There's a tendency to view Native people as 'very serious and stoic,' says Sterlin Harjo, the co-creator of Reservation Dogs. He hopes his show gives folks permission to laugh along with them.
in Hollywood, Calif., Aug. 5, 2021.Series co-creator Sterlin Harjo attends the series premiere ofReservations Dogs
"That's how I learned to tell stories. ... You can't say that cinema is a Native American art form, but storytelling is,"Harjo says."I try to capture just a small amount of that in [is the first and only TV series where every writer, director and series regular is Indigenous. Part comedy and part drama, the FX series streaming on Hulu follows four teenagers who long to escape the dead ends they face living on a reservation.
But this is where Trail of Tears ended. This is where all of the tribes that were forcibly removed by the U.S. government were brought to Indian Territory, which is Oklahoma now. So essentially it was one giant reservation. And you go an hour in any direction in Oklahoma or 30 minutes in any direction, in Oklahoma, you're going to be in a new tribal territory, with different tribal languages on the stop signs and on signage in the town. Different cultures, different customs.