Taika Waititi’s new series Reservation Dogs takes inspiration from real nuances of modern Native American life in America, but is it based on a true story? Waititi has made rounds as a blockbuster pop culture icon in recent years, going from the comedy-horror mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows to The Mandalorian and directing the MCU's Thor: Ragnarok. With Waititi serving as the co-creator and writer for the Reservation Dogs series, he’s making a name for himself outside of blockbuster fantasies to dabble in the comedic aspects of everyday life.
Reservation Dogs takes its name from Quentin Tarantino's crime film Reservoir Dogs and the real-life phenomenon of feral or stray canines, “Rez Dogs,” on Indigenous reservations. Taika Waititi’s show follows a group of four Native American teenagers living in rural Oklahoma who spend their days on an Indigenous reservation both committing and fighting crime. The mischievous Native teens include Elora Danan Postak, Bear, Cheese, and Willie Jack, who come into contact with several recurring characters in their small community.
While Reservation Dogs’ characters and mishaps don’t necessarily share specific real-life counterparts, the show is based on the true stories behind showrunner Sterlin Harjo and Taiki Waititi's upbringings. According to Smithsonian Magazine, Harjo and Waititi remember their indigenous childhoods fondly by how they dealt with their real and dramatic issues of life through humor, so they transferred this mindset to their mischievous teen characters. Instead of turning another Native portrayal into a tragedy, Reservation Dogs gives the true history of Indigenous life in America and references modern disenfranchisement by interspersing it in the fun adventurous life of teenagers.
Native Americans have largely been excluded from Hollywood outside of racist and stereotypical portrayals in Westerns, so Reservation Dogs is a way for the co-creators to represent what real Indigenous and reservation life is like to a wider audience. Waititi is notable for including intense topics in his comedic projects to emphasize that the stories he tells truly reflect real life, such as how his historical dramedy Jojo Rabbit is overwhelmingly comedic but underscored by a heartbreaking depiction of Nazi-era Germany. Just because the names of his characters and their lives aren’t necessarily translated from a pinpoint tale doesn’t mean they don’t reflect the real stories of an abundance of people.
To make sure that the representation of Indigenous teenage life in Reservation Dogs isn’t only confined to the experiences of Waititi and Harjo, the show’s writer's room is full of Native American creatives. The minds behind Reservation Dogs bring to life characters and situations that they feel are universal among Indigenous communities, with nearly every story connected by how humor helped them survive the oppression of their people by the government. The names and faces may change for Reservation Dogs, but the stories and sentiment come from a combination of real-life experiences growing up on Native American reservations.
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