"The Longe Ranger" star Johnny Depp has announced today that he wants to use his personal savings to buy the historical landmark Wounded Knee, the site of the December 1890 massacre, and give it back to the Native Americans, the Daily Mail reports.
Throughout his career, Depp has played a number of oddball characters, from the bumbling drunk Jack Sparrow to the classic character Willy Wonka, but his latest role as Tonto in "Lone Ranger" has gained some of the most criticism he's had in his career. Viewers and the media have critiqued the film for its use of a white man, Depp, in the role of a Native American wearing, the Indian Country Today Media Network calling it a "racist" portrayal and chalking that up to the film's dismal reviews and box office bombing so far.
"Without an accurate pop-culture idea of a real-life Native American in moviegoers' heads, Tonto is less of an individual character than he is a key piece of the popular image of a large and diverse population. The stereotype is particularly detrimental for its fantastical elements," pointed out Adrienne Keene of Native Appropriations.
However, it appears as though Depp wants to reverse this idea, or at the very least, try to do something positive for the Native American community. "It's very sacred ground and many atrocities were committed against the Sioux there," he said of Wounded Knee in a recent interview with Mail On Sunday.
"And in the 1970s there was a stand-off between the Feds [Federal government] and the people who should own that land. This historical land is so important to the Sioux culture and all I want to do is buy it and give it back. Why doesn't the government do that?"
Depp has spoken in depth about his research of various tribes before filming "Lone Ranger," and even gained the approval of many Natives before filming. "The main thing was, 'Are we doing right by the Indian? Let's not make any mistakes here'. The idea was to give back to them and to make sure that we got it right," he said at the time.
"The Lone Ranger" is expected to lose Disney between $150-200 million, though Depp isn't letting money get in the way of his goal to buy back Wounded Knee, as the star has plenty of his own with a networth in the $200-300 million range.
Wounded Knee's reported asking price is $3.9 million, to which Depp said he is "doing [his] best to make that happen."
"It's land they were pushed on to and then they were massacred there. It really saddens me," he told Mail On Sunday.
Click here for photos of the Wounded Knee historical site that Johnny Depp plans to purchase and give back to Native Americans.
