Foxwoods Casino is the largest and most wealthiest casino in the world. This is by no accident either. The Pequot people have carefully planned everything out in the layout of their casino even if some of it does misinterpret their culture. The Pequot people have made this decision prior to building their casino. They knew that their misrepresentations of their culture would be unknown by most people. They chose to potray their culture that of hollywood's image of native americans because it is more appealing the the 'white American'.
Some may argue that this is a bad thing because it misinterprets their culture. But they knew that this would better the outcome of their casino. Since they made it more mainstream or hollywood like it has attracted not only gamblers but tourists alike. If they chose to represent themselves as their true culture it would not have attracted near as many people because, lets be honest, most people are not history buffs and do not know a lot about Native American history or culture for that matter, and wouldn't know the difference in culture between different tribes of Native Americans.
I don't think that it is a bad representation of Pequot people from their casino because they chose to design and make it like that. I believe they were smart for doing so because it is the most successful casino in the world. Ii states that a photographer once took pictures of the Pequote people and paid them for it but made them wear leathers to create his image of the past. This image ended up making the image in other peoples heads as well. Now, I do think that this is a misrepresentation of the Pequote people's culture. This is why I think it is sad as a whole that these Pequot people represent themselves as a culture of 'hollywood idians'. It is smart theat they did so to make money but they shouldn't have to misrepresent themselves.
All in all, I dont think that it is a bad thing that the Pequot people designed their casino the way they did. However I do think it is bad that they needed to design it that way because of America's image of them. They did what they needed to do to have a successful casino and it definately worked.
1. Should the Pequot people have tried to truely represent their culture in their casino to try to change America's image about them?
2. Do you think that most Pequot people are happy that they misrepresented themselves to make their casino successful? Or do you think they are mad that their image is now ruined completely by the casino?
No comments:
Post a Comment