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Submitted by Mary C
Generic stereotyped Native American does not like the way you treat his land!
Keep America Beautiful was established in 1953, about fifty years before environmentalism and “going green” became the cool thing all the cool kids were doing to be cool. Way cool. In addition to launching the iconic Crying Indian PSA, they also coined the term litterbug.
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sad part is, the guy who plays the Native American is acually Italian
Native American Italian Poupon your face
Iron Eyes Cody was ethnically Italian, but he lived most of his adult life until his death among Native Americans, had a Native American wife, adopted two Native American boys, and was active in Native American causes. So it wasn’t ’sad’ at all; he certainly believed in the cause he promoted in this commercial, and he believed in his lifestyle.
Still, he wasn’t a Native American. Just another poser.
and that tear was fake
Can you even understand how racist your comment was?
Iron Eyes Cody was accepted as a Native American by the Indians. As far as I’m concerned, he was a Native American.
It’s nothing new for non-Native Americans to play them in Hollywood. Most Indians in the old westerns (Bonanza, Gunsmoke, etc.) were played by Italians, Mexicans, etc. Think one of Ricardo Montalban’s first speaking roles was as an Indian. Heck, Leonard Nimoy once played one in some old western series from back then. And Asians were sometimes (often?) played by white guys. (David Carradine springs to mind–Bruce Lee was up for that role, if I remember correctly, but lost it/turned it down. Not sure which.) It’s changed in the past few years, though.
Native American Italian Poupon your face.
Oh jeesh, when I was a kid and watched these it used to make me cry!
EPIC FAIL hire a real injun!
What is sad is that it took sixty years for congress to get on board. My mother taught me to ALWAYS clean up after myself and to resect the land.
Even an Itailian-American can cry about what we do to the land.
Dunno if it’s an epic WIN, but it’s epic something or other. It has become part of our national consciousness. If someone mentions “an Indian somewhere has a tear running down his cheek”, you know the topic is littering or pollution.
LOL this was also in Wayne’s World 2 at the end.
Check out what Keep America Beautiful did with this recently – pretty dang funny! Gotta love treehuggers who can laugh at themselves!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkwXUe7DLNQ
I still see this commercial on tv occasionally…
“Keep America beautiful” were not treehuggers. It was an astroturf group linked to the packaging industry and working very subtly for its interests.
Great article on the topic:
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/3642/
im blackfoot and cherokee…it isn’t really offensive, but why does his clothing have to look like he just was in a thanksgiving day school play? it’s like a McCalls racist costume pattern.
Do yourself a favor. Don’t turn around.