It turns out, however, that the man with the beads and feathers isn’t the kind of brave or formidable native hero long romanticized in Hollywood. The unknown warrior instead left this earth in a very anticlimactic way – his horse tripped over a gopher lair and crushed him before the battle had even begun.
“The spirit world is cold,” he tells Bear. “My nipples are always hard.”
It’s a very clever and funny scene, one that turns the weary trope of the native warrior on its head. It winks at Native viewers in the audience, who are all too used to seeing stereotypical portraits of their people on screen. And it mocks those who still think of Indigenous people as relics of the past, as if to say, “Come on…really?”
“It pranks non-natives and says, ‘Hey, this is what you think we look like and we’ll make you laugh at it with us,'” Sterlin Harjo, a Seminole and Muscogee filmmaker who wrote “Reservation Dogs” with Taika Waititi, told NewsMadura. “‘But it’s crazy that you think we still dress like that.'”
That ironic humor is just one of the elements that makes “Reservation Dogs,” the FX series that premiered on Hulu last week, so refreshing. It’s also one of two comedies currently on TV about Native Americans, by Native Americans — “Rutherford Falls,” the sitcom that premiered on Peacock earlier this year, has also attracted attention for its layered characters, culturally specific stories and wonderful humor.
It shouldn’t be so remarkable to see indigenous people living their lives and having fun on TV, say the people in the industry. But if you look at the landscape of Indigenous representation on screen before this year, the two shows are nothing short of revolutionary.
They show native characters as multidimensional
Before “Reservation Dogs” and “Rutherford Falls,” Native people really made an appearance on screen only when “they were shot by John Wayne or gave mystical advice to a white person,” comedian Joey Clift said. Often the actors who played Native People were not even Native themselves.
What’s different about “Reservation Dogs” and “Rutherford Falls” is that they show Native Americans as multidimensional and existing in the modern era. And instead of having one or two indigenous characters, they depict entire communities of indigenous peoples.
“It’s really a breath of fresh air for Indigenous representation,” Clift, a member of the Cowlitz tribe, told NewsMadura.
‘Reservation Dogs’ revolves around four rebellious native teens in rural Oklahoma who long to escape to seemingly greener California pastures. Along the way, they steal a chip truck, sell meat patties outside an Indian health service clinic, and get into a fight with a rival crew.
“Rutherford Falls” doesn’t focus entirely on Indigenous people, but they feature in the show in a big way.
The series follows a pair of lifelong friends — Nathan Rutherford, who is White, and Reagan Wells, who is a member of the fictional Minishonka Nation — whose relationship is tested when their small town tries to remove a statue of Nathan. ancestor. While Nathan works to preserve the statue, he comes into conflict with one of the leaders of Reagan’s tribe. The series was recently renewed for another season.
Sierra Teller Ornelas, a Navajo and Mexican-American showrunner, told NewsMadura that when her co-creators Ed Helms and Michael Schur first approached her about the idea that would eventually become “Rutherford Falls,” she knew she wanted the show to be. as many native characters as possible. She wanted to capture the diversity and range of experiences that being indigenous can encompass. She did, bringing across native writers from different backgrounds, tribal lands, and regions of the country.
“That led not only to more authentic stories, but also to better stories and funnier ideas,” she said.
They have authentic and specific stories
In the second episode of ‘Reservation Dogs’, the character Elora ends up in the Indian Health Service’s clinic for a stomachache she got from eating too many warm chips. there, she meet a sarcastic receptionist who can’t help but respond to her with withering looks and biting comebacks.
Crystal Echo-Hawk, a member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma and president and CEO of IllumiNative, said she and her daughter cried with laughter as they watched the scene — it was just so familiar. When her daughter was younger, she also had to go to the doctor once because she had eaten too many hot fries.
For other Indigenous people to see themselves reflected in small ways like this is huge, Echo-Hawk said.
“We’ve been told for too long that our stories are too specific to our community and that no one can catch us if we’re not in leather and feathers,” she added. “‘Rutherford Falls’ and ‘Reservation Dogs’ have completely turned that myth around, because clearly Americans of all backgrounds like these stories.”
“We’re not holding anyone’s hand in this experience,” Harjo said. “We’ll drop you off in the middle of an Indigenous community – and that’s risky.”
They capture native joy
“Reservation Dogs” and “Rutherford Falls” don’t completely ignore the challenges in Indian Country, but they don’t dwell on them too much either.
Instead, the focus here is on native joy.
“Humor was part of our survival,” Harjo added. “To see it not reflected on the screen forever was really strange.”
The characters in the shows have dreams, ambitions and romantic interests. They are going to get into mischief and make jokes at each other’s expense. Simply put, they can be.
After a pandemic that hit indigenous people especially hard, Ornelas said, that joy is a welcome relief.
“It was just an amazing experience to see that native joy and feel like we helped create that on the show,” she said.
With the success of “Reservation Dogs” and “Rutherford Falls,” there may have never been such an exciting time for Native American representation on TV. The two shows have laid a foundation for what authentic, nuanced depictions of Indigenous people can look like, and have shown that there is an interest in those stories, too.
There are already more indigenous stories to look forward to: ‘Spirit Rangers’, an animated series about three siblings who can turn into animal spirits to protect their national parks, and ‘Rez Ball’, a coming of age movie about a Navajo high school basketball team. Both are made for Netflix.
That momentum is, many say, a sign of bigger and better things to come.
