Indigenous issues front and centre at the 76th Emmys

By Jeremy Appel, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

(ANNews) – A star of the critically acclaimed FX series Reservation Dogs used his appearance at the 76th Emmys as an opportunity to bring the plight of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG) to an audience of millions. 

D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, who is from the Anisininew First Nation in Canada, appeared at the award show’s red carpet on Sept. 15 with a red palm print painted over his face, which he told reporters symbolized the silencing of MMIWG. 

“There’s a very big epidemic in the United States and Canada, where our sisters and Two-Spirit relatives are going missing at an alarming rate, and a lot of people are doing nothing about it,” said Woon-A-Tai, the first Indigenous actor to receive a lead role nomination at the Emmys.

He told reporters this was intended to draw attention to the “alarming rate” at which “our sisters [and] our Two-Spirit relatives are going missing,” 

In 2019, the Canadian inquiry into MMIWG’s final report found the fact that Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit people are 12 times more likely to go missing or be murdered than non-Indigenous women and girls in Canada to be a manifestation of Canada’s ongoing genocide of Indigenous Peoples. 

The report included 231 calls to action for various levels of government to take, but just two had been implemented as of April 2024, according to Amnesty International.

This year’s Emmys was viewed by 6.87 million people, the largest viewership in three years, online news outlet Axios reported.

Woon-A-Tai was one of three Indigenous actors making history at the 76th Emmys. 

He was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for his performance as Bear Smallhill in the series, which details the misadventures of four Indigenous teenagers living on a reserve in Oklahoma. 

The only Indigenous person to be nominated for an acting Emmy prior to 2024 was August Schellenberg for his 2007 performance as Sitting Bull in the HBO television movie Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, according to entertainment publication Variety.

Reservation Dogs, which concluded after three seasons last year, is the first American series written and directed entirely by Indigenous filmmakers, and most of its cast and crew was also native. 

Actors Kali Reis and Lily Gladstone were also nominated for Emmys, making them the first two Indigenous women to receive an Emmy nomination. 

Gladstone, who was raised on the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana, was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for her role performance as an Indigenous police officer in the miniseries Under the Bridge, which takes place on Vancouver Island. 

Reis, a Two-Spirit member of the unrecognized Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe in Massachusetts, was nominated in the same category for her performance in True Detective: Night Country, the fourth season in the anthology series, in which she plays a cop investigating a case of MMIWG. 

For her performance as Mollie Kyle in Killers of the Flower Moon, a Martin Scorcese-directed epic on the murders of wealthy Osage Nation members in the 1920s, Gladstone became the first Indigenous woman to win a Golden Globe for Best Female Actor in a Drama earlier this year. 

Although none of the Indigenous Emmy nominees won, Jodie Foster, who won Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for her performance alongside Reis in True Detective, dedicated her award to Inupiat and Inuit peoples in northern Alaska, who were depicted in the show. 

“They told us their stories, allowed us to listen, and that was just a blessing. It was love, love, love, and when you feel that, something amazing happens. It’s deep and wonderful, and it’s older than this place and this time,” Foster said in her acceptance speech.