On February 26, 2024, Warner Bros. released the first trailer for the first chapter of Horizon: An American Saga, a four-part movie series that revisits Civil War-era America, the setting for Kevin Costner’s 1990 blockbuster and directorial debut, “Dances with Wolves.”
It was sure…
Something.
Horizon promises to “explore the lure of the Old West and span the four years of the Civil War, from 1861 to 1865” while “attempting to discover what it truly means to be the United States of America.”
Horizon sees Costner directing for the first time since his 2003 critically acclaimed hit “Open Range,” and starring alongside an expansive ensemble cast that includes: Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington, Jena Malone, Owen Crow Shoe, Tatanka Means, Ella Hunt, Tim Guinee, Danny Huston, Colin Cunningham, Scott Haze, Tom Payne, Abbey Lee, Michael Rooker, Will Patton, Georgia MacPhail, Douglas Smith, Luke Wilson, Isabelle Fuhrman, Jamie Campbell Bower, Alejandro Edda, Wasé Winyan Chief, and more.
It’s safe to say that America has always been fascinated with Westerns, a popular genre of entertainment even BEFORE the advent of film. Before silent and talking picture shows, Americans flocked to see Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and marvel at the over-the-top reenactments of how the West was won and lost.
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show captivated audiences with its dramatized battles between cowboys and Indians, portraying a romanticized version of frontier life marked by rugged individualism while glorifying the roles of the military in taming the “Savage Indians” and lawless wilderness. This combination of romanticism and militarism in the Wild West Show not only entertained but reinforced the belief that Manifest Destiny was a righteous mission that could only be successful by eradicating the “Indian Problem.”
One hundred and forty-one years later, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show’s influence on Westerns is undeniable.
When the trailer for Horizon: An American Saga debuted, I couldn’t help but think that the montage of Western tropes in the trailer was what people imagined when looking at advertisements that declared Buffalo Bill’s Wild West shows as a “Congress of Rough Riders of the World,” a “Congress of American Indians, representing various tribes, characters, and peculiarities of the wily, dusky warriors in scenes from actual life, giving their weird war dances and picturesque style of horsemanship.”
That may seem like a harsh comparison, but it’s 2024, not 1883. The trailer for Horizon: An American Saga feels very much like a concerted effort to undermine the progress made in the way that Natives are portrayed in the media, to undermine the power we have gained to reclaim our narratives and to tell our own stories without being filtered through a lens of Whiteness.
The voiceover for the trailer didn’t help.
“These people think that if they’re tough enough, smart enough, and mean enough, all this will be theirs someday. There’s no army of this earth that’s gonna stop those wagons coming, little as they’re wanted.”
While I’m sure it was meant to echo the anti-Native and imperialistic mindset of settlers expanding West and set the tone of the film, it was also reflective of the attitudes that Native Creatives face in Hollywood.
No matter how much progress we make, there will always be White Creatives who “think they are tough enough, smart enough, and mean enough” to take from us what they want. Be it opportunity, our stories, imagery, or even identities to claim dominion over Native voices. It is worth noting that Kevin Costner claimed that his paternal grandfather was Cherokee. However, his claims are unsubstantiated. But Native Creatives already know that’s what they are contending with as they pursue their careers in the industry and still they shine.
This is evident with the success of TV shows like Reservation Dogs, Rutherford Falls, Echo, and True Detective: Night Country, all helmed by Native showrunners and talent on and off-screen. The success of movies like Prey and Killers of the Flower Moon set a high standard for non-Native creatives in how to ask for consent, collaborate with Native creatives, and give Native people agency in how their communities and nations are represented in historical and contemporary contexts.
Costner is no stranger to working with Native people, and Horizon: An American Saga has been a long time coming. Costner first commissioned Horizon in 1988 as a single film. Two years before he directed and starred in 1990’s Dances With Wolves, which was lauded at the time for revitalizing the Western genre and paving the way for films like Tombstone, Young Guns, Wyatt Earp, and Legends of the Fall, now considered to be Western classics. Dances With Wolves was one of the first films to show some restraint and respect in how Native people were portrayed; of course, it wasn’t perfect or without criticism.
But still, it’s a classic, and as Native people, we love the doors it opened for a lot of Native talent and that it was one of the first films to include authentic Native languages(though spoken very messily), but we also clown in it equal measure for the same problematic tropes found throughout the Western genre and society at large. A lot of time has passed since Dances With Wolves and Westerns faded into the background until more contemporary takes on the genre came into play.
There’s no doubt that Costner is hoping that lightning strikes twice and Horizon will do for film what Yellowstone and Yellowstone 1923 has done for television, which has renewed interest in more period-based Westerns. I’m sure he’s also hoping that, given the success of Killers of the Flower Moon on the award circuit, it will also bode well for him.
But his ambitions go beyond renewing interest in a niche genre and winning awards. Horizon is his magnum opus.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Costner says,
“So to me, Horizon was worth holding on to because I just felt like I wanted to tell it. It grew and it grew and it grew until suddenly I realized that I just had to make it, and I had to look to myself financially to do it — which is not the smartest thing. But I count on the movie speaking louder than anything I can say.”
I am hoping that also because after watching the trailer, my mind is still returning to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and a quote from Rutherford Falls, season 2, episode 5, “Adirondack.”
“Yes, Native Representation is, for the most part, a hate crime.” -Terry Thomas (Michael Greyeyes).
Because the trailer alone, YIKES. I, especially, loved the humanity and heroism afforded to the White settlers, while the Natives were literally shown as wagon burners. *insert cry face laugh emoji*
I hope Costner proves me wrong that the trailer is not at all reflective of the actual Native representation in the film because it would be an absolute shame, considering that there are so many talented Natives in the cast. But this is also why Native Creatives push so hard for authentic Native representation because our talent shouldn’t have to perpetuate the very stereotypes we fight against to pursue their passions and pay their bills.
It is time to retire the romanticization of settler-colonial narratives that further marginalize the experiences of Native peoples who suffered displacement and violence during westward expansion. It disregards the communities that still bear open wounds and scars due to that displacement, the violence, and misrepresentation as savage, one-dimensional, whitewashed caricatures of who we are as actual human beings.
As I await Horizon‘s release to do a proper critique of the Native representation, it’s essential to reflect on the legacy of the anti-Native tropes and portrayals found within the Western genre, that reinforce misguided notions of Manifest Destiny as a virtuous endeavor.
I am still holding out hope that Horizon rises above its almost comically predictable and anti-Native trailer to be something more substantial than a James Cameron Avatar knock-off using actual Cowboy and Indians instead of the less obvious Space Cowboys and Blue Space Indians.
Only time will tell. In the meantime, I highly encourage you to watch Rutherford Falls on Peacock, especially the “Adirondack” episode of season 2. You’ll thank me later!