Smoke Signals Essay

Every persons past history makes up apart of who they are. Who your ancestors are and what they did impact your life somehow, such as moving to the country where you grew up, religion, or cultural influences, etc. In the movie Smoke Signals both Victor and Thomas are influenced by their Native American past. Victor strives to follow in the path of the Indian warrior while Thomas plays more of the Storyteller role. These cultural ancestry footprints they walk in are not only apart of their history going centuries back, but have become stereotypes that they are striving to follow as well. Society's mark on who they should be transforms how they see themselves losing all meaning of who they are. They are following a trail that has 2 different direction society vs. history.

Victor conformity to society takes away the meaning of what it is to be an Indian. He doesn't look on his tribes  or the forefathers meaning but what people who aren't even indian say they have to be. When telling Thomas how to "act Indian" he goes by the logic that you have to look tough in order to gain respect. Victor says to look tough, prideful, wise, and fierce they must loo as if they had just come back from killing a buffalo. At this remark Thomas acknowledges that the Corde-laine Indians are fisherman. Victor acknowledges this remark by saying that the whites don't know the difference it is just something that is expected to make them seem more spiritual, with large demeanors. Disregarding the fact Victor conforms to the stereotype that all indians are hunters. Thus expressing the idea of historical fact against sociable ideas.

What was once a part of their forefathers cultural became a mock up of how to be respected by the white people. Later in the movie on the bus this was not proven to be true. The scene where the white men who took their seats and both Victor and Thomas standing their looking fierce was to serve as a symbol of the past. Just as the Indians couldn't do anything about the whites taking over, Thomas and Victor had no power against the men who took their seats. The men even said, "What are you going to do about it." All of them knowing very well nothing. They were powerless. Unlike Victor, Thomas didn't take any offense to it and made a joke saying, "Your warrior look didn't work this time." Although a funny statement, this remark is very valid. It served to express how much had changed in society. No longer could the Indian warrior influence impact the way they were treated because they had already conformed to society.

Through this struggle Victor understood that you don't have to put on a false mask to make people think of you a certain way because it is ultimately seen through. Just like Thomas changing his look to be "more indian" letting his hair "flow free" it didn't change who he was. He continued to tell story after story elaborating more and more on the past. How he looked and how people saw him didn't change him. He learned to embrace himself for who he was. His passion for loving to tell stories was apart of that historical influence on his life. The stories didn't serve to be a factually correct but an adventure that resulted in the gain of some wisdom from the past.

In this Victor learned that it is ok to embrace who you are and where you came from. All the aspect of our past only form who were are and who we become. We can either be dragged down by it or lifted up. Victor originally let society define who he was, but learned that it only mattered how he defined his past in his life. To forgive the mistakes of the forefathers and continue with life. We can't keep getting bogged down by the past to where it blinds us of our future. We must find the path between history and society to where we don't let either define us but let both shape us.