"Smoke Signals"

"Smoke Signals" contained many references of Native Americans being conquered by the Europeans. The movie is a reflection still of the damage that was caused so many decades before. The stereotypes are countless and shape their characters realities. The lives of these two boys were shaped by the incident that left Thomas an orphan. Arnold was tainted by the smoke, swallowed by it. Reservations have become a demise to the Indian life and culture. It has destroyed their dignities, making many of them alcoholics, without jobs or education, and living under poor conditions. The smoke and fire is prevalent in the film, an alliteration to the traditions that were carried on by Native Americans, their chants and dances around fires. Arnold Joseph and Victor both cut their hairs like a traditional endeavor that the performed, like cutting hair somehow enlightened them, move them past something.

 Arnold killed Thomas' parents in that fire because he was drunk, but saved Thomas as a way to make up for his mistake, one that he would always live with, and a secret that tortured him until his death. Oral traditions such as story telling were a big part of the Indian community and Thomas carried on that tradition in a very magical way. " You know how Indians feel about signing papers," Victor's mother made of joke of an important element in their history, which was the treaty that they signed with the Europeans, but at the end did not amount to anything.

"Father and son"  is a theme explored as well. Arnold abandoned his son and in an argument with Victor, Thomas accused Victor of abandoning his mother mentally in a very different way, " you're there, but you're not really there." It seemed like all those years Victor had been as absent or more as Arnold. When he left in that pick-up truck Thomas left as well. When Arnold died, Victor inherited his truck. While his father ruined many lives, his son helped save on the night of the crash, by running 20 miles for help, it was in a way how he redeemed his fathers errors. Victor had to forgive his father and let go of all the anger he had towards him.

There was also a very important reference when they were playing basketball with the Christians, this is metaphorically the battle of the Native Americans against Christianity. Arnold said his son made the winning shot, but he hadn't and they had lost, just like they had lost to the Christians. They lost that battle. Thelma and Lucy represented how their culture was backwards, it was reversed in a very awful way.Their own names are European, they have been assimilated and converted, robbed of their identities.Victor says that "everything burns up" and fire is very present in the film, from the house burning at the beginning, to Susie burning the trailer at the end. Their lives have burned. The title "Smoke Signals" signify that lost and desertion, signalling the fire or the trouble that it leads or the peace it brings, because at the end, when the trailer was burning it was like a release of all the negative Arnold had done in the past.