Dances with Wolves

Movie "Dances with Wolves" is a movie about an Union Army Officer, Lieutenant John J. Dunbar, who requested to be promote to the frontier post, which is an Indian country, and his lifestyle in the frontier post, where he make friends with the wolves and Indians, and to the extent that change his viewpoint of being White man.

This movie is about racism too in the 1860s, which talks about the prejudice that the U.S people have in the Indians. For me, John Dunbar is an open minded person, because in the movie, he was different with other U.S army, he was willing to communicate with the Indians, share things with them, fight for them too. And on the other hand, I think that "Kicking Bird" is also a wise man, because of his patient and open minded too, he first try to approach John Dunbar, where everyone of the Indians were actually opposed it.

In this movie, I learn that individuals can actually change their perspectives to a group that they had prejudice before if they try to understand their culture and values. When the time goes by, John Dunbar actually adopted the Indians culture and understand them, although in the beginning he cannot really understand it. For example, when one scene, where the Pawnies loses the battle with the Indians, and the Indians took down one of the Pawnies in the river, John Dunbar said this word in his mind that the Indians did not fight for territory or make men free, but fight for to preserve the food stores and protect the lives of their loved ones, and it made John Dunbar decided to look it in a new way and he felt pride in himself in this battle. Plus, when become friends to the Indians, John Dunbar realized that many of the negative thoughts of Indians that he were told was not true, it also means that many White man have negative prejudice to the Indians. And so as the Indians too.

In this movie, I found that "Wind of His Hair" is quite an interesting character too. Although in the beginning of the movie he was strongly object the idea of approaching John Dunbar, because he hate the White man and said that they do not know how to shoot, how to ride and they are dirty. But after few times of interaction with John Dunbar and food sharing, and even shirt trading, he began to change his perspective as well. He did not act so friendly with John Dunbar, but his initial heart is quite a warm person and express his friendship love to John Dunbar differently. In the last scene, he went up to the hill and shout out loud to John Dunbar that he will be his best friend forever while doing the last farewell to John Dunbar. It is quite a touching scene and showed another kind of expression too.

Moreover, cannot miss this scene is that I think that most of the Whites and even the audiences who watched this movie in the beginning will form a negative prejudice to the Indians first, because they mistaken that the Pawnies are the Indians due to their similar appearances. In my case, I actually did mistaken the Pawnies are the Indians because in the beginning of the movie, showed three Indian guys (who is actually Pawnies) killed Timmon, the guy who took John Dunbar to the frontier, in a very crucial way. At that time, I was thinking why these Indians are so cruel, they killed the Whites and stole their property too. But after watching the movie until the end, I only managed to understand that the Pawnies are the bad ones, and the Indians, which is Sioux, are the kind ones.

Finally in conclusion, I think that to understand one's culture and values is very important before having any negative thoughts on others. Even if is from the same race and ethnicity, there always have good and bad ones inside. So for the other minority races, they also have good and bad ones too.  As in Malaysia context, I remember I was kind of prejudice too, towards the Malay and Indians. But after having friends who are Malays and Indians, my perspectives actually changed and understand that everyone is the same, regardless their skin color. Therefore, do not judge one person by their appearance is what I have learned in this movie, and also try to understand them as well.