Reservation Dogs starts with a bang. The Muscogee radio DJ plays a song (we assume he is Muscogee because he says a long, drawn out “Mvto,” meaning “thank you” in Muscogee). We hear “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” a raucous, feral song by The Stooges. To viewers who aren’t Indigenous, I’m sure the dissonance is confusing as heck. I’m talking cultural dissonance, not the music itself. This isn’t spiritual flute music—what’s going on? But this is the point. Taika Waititi and Sterlin Harjo’s first episode of FX’s Reservation Dogs throws you without warning into the Indigenous waters of the Muscogee reservation in rural Oklahoma, and they fully expect you to sink or swim. You will swim, of course, not because your life depends on it, but because you want to see what comes next. For far too long, Indigeneity in media representation—that’s to say, actual representation that isn’t through the lens of a white man, at least in this country—has been missing. There have been countless shows and films that reference Indigeneity, but it’s all been a conduit for the showrunners, the writers, and the directors, who were non-Native but wanted to somehow use or reference Indigenous culture to further their ends and their stories. I get it—we are interesting! In fact, over the last three decades or so, there have been some strides and good intentions. Most recently, writer/director Taylor Sheridan comes to mind; in 2016, his script for Hell or High Water was sharp, though it did manage… Click below to read the full story from Esquire
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‘Reservation Dogs’ Is Just the Beginning of an Indigenous Storytelling Explosion
