Abstract
Turner’s chapter problematizes the casting of Johnny Depp as Tonto in the 2013 remake of The Lone Ranger by reading that choice through a colorblind ideology that enables whitewashed casting and rewards the commodification of Native American culture. Despite being made an honorary member of the Comanche nation due to the cultural sensitivity Depp supposedly brought to his role as Tonto, the casting of Depp and the historical inaccuracies that run rampant throughout the film underscore the exploitability of all things “Native” in popular culture regardless of their relation to history or reality.
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Turner, S.E. (2019). Tonto and The Lone Ranger: Nostalgic Kitsch or Post-racial Backlash?. In: Turner, S., Nilsen, S. (eds) The Myth of Colorblindness. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17447-7_11
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