Cinematic Comanches: The Lone Ranger in the Media Borderlands by Dustin Tahmahkera (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Cinematic Comanches: The Lone Ranger in the Media Borderlands by Dustin Tahmahkera Jacob Floyd Dustin Tahmahkera. Cinematic Comanches: The Lone Ranger in the Media Borderlands. Lincoln: The University of Nebraska Press, 2022. 263 pp. Paperback, $35.00. Comanche scholar Dustin Tahmahkera's Cinematic Comanches: The Lone Ranger in the Media Borderlands explores the Disney-produced 2013 adaption of The Lone Ranger but, as he writes, it is "not a book on The Lone Ranger" (19). Instead, Tahmahkera uses the film to analyze how Comanche people, past and present, have represented themselves in media. This is a significant shift in focus because he does not "situate Comanches into a study of film," or limit his study to on-screen representation, but instead positions the film within Comanche history and media practice, exploring multiple facets of Comanche agency in the production and reception of media (19). These "cinematic Comanches" include not only filmmakers and actors but also those in other roles in the industry, and those involved in off-screen activism and criticism. Applying methods of Indigenous scholarship to film studies, this interdisciplinary and intertextual work puts The Lone Ranger, and the discourses surrounding it, into conversation with historical and popular culture narratives. The book argues for the importance of Comanche media representation by situating cinema as part of a larger history of the "textual circulation of Comanche significations," which includes captivity narratives, literature, and especially historical works (12). In every site of representation, Tahmahkera argues that Comanches exercise "representational jurisdiction," which asks "who shapes and controls the production, performance, and perception of Indigenous representations" (29). These representations exist within the "media borderlands," Tahmahkera's term that recalls the borderlands space of Greater Comanchería, and conceptualizes "intertextuality across symbolic territories, genres (e.g., western films, newspapers, blogs) and categories of cultural analysis (e.g., race, indigeneity, kinship)" (5). [End Page 86] Cinematic Comanches is effectively organized by key concepts that roughly correspond to events surrounding the film's release and screening in Comanche Nation. "Jurisdiction" explores a genealogy of "representational jurisdiction" among Comanches who have sought to represent themselves in media, moving from a 2006 PBS reality show to Tahmahkera "recrediting" his relative Quanah Parker's role in 1908's The Bank Robbery (42). In "Kinship" he contextualizes Comanche elder LaDonna Harris's adoption of Johnny Depp during the controversy surrounding his casting as Tonto through Harris's history of activism as well as histories of Comanche captive-taking. "Performance" enlarges the Comanche presence in The Lone Ranger by reading it "through the lens of intertextual Comanche citations," the images, historical events, and other movies referenced in the film (114). "Audience" analyzes three sites of critical Native dialogue about the film after its release and its place in larger debates about Native representation in media. The 2013 film is a rich subject for Tahmahkera's intertextual approach, because even before its release it was difficult to separate the movie from the discourses surrounding it. Largely a vehicle for its star Johnny Depp, it was subject to controversy regarding his casting as Tonto and his claims of Native ancestry, controversies that played out in publicity and promotion for the film, newspaper editorials, and on social media. In addition, the film was the topic of lively debates within Indian Country about revisiting the Tonto character, and Tahmahkera chronicles statements by those involved in the production attempting to reassure Native audiences that this film would be different, directly placing it into conversation with other Native (mis)representations across film history. The movie's massive budget, the reputation of its star and producers, and its penchant for recycling elements from other, older western films were also topics of discourse, and at times disdain, within the industry and among critics. What's more, The Lone Ranger is a franchise with a long multimedia history (see Avi Santo's Selling the Silver Bullet, 2015) that informed the 2013 remake, and Tahmahkera displays a deep knowledge of the Lone Ranger's media history (from the radio show to the 2013 film novelization). In chronicling these discourses, Tahmahkera deftly balances the voices of producers, actors, Native and non-Native critics, and members of the Comanche Nation, along...