Mixedness is often used in pop culture to create and heighten drama by having the volatility of a character’s mixedness lead to an internal and external struggles. This is often connected to the “tragic hybrid” idea of being torn between two worlds. TVTropes calls one aspect of it “Half-Breed Angst.” This sort of angst seems to be much more prevalent in fiction than in reality, based in mainstream society’s ideas about biology, race, and racial essentialism. But you can see the screenwriter’s desire to make an internal conflict external.
Clara Bow and Her Savage Comeback
Actress Clara Bow was Hollywood’s “It Girl” of the late 1920s, a terrific performer, and a sex symbol. Tragically she suffered a mental breakdown. 1932’s Call Her Savage was her comeback, and critics regard her performance very positively.
But the film’s plot has some…interesting takes on mixedness. Bow’s character Naza is wild and emotional, driven quickly to extreme rage or happiness. The film follows her tragic story, including prostitution, infant mortality, gay clubs, and physical fights between her and a woman rival. Naza’s childhood friend (and eventual love interest) is a mixed descent man with the remarkable name “Moonglow,” performed by Mexican-born American actor Gilbert Roland. Only at the end does Naza, and the audience, discover that her mixed-descent is the source of her wild emotions.
Even before the Hays code, the studio and the filmmakers clashed on how far this story could go. Film historian Angela Aleiss believes the revelation that Naza was herself of mixed descent was a careful compromise.
“Still, the studio struggled with how to explain Naza’s rather boisterous behaviour. The movie’s underlying message, they reasoned, would be that Naza is ”driven by forces within herself [that] she does not fully understand.” But the audience would know from the beginning that these forces “are attributable to the mixed blood in her veins.” Naza’s outburst and tomboyishness were more than just “savagery in the sense that she is a hellion”; they amount to “the call of blood to blood.” Thus, Naza’s Indian ancestry would dictate her behaviour and somehow explain that she is different from mainstream white America.” – Aleiss (2005).
Martin Pawley and Ethan Edwards and mixedness on the Western Frontier
In the 1956 film The Searchers, the character Martin Pawley announces himself ⅛ Cherokee which angers and disgusts John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards. Edwards has lived on the frontier, speaks Comanche, and knows their ways intimately – but as mixedblood author Louis Owens says, it has “twisted him irreparably.”
Owens suggests that the film gives us two examples of mixedness: the despicable Ethan who has adopted a certain Indianness (and certainly lower-s savagery) in his manner, and the heroic Martin who has it in his blood but not his behaviour.
Ethan: A fella could mistake you for a half-breed. [threateningly]
Martin: Not quite, I’m eighth Cherokee, the rest is Welsh and English. Least that’s what they tell me. [innocently]
Ethan shows contempt for Martin from then on. The film’s plot involves the two of them trying to rescue Martin’s sister, who has been kidnaped by the Comanche and eventually revealed to have married one of them and committed to her life there. This acculturation and the possibility of children disgusts Ethan so much that we the audience and Martin, his companion, feel he is likely to kill her to expunge the shame. He is the main character, but he is not this story’s hero.
“The Searchers is Wayne’s most profound role in what it has to say about America’s eroticized hatred of the indigenous peoples of America. In Ethan Edwards pathological fear of miscegenation we see a perverse representation of the erotics of desire that have driven white and Indian relations since John Smith invented his fantasy about a girl named Pocahontas.” Owens (1998) Pg 106
Almost all elements of mixedness, except those that are barely visible, are the sources of conflict, anguish, and fear in this film.
Science Fiction and “Torn Apart” Tropes
Science fiction and fantasy use the torn apart trope to great effect without making the character explicitly mixed-descent Indigenous. Why do that when they can make it a more broad metaphor using aliens, elves, or orcs?
One example from Star Trek should suffice, but I’ll provide two!
K’Ehleyr, a half Klingon guest character, and Deanna Troi, a half Betazoid, discussed their mixed heritage in one episode of The Next Generation. They had different perspectives.
K’Ehleyr: “My Klingon side can be terrifying, even to me.“
Deanna: “Yet it gives you strength. It’s part of you.“
K’Ehleyr: “That doesn’t mean I have to like it.“
– Star Trek: The Next Generation(“The Emissary” 1989.)
Original Star Trek featured Spock, a half Vulcan (although he frequently identified as simply Vulcan). His human side was occasionally a source of embarrassment for him, and his coworkers called it out frequently, but rarely with cruelty . His best friend Captain Kirk once used a slur against him as a secret code. Spock’s response after the crisis was over is a delight.
Spock: “Frankly, I was rather dismayed by your use of the term, “half-breed,” Captain. You must admit, it is an unsophisticated expression.” – Star Trek: The Original Series (“What are little girls made of?” 1966.)
I mention this now because it helps lead into our next and last example of this trope.
Namor in Comics and Movies
The second Black Panther film, 2022’s Wakanda Forever, introduced Namor, aka K’uk’ulkan. He was the ruler of Talokan, whose Indigenous inhabitants are descended from Mayans who had fled the horrors of colonization underwater. In the film, Namor is not ethnically mixed but instead remarkable among his people for his non-blue skin colour and ability to breath air – enabling him to walk in both worlds (an appropriate metaphor for Mixedness).
Namor was portrayed by actor Jose Tenoch Huerta, a Mexican of mixed Indigenous descent., including Nahua and Purépecha.
Comics’ Namor was created by writer-artist Bill Everett in 1939 for a comics publisher that would eventually become Marvel. Namor, the “Sub-Mariner,” was explicitly mixed, being the son of a (white) Sea Captain and a (blue) Atlantean woman.
Many fans have identified with comics Namor as a biracial man who identified with his mother’s native people and often found himself in conflict with his father’s. That being said, the “tragic half breed” trope meant that Atlantis didn’t always accept him either – something that caused an already temperamental and volatile Namor even more angst.
He certainly didn’t consider himself white as evidenced here:
Namor continued to waver between hero, anti-hero, and villain for decades. Years later, his cousin Namorita was introduced and, as a half-human, half-Atlantean had some of the same conflict.
Do you have another good example of “volatile” Indigenous blood in movies, film, or comic-books? Tell me about it in the comments!
MixedMedia is a blog series Tom is writing based on explorations of his identity as a Métis person, a mixed person, and an avid consumer of pop culture.
Sources
Aleiss, Angela “Indian Adventures and Interracial Romances”. Making the White Man’s Indian: Native Americans and Hollywood Movies. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2005.
Halfbreed Angst. (n.d.). In TVTropes. Retrieved November 7, 2025, from https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HalfBreedAngst
Halfbreed Discrimination. (n.d.). In TVTropes. Retrieved November 7, 2025, from https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HalfBreedDiscrimination
Owens, Louis. Mixedblood Messages: Literature, Film, Family, Place. University of Oklahoma Press, 1998.
Vassar, Shea “The Searchers, Part 1: What on Earth is Going on in Ethan Edward’s Head?” Medium. Retrieved Nov 7, 2025. https://justsheavassar.medium.com/the-searchers-part-1-what-on-earth-is-going-on-in-ethan-edwards-head-89b9ed2a91c5
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