Les enjeux de la représentation et de la réception des Amérindiens dans Reservation Dogs, de Sterlin Harjo et Taika Waititi

Abstract

Reservation Dogs, a series created by Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi in 2021, questions how Indigenous people are represented in popular culture, in Hollywood specifically, and how these representations are received by audiences who feel part of the represented communities. This contribution proposes a study of how Reservation Dogs represents Native Americans, as well as an analysis of how these representations are appropriated by audiences who make them part of their culture and their everyday life. How are Native Americans represented in Reservation Dogs? What does it entail in the communities that are represented? The first major characteristic of Reservation Dogs, like most of Indigenous cinema and TV production, is that Native Americans are represented in modern, present time, contrary to mainstream production showing them only in the past. Reservation Dogs proposes a counter-discourse that reappropriates a common culture and deconstructs a fake alterity imposed by Hollywood. On the contrary, the series shows a culture considered authentic and alive, and speaks to a community that Hollywood rarely addresses.

Keywords

• Hollywood
• representation
• series
• Native Americans
• fan studies
• Reservation Dogs