July 2013


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The Good, Bad and Ugly of Marketing ‘The Lone Ranger’


The Hampton Roads Messenger


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Johnny Depp arrives at the June 22 premiere of Walt Disney Pictures’ “The Lone Ranger,” which Depp produced and stars in as Tonto. The film has stirred a debate about Native representation in film and culture. Kevin Winter/Getty Images


BY AURA BOGADO “The Lone Ranger” debuts in


theaters in time for the July 4 holiday, and while Johnny Depp’s decision to play Tonto—a fictional Native sidekick to the white cowboy—has drawn attention and criticism, the film’s release means that all things Native are unusually relevant—and marketable. And that can be a good, bad, and very ugly thing, all at once.


Tonto action figures are already


being sold as “Native American warrior spirit” caricatures. The Lego Corporation is pushing its “Comanche Camp” toys. And Subway is hawking plastic soft drink containers with Tonto snapshots that guarantee the image, which is offensive to so many Natives and non-Natives alike, will live on in consumers’ kitchens for years to come. While “The Lone Ranger” film will come and go in theaters, and perhaps to be revived on DVD and in film awards, corporate promo deals will sustain the Tonto image for years to come—and will make millions off of retailing Native stereotypes while doing so.


But it’s not just corporations that


stand to make serious profit from the film. Just last week, Jezebel touted a $2,000 Lone Ranger belt created by an “actual Native American designer.” Racked, meanwhile, reported on the same designer, stating that a “Native American chief” made the accessories. A project that features Native artisans would be a great thing (notwith- standing the problematic nature of dissolving all Natives into “chiefs”). Except the artist in question, called Gabriel Good Buffalo, is not a “chief,” as Racked wrote. He’s not “Lakota Sioux,” as Jezebel wrote, either. In


fact, Gabriel Good Buffalo is not even Native. Rather, he’s a striking example of how the burgeoning market for Native appropriation and branding operates.


It might be easy to confuse Good


Buffalo for a Native. The last name he uses is not uncommon among certain Natives. And his own website features “Cheyenne War Shield Yell” and “Sioux Turtle Clan” designs. In an email, Good Buffalo claimed that Will Leather Goods, the company that originally marketed him as a “Native American chief” did so without his knowledge. He said the company had informed him it would change that on its website (as of publication, it has not, and a phone call to the company store was answered by a clerk who explained that Good Buffalo is a “prestigious Native American craftsman.”).


Individuals and companies


marketing themselves as “Native American craftsmen” often make up clans, tribes, and nations that don’t even exist—further fueling confusion. Journalist Simon Moya-Smith, who is Oglala Lakota, says he spoke with two elders; neither had heard of the “Sioux Turtle Clan” named in Good Buffalo’s marketing. One of them, Maka Black Elk, is the great grandson of Holy Man, Black Elk. Moya-Smith affirmed, “none of us have heard of a Sioux Turtle Clan, and if anyone would know, Maka would.”


What might surprise most readers


is that Good Buffalo is in apparent violation of federal law. Congress enacted the Indian Arts and Crafts Act in 1990, which allows for the prosecution of anyone who sells any good in a way that fraudulently suggests it was produced by a Native, THE LONE RANGER PAGE 11


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