Sterlin Harjo says ‘Reservation Dogs’ gives audiences permission to laugh

Harjo was recently named a 2024 MacArthur Fellow. His TV show
focused on group of teenagers living on a Native reservation in rural Oklahoma.
TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I’m Tonya Mosley. Sterlin Harjo, the filmmaker, writer, director and co-creator of the hit TV series “Reservation Dogs,” is a recipient of the 2024 MacArthur Fellowship, better known as the Genius Award. Harjo co-created “Reservation Dogs” with New Zealand director Taika Waititi. “Reservation Dogs” is part comedy, part drama, about teenagers on an Indian reservation in Oklahoma who want to break away from the reservation and all the dead ends it represents, also finding reasons to stay. The characters face generational differences and the confusion of growing up between traditional and pop culture, the spirit world and rap music. The series shows the importance of Native traditions, while mocking how tradition can be turned into sanctimonious pop culture cliches.
Harjo belongs to the Seminole and Muskogee Nations, and he’s made several independent films and documentaries about Natives in Oklahoma, where he lives. In 2023, “Reservation Dogs” was awarded the prestigious Peabody Award and ended after three seasons. It’s still available to stream on Hulu. Terry Gross spoke with Harjo in 2022. They begin with a scene from the first season. One of the teenagers, named Bear, has been planning to leave the reservation with his friends and start a new life in California. He’s just been knocked down after being hit with paint balls by a rival group of teens. And when he opens his eyes, he sees an Indian warrior from the spirit world mounted on a horse and dressed in the kind of traditional warrior clothes you’d expect to see in a Western. It’s a funny scene. The advice the Spirit gives at the end is pretty good. Bear is played by D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, and the Spirit is played by Dallas Goldtooth.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “RESERVATION DOGS”)
DALLAS GOLDTOOTH: (As Spirit) Aho, young warrior – looks as though you’ve tasted the white man’s lead.
D’PHARAOH WOON-A-TAI: (As Bear Smallhill) It’s only paintballs.
GOLDTOOTH: (As Spirit) I have had many brothers and sisters meet the same fate in my time.
WOON-A-TAI: (As Bear Smallhill) Are you Crazy Horse or Sitting…
GOLDTOOTH: (As Spirit) No, no, no. I’m not one of those awesome guys. No. I’m more of your unknown warrior. Yeah. You know my name? William Knife-Man. (Vocalizing). I was at the Battle of Little Bighorn. That’s right. Now, I didn’t kill anybody, but I fought bravely. Well, I didn’t actually fight. I actually didn’t even get into the fight itself. But I came over that hill real rugged-like. (Vocalizing). I saw Custer like that. That yellow hair – he was sitting there. Son of the morning star, that guy right there – I really hated him. So I went after him. But then, the damn horse hit a gopher hole, rolled over and squashed me. I died there. This horse, actually – little [expletive]. And now I’m meant to travel the spirit world, find lost souls like you. The spirit world, it’s cold. My nipples are always hard. I’m always hungry.
WOON-A-TAI: (As Bear Smallhill) Got it.
GOLDTOOTH: (As Spirit) Being a warrior, it’s not always easy. You and your thuggy-a** friends – what are you doing for your people? It’s easy to be bad. But it’s hard to be a warrior with dignity. Remember that. In my time, we gave everything. We died for our people. We died for our land. What are you going to do? What are you going to fight for? (Vocalizing). I’m just [expletive] with you. But for real though, listen to what I said. Marinate on it. Aho.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
TERRY GROSS: I love that scene so much, and I love the series. Sterlin Harjo, welcome to FRESH AIR, and thank you for “Reservation Dogs.” Can you talk a little bit about…
STERLIN HARJO: Thank you.
GROSS: …Coming up with a way to both satirize pop culture images of Indians and also just, like, come up with really comedic Indian characters, but also to create a sense of understanding of the importance of traditions? It’s a lot to do all at once.
HARJO: Yeah. Real quick, Terry – so I’m a big fan. I remember being in college, driving around, listening to your show. And I was – like, I think I made – or I was, like, attempting to write a film, I believe. And I remember thinking to myself, I’ll know I made it when I get on FRESH AIR with Terry Gross. (Laughter). So thanks for making my dreams come true today.
GROSS: Oh, thank you so much for that. You made my day.
HARJO: (Laughter) Yeah. But, yeah, you know, I think that that character in that scene is crucial. And I think, you know, most of the time people are very precious with Native people and, like, you know, you don’t – this is no laughing matter. And, you know, this is very serious and stoic. And that’s kind of how, you know, the world is trained to view us. And we realized, like, we need to bake in in this show, like, permission to laugh with us. And I think that that Spirit character – he comes in at this moment in the pilot – and it’s like if I ask most people in the world, draw a Native American, that’s what they would draw. They would draw an Indian that was dressed in buckskins from the 1800s. They wouldn’t draw me. They wouldn’t draw any of the characters on the show.
So it was almost like giving people some familiar territory and then turning it on its head. And it allows the audience to say, OK, isn’t this funny? Like, we still think that Native people are like this. And, yeah, in history, you know, some of us were like that. But isn’t it ridiculous that we still think that they are? And so it gives people permission to laugh. I think it sort of welcomes them into Native humor and allows you to kind of get your footing as you watch the rest of the show.
GROSS: While we’re on the subject of permission…
HARJO: Yeah.
GROSS: …I had asked you before we started, like, what word do you like to use? Do you like to use Indian, Native American, Indigenous? And the term that you don’t want to use is Native American. But some people say that, you know, as a white person, like, white people shouldn’t use the word Indian. So before everybody kind of gets annoyed with me or I get annoyed with myself or you get annoyed with me…
HARJO: Right. Right.
GROSS: …Just help me out here. Like, what works?
HARJO: For me – I mean, look. I grew up – my grandma said Indian, so I’m not here to change what my grandma said. And it’s what I know. I’m sorry that Christopher Columbus got it wrong.
GROSS: (Laughter).
HARJO: But that’s what we call ourselves, you know? And, like, we also – I also say Native, and I say Indigenous. Just depending on where I’m at and who I’m talking to, I will – those are all interchangeable to me.
GROSS: So…
HARJO: And Native American is just a mouthful. You know, I don’t want to have to sit around and – it just – you know, it wastes time.
GROSS: All right. So the series is called “Reservation Dogs,” an homage to “Reservoir Dogs,” Quentin Tarantino’s film. What did that film mean to you – and the sensibility that he created in it, which was really something new?
HARJO: So it came out when I was in college, and it was right as I discovered that I could be a filmmaker. And, you know, there’s something about Tarantino’s love for cinema. It’s like – that’s the same thing as growing up as a Native kid in rural Oklahoma. I – you know, my father had a friend who worked for the cable company, and that’s the only way that we got cable. So I was able to watch movies for free ’cause his friend hooked us up with a cable box that allowed us to watch HBO and Showtime. So I was a – you know, I just became immersed in, like – in movies and pop culture. MTV was out at the time. And I don’t know. Like, I think that when you’re from a rural community, you know, that’s kind of how you live your life. You almost, like, live your life through movies and through pop culture. And it just felt like the right – I mean, first of all, it’s a catchy title. I’m not going to lie, but Taika and I came up with that. But, like…
GROSS: Absolutely, yeah.
HARJO: And then it was, well, if we’re going to have this show where these kids are living through and constantly referencing pop culture, like, we have to tip our hat to the master of that.
GROSS: When you were growing up, were you growing up, like, on the reservation or near the reservation?
HARJO: Yeah, well, right now, there are – like, right now, I live on the Muscogee Reservation, which is part of Tulsa. Through a lot of complicated government policy and interactions with tribal governments that I can’t go into because it’d be another show, it was not identified as a reservation before, but it is now. But if you look at Oklahoma, it used to be Indian territory, which was essentially one big reservation. You know, and then, of course, oil and the land run and other things disrupted that. But this is where Trail of Tears ended. This is where – all of the tribes that were forcibly removed by the U.S. government, we were brought to Indian territory, which is Oklahoma now.
So essentially, it was one giant reservation. And, you know, 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 culture, different customs. And I think there’s something like 38 tribes here. So you grow up different when you’re in Oklahoma as a Native kid. You know, like, I didn’t feel different, actually. Like, people know Native culture, people know who Native people are and it’s a very diverse state. I mean, I think that not a lot of people know about Oklahoma and the diversity here. And I don’t know – it was something that I wanted to celebrate in the show, you know, growing up in Indian territory, Oklahoma.
GROSS: You know, in talking about the influence of pop culture on the characters, on the young characters in your show – on some of the older characters, too – the younger characters are so influenced by Black pop culture, by rap, their style of speaking. I found that very interesting. And I’m wondering if there were many Black people where you were growing up.
HARJO: Yeah, for sure. I mean, it was, you know, mainly made up of white, Native and Black people. And all of those cultures mix and collide and, you know, come together. You know, the people in the show, they’re not acting those accents. You know, that’s where they come from, and that’s how they talk. And, you know, as far as, like, rap being an influence on the culture – I don’t know – I think, like, coming of age as rap was, you know, reaching the height of popularity in rural Oklahoma, and being a Native kid, we gravitated towards it. It gave Native kids a culture and an identity that they could grab a hold of. At a time where our own identity was a bit lost and our own identity was less celebrated, we could grab ahold of hip-hop, and that became something that we could identify with.
MOSLEY: Sterlin Harjo speaking with Terry Gross in 2022. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF MATO WAYUHI SONG, “REZ DOGS THEME”)
MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. Let’s get back to Terry’s 2022 interview with Sterlin Harjo, the cocreator of the hit TV series “Reservation Dogs.” This year, he was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship – better known as the Genius Award.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
GROSS: So in the series, you know, dead loved ones return as ghosts. What are your experiences with keeping up a relationship with, you know, family, friends who have died and you want to keep in your life? Were you brought up with the idea that they are still spirits or ghosts?
HARJO: You know, I think that part of growing up with Muscogee and Seminole culture is death is such a part of our experience. You know, it’s very community driven. You know, your cousins are like your brothers and sisters. Your aunts are your extended parents. And, you know, you’re close to your elders. And everyone’s, you know, a part of this tight community. And I was constantly at funerals. Someone was always passing away. And that is the big mystery and the big confusion, I think, for most people is, like, wow, like, they’re gone, you know? And in the culture, you know, you’re taught that they’re not gone and that you can still speak to them and talk to them. And, you know, there’s ghost stories and things like that.
But I just grew up with this sense of magic. And there’s a sense of, like, we can communicate, we can reach people in other places. And there’s ceremonies for it, and there’s different things. But I don’t know – it’s something that I’m fascinated with, and I explore it as much as I can through my work. I mean, all of my films deal with death in some way. And if you look at Season 2, I mean, there’s an episode that aired called “Mabel” that is about the character Elora Danan’s grandmother passing away.
And it’s a whole episode about her dying. And they’re all at the house. And I wrote it with the actress who plays Elora Danan, Devery Jacobs. And it’s based on my grandma passing away. And, like, the whole community came together. We were all there. The family was there every day, every night. We were with her. And people would come in and sing songs. And funny things were happening outside and sad things and everything. Life was happening in this one house, and that’s what I try to show in this episode.
GROSS: So the teenagers in your TV series, they want to leave the reservation. And two of them actually get out and go to California, end up coming back. What about you? Did you want to, like, get away? – ’cause I know you’re living back in Oklahoma, in Tulsa, and I know you went to college in Oklahoma. So did you feel this push and pull between leaving and staying?
HARJO: Yeah. I mean, like, you know, like a lot of people, I wanted to leave, and art was kind of exploding for me. Like, I always wanted to be an artist. And when I got to college, I was kind of blown away with literature I’d never read and, like, music I’d never heard coming from rural Oklahoma. And I just, like – it just kind of expanded my worldview, and I wanted to get out, and I wanted to travel. And then I did. I traveled, and I, you know, went to Oregon and different places – New York.
And what I came to realize – my grandma actually wrote me a letter while I was living in Oregon. And in the letter, it said, someday, you should come back home and write about these Indian churches around here. And something about that – I was just getting into the idea of writing movies at that time, and something about that sentence that she wrote me just clicked. And at that point, I’d been missing it. And it is special, and I was really realizing how special it is.
And I was like, you know, that – when my grandma wrote me that, I was like, wow. No one knows about where I’m from. No one knows about the people that I come from. You know, I moved back home. And I just – like, it took me to leave to realize what I had at home and how unique it is and how much kept secret it is, you know? Like, it’s such an interesting community that I come from. And I wanted to be back.
GROSS: Can you tell us something about your parents?
HARJO: Yeah. My parents – my dad roofed houses when I was young.
GROSS: Oh. Oh, ’cause one of your main characters learns to be a roofer and then bonds with one of the people teaching him how.
HARJO: Right. And I’d never seen that on TV, you know, or movies – something that took place on a roof like that. And, like, it was such a part of – my uncles were roofers, my dad. My dad also taught martial arts since I was 5.
GROSS: Did you learn how to fight?
HARJO: I did. I was a competitive fighter growing up from the age of 4. I think there’s a video of my first fight. My dad still teaches martial arts to this day in rural Oklahoma. And my mom worked for the tribe when I was young, for the Seminole Nation, and then worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
GROSS: Doing what?
HARJO: When she worked – she was a secretary for the chief of the Seminole Nation when I was young. You know, now what she does with the Bureau of Indian Affairs is she kind of oversees – like, there was so much, like, crookedness done towards Native people and land ownership and mineral right ownership. There’s all of this record and things that have gone on since then, and my mom works in helping people kind of trying to figure out if there’s land they own that they didn’t know they owned or mineral rights.
GROSS: She must be so proud of you.
HARJO: Oh, man. My parents are so overjoyed about the show. My dad said something to me the other day. After the first season came out, my dad one day said to me – he said, you know, you gave Native people a reason to hold their head up. He’s like, this show has given people – Native people a reason to hold their head up a little higher. And, I mean, like, you know, to hear my dad say that is – like, that’s better than any Emmy that I could get.
And just to also see the amount of people that love this show, especially in my community ’cause that’s who I made it for – you know, I’m glad everyone loves it. But I made it for my community, Native people. And, you know, every year at Halloween, there’s people that dress up in these, like, fake, dime-store Indian clothing, and they are, quote-unquote, “Indian” for Halloween. We’ve all seen that growing up. We’ve all seen it. And my kids are going to have to see it. But all of a sudden, after Season 1, people, kids started dressing up as the Reservation Dogs. So many pictures flooded in…
GROSS: Wow.
HARJO: …On social media of them dressed as the Reservation Dogs.
GROSS: That’s something you didn’t have when you were growing up.
HARJO: Right. I didn’t have that, you know? And it might have made some sort of difference if I had. I didn’t have that, you know, but I did – what I did have was the best storytellers in the world sitting in my grandma’s kitchen, telling me stories about these amazing characters that were real and – or not. And I just try to transfer that to this show and to all my work.
GROSS: Sterlin Harjo, it’s really just been great to talk with you. Thank you…
HARJO: Thank you, Terry. Thank you.
GROSS: …For this interview. Thank you for the series. I really love it.
HARJO: Awesome. Thank you so much.
MOSLEY: Sterlin Harjo speaking with Terry Gross in 2022. Coming up, Justin Chang reviews “Anora,” the new film that won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF RAY CHARLES’ “JOY RIDE”)
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