The two Indigenous filmmakers are smashing the caricatures and stereotypes of Native Americans, who since the earliest days of film and TV have often played supporting roles or been portrayed as bloodthirsty killers standing in the way of white, westward expansion.
Filmed entirely on the Muscogee Nation reservation in eastern Oklahoma, the network says the half-hour comedy is the first show on cable TV in which all the writers, directors and regular characters on the series are Indigenous.
"To be able to tell a real story about real people through comedy, it's about time," Harjo, who directed Mekko and Barking Water, said during a premiere of the series this week in Tulsa.
Waititi and Harjo, longtime friends collaborating for the first time, said the series arose out of discussions about the kind of show they'd like to see, and before they knew it had "come up with this idea about these kids who had turned into vigilantes and wanted to clean up their community", recalled Waititi, the Oscar-winning writer and director of Jojo Rabbit, whose credits also include Thor: Ragnarok and the TV series What We Do in the Shadows.
"We weren't entirely sure where it would be and then it just struck us that setting it here would be perfect."
Filmed mostly in the small eastern Oklahoma town of Okmulgee, where the Muscogee Nation is headquartered, the show's restless young characters were familiar beyond Indigenous communities and small towns, Waititi and Harjo said.
"The idea of just wandering around the suburb or a small community with nothing to do, wondering what the hell's out there for me and what am I going to do with my life," Waititi said. "That's the heart of what drives these kids ... a lot of teenagers all over the world, they feel like that."
The first three episodes of the series will drop on Disney+ on September 15, with weekly episodes released on Wednesdays following.
- Additional reporting, AP
