Playing with Stereotypes

In "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven," the narrator battles a lot of stereotypes of Native Americans. These include alcoholism, depression, and low achievement in school, as well as racial profiling and general dislike by other racial groups.
I think it is interesting Alexie portrays his characters--both the narrator and the unknown brother to have "drinking problems"--as this is a common stereotype of Native Americans. The narrator also demonstrates problems with anger management--breaking lamps and fighting with his girlfriend. He seems to give reason to these problems through scenes with the narrator. The narrator is one of the few high achieving Native Americans who manage to "escape" the reservation and attend college. The entire reservation has expectations for him, while simultaneously waiting for him to fail and return. Alexie plays with the alcoholism stereotype by demonstrating that the narrator has self-esteem issues and that these stem from a lifetime of segregation and oppression. By demonstrating that the reason for the alcoholism and the low achievement of Native Americans is caused by the oppression of this group, it might it shows the reader that in many situations the stereotypes are very real—and are caused by very real events. The stereotypes can be overcome—the narrator went to college—but couldn’t play basketball because of a drinking problem. Basketball was a passion, and his oppression and exclusion from society prevented his achievement in this area and ultimately in many areas.
I think by using stereotypes of Native Americans through his writing Alexie can sort of demonstrate where they came from and own them. He uses them for his own purposes through his writing. Mostly, with the scenes at the 7/11 and getting pulled over by the police, we see the racial hatred of the whites. I think in this piece, the main point of the use of stereotypes is to show the impact of the segregation and racism on the Native American groups.