Sydney R - Reservation Dogs

This show gives outsiders a glimpse of reservation life and what it means to be a Native American/Indian/Indigenous person in the 21st century.  By watching this show, I realized how wrong my expectations were and how much I do not know about reservation life and the Indigenous culture as a whole.  What I was most familiar with were the references to ancestry and the elders that the main characters interacted with in their town.  As explained by Sterlin Harjo, the William Spirit Knifeman character was an attempt to play into the stereotypes of what non-Native people think they know about Native culture.  It also emphasizes the importance of the ancestors and spiritual magic that are still prominent in Native society while also poking a bit of fun at it.  This character seems to represent the series as a whole in how he is comedic and relatable yet also very integrated into Native culture and tradition.  This is the perfect opportunity for viewers of Reservoir Dogs to "laugh with" the creators of the show and as an extension, Native people.  

My favorite part about this show is the community.  Everyone is connected in some way and they all look out for each other to some extent, even if it's through tough love.  I love Officer Big because even though he has to uphold the law to the best of his ability, he is a member of the Native community first.  The episode with Cheese going on a ride-along with Officer Big was funny to me because I think Officer Big knows that Cheese and his friends do illegal things sometimes but he was still willing to help him out and show him a promising career path.  This episode was also important because Officer Big showed Cheese that it is possible to be on both sides: the White side and the Native side.  The community aspect that is depicted in this show is uplifting because even despite their lack of resources and opportunities they still find ways to escape from that.  Both the show and the article exposed how difficult it is to live on a reservation and how the lack of resources is limiting.  It starts to become apparent that the reason why they have such a strong community bond is because none of them have been able to leave the reservation.  





Comments

  1. Catherine BolzendahlMarch 11, 2023 at 1:48 PM

    I'm struck by your last comment and would love to see you expand on it. I wonder if some of the broader social issues we've been talking about would help contextualize this? Was there anything in the reading that helped contextualize?

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