It's interesting you should say that about the show----I haven't seen it because I don't have cable, but from what I read about Dark Wind, it has Native American directors, Native American writers and consultants on the show, and it's even filmed on Native American-owned land----so is Reservation Dogs, I think. In fact, the author of the books the show decided he would only let the books be filmed if Native Americans were cast in it. Here's a recent article about the show: https://www.npr.org/2023/07/27/1190198520/dark-winds-review-season-2-tony-hillerman
Haven't seen either Dark Wind or Reservation Dogs, but would love to as soon as they are available on DVD.
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Keelai (35371)
a year ago
Your linked article points out the problems with Dark Winds.:
1. Hillerman was a white outsider
2. Dark Winds retools and modernizes Hillerman's conception
3. a plot that bends toward the predictably formulaic
This series feels like it's from the viewpoint of an outsider with limited knowledge about the Navaho. The writers weren't very good at updating the original material and rely on formula. Both the linked critic and I reached similar opinion:
"the series lacks the contemporary snap of Reservation Dogs, a better and more freewheeling show about Native Americans that owes nothing to 50-year-old mystery novels"
Dark Winds is out on DVD. Reservation Dogs is available by free trial on Hulu or outside the U.S. by Disney+
I haven't given up on Dark Winds. Hopefully, season 2 is better.
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KCurmudgeon (264)
a year ago
Hillerman spent a great deal of time on the reservation and with the Dine’ people who gave him awards for his books, so he’s not exactly an outsider. The problem is that the series, like Apple’s Foundation and Amazon’s Rings of Power, pretty much only uses the names of the characters and nothing else from the books. The books have a GREAT deal more information about Dine’ culture and practices. I’m actually pretty surprised that Hillerman’s estate or the actors/writers agreed to be part of Dark Winds. The biggest abomination in the series is probably the character of Jim Chee who, in the books was a tribal policeman studying to be a shaman, NOT an FBI agents who dismissed Dine’ cultural practices. The recently introduced Mary Landon was also a Dine’ attorney in D.C. in the books rather than a white journalist. SMDH.
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Keelai (35371)
a year ago
"Outsider" wasn't originally my term, but it's appropriate considering he had to interview the Navaho for his books. I understand that he was very respectful of their culture.
The white journalist is a trope in movies about a POC (The Help, Cry Freedom, The Story Miss Jane Pittman). That's a good example of my problem with this series.
In Reservation Dogs, they always blur the eyes of owls. Native-Americans get it. It's that cultural detail I like about the series. It makes fun of stereotypes and tropes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_y0aZ6cRUI
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