Reservoir dogs meme series#

Fortunately, he had someone he could call: Sierra Teller Ornelas, who oversees “Rutherford Falls.” That series, which she created with Michael Schur (“The Good Place,” “Parks and Recreation”) and Ed Helms (“The Office”), made her TV’s first ever Native American showrunner. “I didn’t even know what a showrunner was,” he said with a laugh. and say, ‘I’m going to be an actor.’ So you have to find those people.”įX made Harjo, who had directed independent films and created comedy videos with the 1491s, the showrunner. “But we are the descendants of people who survived genocide, forced removal and displacement, so we don’t leave home as easily as others. “Our communities are filled with amazing talented people,” he said. He said that in the past he had projects killed because the white executives did not believe he could find enough Native talent to make it happen. “I can’t remember who was Bowie or Freddie, but it was a hit, obviously.”Įven with Waititi’s clout, Harjo was surprised how quickly it sold. “At some point we ended up singing ‘Under Pressure’ together,” he said. Despite the hardships they faced, Harjo said that their conversations about the past didn’t dwell on the negative but instead revolved around sharing funny stories and the occasional classic rock cover. They bonded over growing up in Indigenous households. Harjo and Waititi come from opposite sides of the world - Harjo from Holdenville, Okla., (he now lives in Tulsa) and Waititi from New Zealand - but they were friends for years before creating “Reservation Dogs,” having been introduced by Bird Runningwater, the director of Sundance Institute’s Native American and Indigenous Program. Woon-A-Tai, 19, chimed in: “When I saw that amount of Indigenous influence behind the scenes, I knew it would be a game changer.” Sitting in an outdoor space on the roof of a Battery Park City hotel in June, she, Woon-A-Tai and their co-stars Lane Factor and Devery Jacobs seemed excited to talk to a reporter about the show. “‘A show about natives, made by natives?’” “I said, ‘Hold on, am I reading this right?’” said Paulina Alexis, 20, who plays Bear’s sardonic friend, Willie Jack, about her surprise at first reading the script.

Reservoir dogs meme series#

It joins the Peacock sitcom “Rutherford Falls” as one of two new series this year to have a Native American creator and to rely heavily on Native writers, directors, stars, composers, artists and production designers - quite a change, Harjo said, from the world in which he grew up. “Reservation Dogs” is also a first of its kind: The first television show with an entirely Indigenous writer’s room and roster of directors. Waititi added: “We’re tired of seeing ourselves out there wandering through forests talking to ghosts, putting our hands on trees and talking to the wind as if we have all the answers because of our relationship with nature. Native Americans grow up on pop culture - it’s how we learn what rest of the world is up to.” “We’re teasing the audience using the history of cinema. “We are making fun of non-Native audiences’ expectations while acknowledging aspects of that part of Native culture,” said Harjo, 41, a founding member of the Native American comedy troupe The 1491s. (The title, as well as a sequence in the pilot, is a reference to Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs.”)

Thank the sensibilities of its creators, Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi (“Jojo Rabbit”), both of whom have deep roots in their respective Indigenous cultures and a keen satirical eye for both the hypocrisies and the pleasures of mainstream entertainment. But as the paintball scene helps establish early, the series forgoes the usual reductive clichés about reservation life - the show is neither pitying, nor mysticizing - in favor of a nuanced and comic realism. Debuting Monday on FX on Hulu, “Reservation Dogs” is an often gritty, often dark look at life on a modern-day Native American reservation as the Dogs engage in small-time criminality, try to keep the bullies at bay and dream of escaping to a wider world.