MovieChat Forums > Peter Pan (1960) Discussion > the one thing i do NOT get

the one thing i do NOT get


the character of tiger lily is a totally unrealistic and demeaning representation of native americans. actual native americans do not go around sayin 'ugga-wugga wigwam' 24/7!! i think anyone who knows someone who is native american would definately know this. i also think that in terms of understanding different cultures, the director is ugga-wugga-CLUELESS

so when u feel like hope is gone, look inside u and be strong

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You're 100% right. That is not one bit realistic of Native Americans. She has blonde hair and says "ugga-wugga Wigwam" constantly. I have a friend who is Navajo and is not one bit like this, nor were his ansestors.

However, you're taking it quite seriously, which isn't supposed to be intended. This is a musical for children. Pirates didn't really "want a mother", there were no lost boys who few, no peter pan. James Berry wrote the story, and then this was a musical adaptation. Tiger Lilly is a completely fictional native american. In fact, to even call the 'Indians' in this musical 'Native Americans' almost takes away the fantasy of it.

Of course it's politically incorrect to call Native Americans 'Indians' but as said before, this is a musical for children. Native Americans might be offended by this musical because of Tiger Lilly, and that's there perogative.

I personally know it's a faerie-tale.

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[deleted]

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"it's James M. Barrie, not Berry...Sorry if I'm being a nitpick!"
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Ahh, my mistake.

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I hate it when people say, "You're both right!" but really, you are. Yes it's a children's story. Yes, it's a *great* story. But, yes, it is demeaning and unrealistic.

Let's look at the various groups in Never-Never Land. There are (A) regular children (Peter, the Darlings, and the Lost Boys) portrayed in a fantastic way. There are (B) criminal outcasts who are more or less historical (I know there are pirates in the 21st century but it's not the same thing) portrayed as scary people who will hurt you if they get a chance. Then there is (C) a group of people who are presented as "normal" in their own culture, who are shown to be perpetually sneaky, dangerous, even bloodthirsty, and who speak not in their own language or in actual English but in a weird pidgin.

Children watching this will see (A) children they could identify with, for the most part--they want excitement, but are sometimes afraid, follow a charismatic leader as on any playground, and sometimes have conflict among themselves. I don't think anyone's worried about the portrayal of (B) the pirates. As for (C), the OP had an important phrase in her post: anyone who *knows a native American person* will know that these NNL Indians have very little to do with reality. I submit that many people who watch this are not personally acquainted with anyone of NA ancestry, much less one who grew up in any kind of NA tradition. And past the age of 5 or 10, unless they're ignorant on purpose, they will probably realize that the NNL Indians have very little basis in reality. But STILL.

STILL, seeing this kind of thing shapes how people react on an emotional level. The college campus I work on hosted a pow-wow a few years ago, that I of course went to, ecstatic to have the opportunity. It was, of course, nothing like the movies, and realistically, I didn't expect it to be. But on an EMOTIONAL level it seemed to me that, for instance, there should be a fire. In the middle of the dancers. Who were dancing in a huge gym with a floor made of some kind of rubber-like material. Ridiculous, yes! That's emotions for ya! I was impressed with many of the dancers, esp. the fancy-dancers who were I guess in their late teens and early 20s and had beautiful swishy cloths and boots with things sewn onto them. But on an EMOTIONAL level, what grabbed my heart and twisted it was the sight of a little girl, about 5 years old, wearing what I can only describe as a Tiger Lily costume and spinning around randomly. She was the embodiment of what I had played at as a little girl, 20 years earlier, pretending to be an Indian Princess. She was in the circle of dancers and clearly a participant in the pow-wow, not an outsider/observer like me. It took that moment, that conjunction of my childhood fantasies and this particular reality, to show me how powerful the fantasies had been at shaping how I still FEEL, even though in general it's my brain and not my emotion that does the heavy lifting. Although sometimes I wonder.

OK, many thanks to anyone who's read all this. To return to my original point, J.M. Barrie created a group of unrealistic characters that are demeaning to the descendents of the people they represent. I was shocked to see a blond Tiger Lily and wished that she and the NNL Indians were not so painful to watch. At the same time, Peter Pan is one of my favorite characters and I couldn't bear to see his story chopped up, painted over, or brought into conformity with the kind of inter-ethnic relations that should have prevailed throughout human history, but, sadly, haven't. It is a conundrum and I don't know what to do about it. I don't think there is a good answer. But now I'll contradict myself. Perhaps the two sides of this argument are both WRONG. Perhaps it's not necessary to hate and revile the Peter Pan story because of the NNL Indians. Perhaps it's also not true that the NNL Indians are harmless and do not support racism.

Dejectedly yours, etc. etc.

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[deleted]

Barrie wrote Peter Pan more than 100 years ago, after all, and the story evolved from fantasy stories that Barrie told to his neighbor children (and games that they all played together), stories that incorporated the elements of late-19th-century British schoolchildren's imaginations: Red Indians (as they were known) with tomahawks and feathers, pirates, fairies, and so on . . . none of this was intended to seem "real," as it is "only make-believe." The Neverland is a glorious mixture of all these elements, and reality is simply not allowed. Different cultures? That's the real world. The Neverland is out of this world, indeed. And within its magical borders, anything is possible. Please don't judge the past by the standards of the present; to do so is rather unfair and generally unproductive . . . .

(Of course real Indians/Native Americans/First Nations people don't say such things, nor are they usually blonde (as Tiger Lily is in the production). And when my own grandmother came to the USA at age 21 in 1911 from northern Germany, her own grandmother worried that her granddaughter would be scalped by the Red Indians (in New York City, where Nana was headed)!)

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[deleted]

[deleted]


hahaha. this whole conversation is funny.

i agree. its a childrens movie and thats honestly how many children interpret indians at a young age. but thats a good point and observation.

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[deleted]

why do you keep calling Tiger Lilly Native American? They are not in America... Story begins in London, then fly off to a fantasy land

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She's my hero! I will send for tiger lilly! heh I go around saying ugga-wugga wigwam too. Actually my bestfriend and i go thru the whole dialog.

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[deleted]

The first thing I think I should bring to your attention is the fact that your problem is with tiger lily being unrealistic--- the title character of Peter Pan, an adolescent boy, is played by an incredible, yet, inarguably female, mature, WOMAN...And TIGER LILY is what upset you? :):) It is of course a well noted fact that this particular play and musical have, in recent year primarily, generated quite a lot of heat and hatred within the Native American Community. Coming from a town just outside a large Reservation, I can tell you from personal experience, that productions of the show are not permitted to be performed in the local area schools, and productions done outside the schools within the community have generated rather nasty riot scenes, with yelling, screaming, picketting, and threats to persue legal action against the shows producers.
Yes, you and those angry Native American tribes are quite right in your determination that the portrayal of "Indians" is not "realistic," and is rather silly. The major hole in your argument, however, lies in the subject matter of the play and story itself. In his play, and the subsequent Musical adapted from it, Barrie structures the ENTIRETY of the plot around the concepts and notions of the fairly universal "Childhood games" played, particularly by little boys, within the realm of "Make Believe." Neverland is made up COMPLETELY of these games; The inhabitanst are "Pirates and Indians" The two QUENTISENTIAL childhood games of make believe, especially in the context of the time period in which Barrie was writing. If you saw finding Neverland, you know that he created the story and the play to entertain children, little boys in particular...The Darling boys... But, because it is ONLY MAKE BELIEVE, the Pirates and Indians of Barries world are MAKE BELIEVE as well. THey are MEANT to be UNREALISTIC, and INTENDED TO BE SILLY. Otherwise, this would NOT be a children's story AT ALL. JUst think for a moment of the number of things which could potentially be TERRIFYING if they were presented as REAL. Man eating crocodiles, marauding pirates who only seek to slaughter little boys.... etc etc. But in the Play, ALL THAT OCCURS IS PART OF ONE, BIG, GAME. You'll Notice that no one EVER actually dies--- Pirates are thrown overboard and Hook, blown up, yet, the next scene shows them very much alive, in chains. The Captain is perpetually killing off pirates who happen to annoy him; we see him shoot them dead, yet they are back up and alive before you know what's happened. This is because it's ALL A GAME. And like childhood games of Pirates and Indians, no one really DIES, and no one is actually trying to kill anyone else.
Therefore, the "Indians" portrayed are the "Indians" of childhood fantasy. In Barrie's time period, and clearly even in the time frame of this movie and the musical, this was NOT an OFFENSIVE portrayl of actual Native Americans. It was a portrayl of the fake, silly, "Ugg-uh-Wugg", "Smokum Peace Pipe" Indians of fantasy. And that, is what it continues to be. The recent attempts to make the "Brave Noble Warriors" look authentic, I find to be actually MORE offensive than ANYTHING portrayed by Jerome Robbins. In attempting to put "Authentic" Natives on the stage, it is actually playing further into the false stereo-types they are attempting to avoid. It's OBVIOUS that the Fanstasy Indians, with their leader a bright eyed blonde, wearing rediculous outfits, and singing silly lyrics such as Ugg-uh-Wugg-uh Meatball, are not intended to be a representation of ACTUAL REALITY.
To wrap this up, I will add that, when I did finally get a chance to do the show, a good distance from the Reservation grounds, the girl who played Wendy was half Native American, and lived on the Reservation. Because her mother was non-Native, both the mother and her child, this particular girl, who DID have native ancestry, were sent countless notes actually threatening their lives if they didn't leave the father, of native blood, and get off the reservation grounds. They had object thrown at their house, their car, and themselves, and fairly quickly took the hint and left. This particular girl had been an active member of the native cultural groups in the community, and was one of a very small number who was actually carrying on the native linage. Yet, by her own account, from the time of her birth, she and her mother had been harrassed. SHe was a very tough, strong, girl as a result. Yet, as strong as she was, she told me several times, of her own volition, that even she couldn't take the "natives," and they were a people of whom she said, were capable of "horrible things." But the bottom line was, she was not offended as a Native American, and said that those Natives who WERE offended were only the ones looking for a reason to fight, regardless of what it happened to be.

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PC oversensitive people etc. drive me nuts. Would our Indians rather be portrayed as bloodthirsty savages? Tiger lily is a very lovely and caring person. It is, afterall, a fantasy and characters are not supposed to be realistic. I pity the poor fools who are so busy trying to be PC that they no longer enjoy life.

The higher we raise ourselves, the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly! FN

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settle down. this was from a time where indians were taken away from their land and weren't respected as much. so settle down, bud.

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I'm native american, grew up on the reservation in Wisconsin. This Peter Pan or as my sister and I call it, "Peter Pan People" love the movie! We know that it was filmed wayyyy back and take no offense. We actually laugh at the parts when Tiger Lily comes around.

Stay Strong, Stay Proud, Stay Focused

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Of course not. Pocahontas doesn't do that either.

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Maybe they aren't really NATIVE AMERICANS- they are in Never Never Land, aren't they? I do agree that it's not correct though. It's comically incorrect.

I have a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell!

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As a child, I barely comprehended what was going on during the movie. I'm watching it now, after not seeing it in years, and I do understand everything that is going on. I never noticed, until now, that Tiger Lily wasn't a Native American. Children don't understand that "Indians" are supposed to be "red-skinned." Considering that this movie is for children and they don't care, adults should cool down and realize that this movie is simplistic and sweet--it is not supposed to be complicated by race, religion, or politics.

How long till this goes away?

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When I was a little girl, it nevr occured to me to think there was any racial reasoning behind the casting of a blonde Tiger Lily. I assumed then that she was that way to show that she was the princess and not a 'commoner' among her peers. Oh Well.

Where is it? Where is the thump thump?

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UGGA WUGGA MEATBALL!

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[deleted]

UGGA WUGGA WIGWAM!!!!!

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This video was made back in 1960, long before the existence of the political correct way of thinking that gave birth to your post. They aren't supposed to be actual "Indians", but just children playing at being Indians --thus the innocent portrayal.

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UGGA WUGGA MEATBALL!!!

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[deleted]

The OP should go smokum peacepipe!

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