against the native culture, which is the first face-to-face conflict shown in the movie. However, in many occasions, the native Indians show kindness and identification to Levoi because of his ancestry, and it suggests that the Indians have their own cultural awareness which could be fought proudly
Despite these people are all Indians and should stick together, one party treats bad at the other party, which is indicated in the search of ARM supporters in a rather rude manner (Thunder Heart). Here, it is known that this reservation is split, not peaceful and highly possibly is in social disorder. As a matter of fact, the second conflict is resulted from the first conflict. It is between the Indians who to a certain extent accept the modern American culture and the Indians who stick to the traditional culture. The US government forbids the Indian school children to speak their own language (Thunder Heart). On the contrary, the ARM brings the awakening of Indian culture to their people, and makes the people proud of their culture. However, the attack against ARM shows the cruel reality that the minority culture is always suppressed by the “superior” culture. Ironically in this movie, the police from the minority culture is more smart and skilled than the FBI elites, and the Indian elder even can make accurate prophecies, which convey the message that the Indian culture is possibly more powerful, and should not be despised.
In conclusion, Thunder Heart embodies mainly two urban cultural conflicts, and their root is the conflict between homogeneous culture and heterogeneous culture. The distinction between cultures contributes to the difference of living