In 2002, the Hollywood film Windtalkers brought the Navajo Code Talker story to a mass audience that had not previously encountered it.

The film starred Nicolas Cage as a Marine whose assignment was to protect a Navajo Code Talker — a story structure that made the white Marine the protagonist and the Code Talker a character whose significance was filtered through another man’s experience.

The film was commercially successful and drew attention to the Code Talker story from audiences who had not been aware of it.

For that, some advocates of Code Talker recognition acknowledged it with qualified appreciation.

But the film also drew criticism for several reasons.

Its framing placed a fictional white protagonist at the center of a story that was fundamentally about Navajo men and their service.