The Business of Fancydancing

I'm enjoying the film so far, but it's not exactly what I was expecting. It's serious. All the talk that we've had in class about the sense of humor of Indians, about how they keep their world together by laughing, isn't in this film as much as I thought it would be. After enjoying the boisterous trickster tales and the incisive humor in Sherman Alexie's book, I miss it. Besides that, though, one thing sticks out in my mind, the scene where Aristotle and Mouse beat up that man on the side of the road. 

There was fear in that white man's eyes when those two Indians got out of the car. He was responding the old stereotype, the one that Hollywood exaggerated and composed the Indians into a great antagonist for the white man to fight and savor victory after victory over. And Aristotle rose to the occasion because when you've been told a lie your whole life, you start believing it too. And there on the screen, Aristotle beat the living shit out of that guy. He took out all of his frustrations out on that man, a representation for all white men. He hit, kicked, punched that man for the years of repression of all Indians, and that man had no idea why he was getting beat.

Do I agree with it? No. But I understand it. A man can only be held to the fire so long before starts fighting his abuser because he's tired of getting burned.