The Noble Savage

This is a character who, despite being of a barbaric or savage tribe, is portrayed as highly moral and often a great deal more noble than members of the dominant race in the story. The stereotype was especially popular in the Romantic period around the early-to-mid 19^th century, when artists and authors sought to escape from the cold rationality of the Enlightenment, and thus idealized uncivilized races who, unlike the civilized Westerners, lived a simple existence in touch with nature.

While it is, at face-value, a ‘positive’ stock character that portrays members of a different race in a friendly light, this stereotype still has some unfortunate implications. The biggest problem with it is that it ‘others’ the ‘savage’, meaning that the savage character is portrayed as distinctly different as the main characters, creating an ‘us vs. them’ situation. Furthermore, such a generalized portrayal oversimplifies the foreign culture.

Due to the recent rise in recognition of the importance of racial sensitivity, this stock character is becoming more rare in popular media. There is one exception to this, and that is the science fiction genre. Here, humans may encounter aliens who fit the noble savage stereotype, as happened in James Cameron’s Avatar. Other examples include Disney’s Pocahontas or the Lakota in Dances With Wolves.