Killers Of The Flower Moon Star Doesn’t See Scorsese’s Movie As A Western

Calling “Killers of the Flower Moon” a Western isn’t just a reductive way of approaching the work Martin Scorsese put in to make the film, but it also treats a real-life time period as nothing more than genre fodder. “A lot of people are really wanting to call this ‘Martin Scorsese’s Western’,” Gladstone said, but her more accurate description is calling it “a great American tragedy.” All too often, stories of Indigenous history are disregarded and “othered” compared to other moments in U.S. history, despite the fact tribes like the Osage were here long before white people arrived. “With natives and Westerns, we are so dehumanized that it just kind of feels like we’re part of the landscape,” said Gladstone, “Instead of humans that are telling a story.”

There is a direct correlation between the popularity of Western films, TV series, and live Wild West shows and the general U.S. public’s stereotypical views of Native people. The offensive portrayals birthed an implicit, negative bias in America’s white supremacist society, and the overwhelming majority of U.S. citizens’ only knowledge of Indigenous people’s culture is from the entertainment industry. “Killers of the Flower Moon” doesn’t seem to be interested in fulfilling harmful genre tropes and is instead looking to tell a true historical story with accuracy, sensitivity, and an understanding of the importance of doing right by the Osage Nation.

There will be no Buffalo Bill Wild West show antics here, and certainly no John Wayne nonsense either.

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