Popular film stereotypes of Native Americans infer negative beliefs and prejudices about these people as groups not as individuals. Films often serve as handbooks of social behavior. They introduce many audiences to people, places and events that they would otherwise never know. Therefore, films often establish basic identity of those people, places or events. Ethnic groups themselves often choose misrepresentations as a strategy to draw attention to achievements or goals.
Historians often argue against how films distort the past.
Using non-fictional written documents and comparing them to films with historical events or people represented, historians and even the average viewer can prove misrepresentations. The entire population, Native American and non-Native American, is affected by the misrepresentation of Native Americans in film. The film industry avails itself to portray these representations of the Native American. Films have distorted, represented, misrepresented almost every ethnic and religious group. The Native American seems to be suspended in time.