Smoke Signals – Analysis

Smoke Signals is a Canadian-American film based on the short stories presented in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven which is a novella written by Sherman Alexie. The movie was produced in 1998 and is about the life of the native American and indigenous people of North America. Specifically, it is about the native community of Spokane in Idaho and relationships among people who are living there. Relationships in this indigenous community are characterized by being complex and a stereotypical image of native Americans is illustrated throughout the film in a native community in Idaho. The complexity of the relationships can be illustrated through the bond between Thomas-Build-the fire and Arnold who saved him from the fire. Thomas sees Arnold as a hero while at the same time Victor, who is Arnold’s son, has a complicated view of his father’s alcoholism and violence. 

Yet, the relationship between Victor and Thomas is not that good at the beginning of the film. It gets better when they start their journey! 

The movie, Smoke Signals illustrates a stereotypical image of the reservations with all poverty, alcoholism, drugs, and other negative social phenomena. It is no secret that reservations of indigenous people of America have an extremely poor life quality. Well, this, to some extent, is expected in each community that is characterized by poverty. 

The journey that Victor and Thomas take illustrates the complexity of the relationships in the reservation. This is because one can not expect that they would get along together as their relationship somewhat is a bullish one because of Thomas’s personality and attitude. For example when they are in the basket court and Thomas is acting a bit strange in Victor’s eyes. 

In contrast to expectations, Thomas and Victor get along and they become closer to each other. For example, while on the bus on their journey, Victor tries to teach Thomas how to talk or behave, and in one way or another he, Victor, confronts the two white men on the bus instead of Thomas. In clear words, their journey to explore their identities as native Americans unifies them despite differences in their personalities. 

There are of course some parallels that can be drawn between the native people of Sweden and native Americans, while still, the indigenous people of America had an extreme situation of poverty and isolation. In Sweden, national minorities may have experienced aspects of the matter in terms of isolation and for example not being able to use their language. This applies almost to all minorities in the world but in different ways. 

Still, there are differences between native Americans and minority groups in Sweden. Mainly, minority groups in Sweden do not have and never had reservations. Historically, they had a hard situation in Sweden but their hardship almost ended a long time ago, while we still see some kind of discrimination against Native Americans in North America. .