Native Americans Take Over The Writers' Room and Tell Their Own Stories
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 11 October 2021
⏱️ 12 minutes
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Summary
Reservation Dogs from FX on Hulu was created by and stars Native people. It follows four Indigenous teenagers growing up on a reservation in rural Oklahoma, with dreams of adventuring to California. Vincent Schilling, a Native journalist and critic for Rotten Tomatoes, calls Reservation Dogs 'a show about Native American resilience.'
Rutherford Falls is a sitcom on NBC's streaming platform, Peacock, which follows a conflict over a historical statue in a small town. When the show was co-created by Sierra Teller Ornelas, she became the first Native American showrunner of television comedy. Teller Ornelas told Audie Cornish this year: "There are five Native writers on staff. We had a Native director for four of the episodes, and this is really a reflection of our shared experience as Native people from nations all over the country."
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In recent years, there's been a lot of questions about who gets to tell stories and how. |
| 0:05.8 | And reasonable people can debate the progress of that reckoning, |
| 0:09.4 | but it's fair to say indigenous people have not been a part of it. |
| 0:13.5 | Until now. |
| 0:14.5 | You're good, Dave. Best in town. |
| 0:16.3 | Oh, thank you. |
| 0:17.8 | It is a small town. |
| 0:19.2 | It's just how I like it. |
| 0:21.8 | We could be California as soon as two months. |
| 0:24.7 | California, here we come. |
| 0:26.5 | This is Reservation Dogs, a new show out this summer from FX on Hulu, created by and |
| 0:34.0 | starring Native people. |
| 0:35.9 | It follows four indigenous teenagers growing up on a reservation in rural Oklahoma with |
| 0:40.7 | dreams of adventuring to California. |
| 0:43.5 | Part of it was just kind of like, um, a little bit fearful of how Native youth could be regarded. |
| 0:52.5 | We face so much stereotype anyway. |
| 0:54.4 | So I was a little hesitant in seeing that Vincent Schilling is a native journalist and a |
| 1:00.0 | critic for Rotten Tomatoes. |
| 1:02.4 | Now while many were calling this show groundbreaking for Native representation, Schilling was apprehensive. |
| 1:09.5 | And then he actually watched the show. |
| 1:11.6 | I was blown away of the beauty and sincerity and magic of this show. |
| 1:19.5 | This is the real world of Native gangs stealing and childhood innocence brought face to face |
... |
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