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‘Reservation Dogs’ Producer Migizi Pensoneau on the Show’s Landmark Moment in Indigenous Storytelling: ‘We Brought the Realness. We Had To’


In a column, "Reservation Dogs" co-exec producer Migizi Pensoneau recounts the journey to getting the FX show made, and the tremendous response.

In the writers’ room, we talked about our personal, formative experiences as Native people dealing with loss, grief, financial insecurity, family woes, generally being shitasses, and so on. Kids dressed as the characters from the show for Halloween, people quoted our lines and turned my brother Dallas (“William Knifeman” or “Spirit”) into a meme, and my mom didn’t disown me. We expanded the world of our young protagonists and told stories about the adults in their lives, with aunties performing a synchronized dance number, an accidental acid trip uncovering both long-held grief and sinister political machinations.

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