Anthropology relies upon the culture concept, which is a starting point for understanding human experience regardless of subdiscipline, specialization, or theoretical orientation. A historical perspective clarifies the concept's significance and its development through changing anthropological views of the world's peoples (Whitten 202). The best example of an Anthropological film which caused major changes in the public views of America's contemporary indigenous cultures was "Smoke Signals." In the course of their travels in this film, the stern and angry Victor showed the goofy, gregarious Thomas how to live up to his heritage while Thomas forced Victor to confront his ghosts from the past. Upon their journey to collect the ashes of Victor's dad, Arnold, Thomas and Victor share stories and reflect upon their lifestyles on the reservation. This modern view of Native Americans portrayed to the public the issues and changes within the society in Native voices and from Native perspectives. Thus, this film focused upon the anthropological issues of ethnography, ethnocentrism and cultural relativism of Native Indigenous people in order to bring a new culture concept to life.
This film brings to light the importance of ethnography, which is the process of recording and describing a culture of a specific people. It focused upon the Coeur d'Alene Indian's traits, patterns, and principles of coherent integration. This ethnographic film was a firsthand observation of the central characters. Watching this film allowed for a close-up view of modern cultural data of directly observable material items, individual behaviors and performances, as well as ideas and arrangements that exist only in people's heads (321). For example, Victor's parents split up, Thomas's grandmother raised him, and they both struggled with patterning themselves after the traditional image of how to be Indian. Each modern young man had va
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