During the final season of Reservation Dogs — an Indigenous coming-of-age show set on the Muscogee Reservation in Oklahoma — the patience of producer and writer Migizi Pensoneau finally ran out. Pensoneau (Ponca/Ojibwe) had watched as two seasons of the show consistently won awards and were lauded by critics, but television’s highest honor — an Emmy — continued to elude the series. Reservation Dogs received awards from Peabody, Gotham Independent film, AFI TV programs of the year, among others. But other than a 2023 nomination for sound editing, the Emmy remained out of sight. For the last and final season, as the Emmys were being voted on, Migizi decided to express his thoughts on the topic in an essay in Variety. It was published on June 21 — and on July 17, Reservation Dogs received four nominations for 2024, including for outstanding lead actor in a comedy series and outstanding comedy series.
The essay was heartfelt and gave the kind of insider’s view that few people ever get to hear, namely about how much work it takes to rip out stories from your heart and bring them to life on the screen. Pensoneau’s frustration with the lack of recognition was obvious, but I wondered what else fueled his desire to “bring the realness,” as he put it in his essay. HCN spoke with Pensoneau ahead of the 76th Emmy’s Awards program, scheduled to broadcast on Sept. 15. Here’s what he had to say about what Emmy recognition might mean to the cast, crew and future Indigenous talent in the industry.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
High Country News: So that essay/letter, because it does read like a letter, it’s very personal. What provoked you to write it?
Migizi Pensoneau: I just didn’t feel like we were getting the attention that (Reservations Dogs) warranted. The crew in Oklahoma, I mean, it was a majority-Native crew. The thing that we pulled off is a minor miracle. Any production getting made, any production going forward, whenever that actually happens, is a miracle in and of itself. But Reservation Dogs is unprecedented, on a level that I don’t think anybody really understands or appreciates outside of Indian Country. The access to this kind of production, this level of distribution on a network, a streamer like Hulu — that kind of thing doesn’t happen every day. And oftentimes Natives are not in the driver’s seat — and it’s a big deal. And I don’t just mean me and (showrunner) Sterlin (Harjo) and (writer, director and co-executive producer) Tazbah (Chavez). I mean like every department had Native people in it, working, rockin’ and rollin’. And it was an incredible miracle that it happened the way it did. I just didn’t feel like we were getting enough recognition for how special it was. And now that the show is over, I felt like I had to tell the world in some way, even though, you know, nobody knows who I am, that’s fine. …
HCN: Hey, I know who you are.
MP: (laughs) Thank you — I had to shout it from the rooftops to be, like, the stuff that we put into the show was incredibly personal. And it’s not just the unprecedented nature of what we did. But the fact that every time we threw something out there, it’s at the top of every critic’s list, every “Best of” list. I don’t want to call out any show specifically, but the shows that people know the name of that we’re often in competition with (at the Emmys), we were, by and large, way higher-rated than those shows. And it was like, man, we just don’t get the recognition that I felt like we deserved for how hard we work, the quality of work that we put out. And on top of that, (the) cherry on top is that we’re all a bunch of Natives running this thing.
HCN: Why do you think the Emmy voters were missing the mark, or just not seeing the talent?
MP: I think, when you see something sort of personal, like close to home — “Oh, these are Native people telling their stories” — then it just seems like we’re just doing sort of what’s easy. But it wasn’t. I mean, we ripped very, very personal stories out of ourselves to put on screen for the world to see. And we did it as well as we could, in a way that everybody appreciated. Everybody that’s seen it, everybody that’s talked to me that’s seen it, fucking loves it. The word-of-mouth thing really helped us.
HCN: It’s a Muscogee-centered story, but the talent is all from different tribes. But you guys somehow all funnel that. Even though the tribe is not ever stated as Muscogee, they’re on the Muscogee Reservation. You are somehow finding the through line through all the Indigeneity, and that that’s not easy. The committee, whoever makes these decisions about awards, may not understand there are — what is it now? — 574 federally recognized tribes out there.
MP: (laughs) Sure.
HCN: There’s no easy way to tell a Native story. But you guys did it.
MP: Yeah. I mean, part of it was just that we all had similar experiences, growing up. I mean, it’s a coming-of-age story; we talk about the stories that you have growing up. A big part of that common ground was the fact that the writers that created these stories are from and of their community, their Native community. We were a bunch of Native kids who grew up surrounded by our culture. We had a shorthand with each other because of that similar upbringing, regardless of where in Indian Country we grew up. We all had very similar experiences.
HCN: It’s like going to IAIA (Institute of American Indian Arts).
MP: Yeah, man! You find people as far from each other as possible geographically; Indian Country is wide and various and contains multitudes. But there are ways in which everybody has very similar backgrounds. We found that with the specificity of Sterlin’s (Muscogee) community, because he was the one leading charge in all of this. By the end of it, we all knew how to say different words in Creek. We knew what story we were telling about these four kids. That’s universal: The story of these four kids — it doesn’t matter if it’s a Native community or not, it’s just people that want to get out of a place that they see as a dead-end place, but (are) then growing to love where they’re from. That doesn’t have to be a Native community; that can be anywhere. That’s the universality. The specificity of the story makes it universal. Everybody has been a teenager who’s dreamed of doing something different, doing something better.
Indian Country is wide and various and contains multitudes. But there are ways in which everybody has very similar backgrounds.
HCN: Do you feel there was an effectiveness in calling out the Emmy committee via that letter?
MP: I mean, hopefully, maybe. We were nominated. I don’t know if I had anything to do with that (laughs). All I’m saying is that it just felt like an oversight. And there is definitely a part of us — I think, if we didn’t get nominated, we probably would have laughed anyway. We got recognition in a couple of technical categories. Oftentimes these kinds of things are more popularity contests than quality contests. My point was: Look at how incredible the quality of this work is. But we’ve done something amazing, we created something incredible. And that’s all it was: “Don’t forget about this.” When you’re looking at all the shows that everybody knows and loves, ours was consistently rocking every fucking year. And so, we have a place in this conversation. Do we need to be recognized? No. But I do feel like we earned our place in the conversation. So that’s all that was. It wasn’t calling out anybody. It was just like, “Yo, while ya’ll are talking about all this stuff. …” This is where we’re living, in (a) badass world.
HCN: What benefit comes from receiving an Emmy nomination?
MP: Everybody’s heard of the Emmys. Just to be recognized on such a large scale — it’s validating in a different kind of way. Like I said, we should be part of a larger conversation, the conversation that these bigger shows are part of. We deserve a place there, too. We’re not just some quirky little show, we’re consistently quality all the time. And it was the idea of being recognized by the Emmys, which everybody’s heard of, it’s a big deal, a recognition that we have earned our place in this larger conversation, in the popular conversation at large.
HCN: And it’s good for Indian Country and it’s good for the future of more Native productions.
MP: The reason that we brought so much blood, sweat and tears to it, the reason that we poured our soul into it, is because we wanted the show to be us kicking the door open and leaving it open, taking the hinges off so people can come behind us. And you don’t do that if you create some crap. So we had to bring it all the time. We just always had to make sure that we’re doing the best we could every day. And it’s not just for us, it’s for any other Native that might want to make a show later on.
Editor’s note: All three seasons of Reservation Dogs are available for streaming on Hulu.
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