Reservation Dogs is a Native American-based show written by Sterlin Harigo, who in fact is Indigenous and employed almost entirely all Indigenous people. The show was written in 2021 and still has relevancy to this day, because Native Americans are just now being cast to play big or important roles. In addition, the Reservation Dogs series is a good show because it incorporates Native Americans as average people.

Reservation Dogs is a show about a group of Native teens who are surviving in their everyday lives while growing up on a reservation. They show what goes on in their ordinary life by dealing with common situations although set on another level because of their race, and how they cope with their trauma of their friend’s death. And the main plot of the storyline is that they had a friend who decided to take his own life which is mentioned a lot during their scenes, but they show what it was like for them to deal with this travesty and also how they wish to honor his life. 

Before I started the show and have just read the overall description, I was excited to see what the show was holding. And after watching it I am not disappointed with how they reflected Native Americans because the Native American cast didn’t play roles that disvalued Native culture. The show also holds the message that Native American culture needs to be prioritized and learned about. This is why they go talk about their history and make humor out of it to make others get it more easily.

While I enjoy this show, I would say the only con is the fact that the parents didn’t help their kids honor their friend’s life the way they wanted to. Throughout this show they talked about going to California because their friend who past wanted to visit the ocean. But their parents weren’t on board with that idea so they didn’t help them achieve that goal. And because of that they had to figure out another way to go to California and set their passed-away friend in the ocean.

All in all the show does a great job of not provoking Native stereotypes. And that it needs to be normalized for Native American people to be cast for bigger roles rather than to “play the part” of colonized Natives. Rather than that being out of the ordinary.