Bob Haozous, Euro American Culture Zombie: Cher

Euro American Culture Zombie: Cher (2013)
Mixed Media on Paper
Bob Haozous (Chiricahua Apache)

Bob Haozous’s Euro American Culture Zombie: Cher (2013) is a sharp, satirical, and deeply incisive meditation on cultural appropriation and the persistent allure of manufactured Indigeneity in mainstream American culture. Known for confronting uncomfortable truths with wit, clarity, and disarming visual impact, Haozous uses this mixed media work to unravel how celebrities, institutions, and everyday individuals adopt Native American identities for personal gain regardless of their lived connection to Indigenous communities.

The work centers on a stylized portrait of Cher, whose long public history of performing “Native” identity and wearing pan-Indian regalia becomes a focal point for Haozous’s critique. Known for songs like “Half-Breed,” the singer and actor is not Native; her mother claimed Cherokee heritage but no ties are known. In Haozous’ image, Cher’s bright blue eyes, immaculate makeup, and perfectly coiffed hair are juxtaposed against the blunt stenciled text EURO AMERICAN CULTURE ZOMBIE, a phrase that reads as both diagnosis and warning. Haozous positions the figure as a cultural construct—vacant, animated by borrowed aesthetics, and fed by the consumption of Indigenous imagery rather than by lived experience or community accountability.

Beneath the portrait’s polished surface, Haozous incorporates patterned lines, repeated motifs, and collaged commercial ephemera, visually suggesting the layers of commodification that have obscured authentic Indigenous presence. A single red teardrop beneath the figure’s eye disrupts the otherwise cheerful expression, hinting at the violence, erasure, and emotional toll that cultural appropriation inflicts on Native peoples. The artist’s characteristic use of irony becomes a tool for revealing hard truths: that the fascination with “Indianness” in American culture often strips living Native nations of voice, replacing them with caricatures designed for entertainment, branding, or personal mythmaking.

Born in 1943 and internationally recognized for his fearless engagement with issues of identity, environmental justice, and institutional racism, Bob Haozous (Chiricahua Apache) has long challenged the narratives imposed on Indigenous communities. Euro American Culture Zombie: Cher continues this trajectory by questioning who benefits from claiming Native identity, and at what cost. It is both a critique of celebrity culture and a broader indictment of a society eager to consume Indigenous culture while ignoring Indigenous realities.

Through humor, bold imagery, and an unflinching conceptual lens, Haozous invites viewers to look closely not only at the figure but at the cultural systems that made such a figure possible.