Despite being a non-Native American, Taylor Sheridan has brought to audiences some of the most stunning stories of the Native American culture and tribes that have earned him critical acclamation worldwide. For something that stemmed merely from his fascination with the respective culture and tribes, Sheridan’s works have truly made his fans increase in respect for him.
But what fans do not know is the fact that just how deeply attached Taylor Sheridan is to the Native American culture. Instilling a sense of a bigger picture by examining the greater forces that loom over its characters hasn’t come to the renowned Yellowstone showrunner just like that, but he has had first-hand experience of it all to end up with the passion he now has for the respective culture.
Taylor Sheridan’s Infatuation with Native American Culture Goes Way Deeper
Taylor Sheridan has expressed his fascination with the Native American Culture through more than one project and in more than one way. But this fascination of his didn’t arise just like that after, perhaps, watching documentaries about them or the like, no. In fact, this fascination only took place after the filmmaker had a first-hand encounter with the tribe and its culture.
This goes back in time when the now-53-year-old actor-turned-writer-turned-director was still in his 20s, “looking for an outlet to solve the awfulness of this massive city” after having migrated to LA from his Texan ranch to pursue acting. As he shared with The Guardian, it was at a sweat lodge he visited with his Native American friend that he became infatuated with the Lakota belief.
“I was like, that is the most ridiculously beautiful religion I’ve ever heard,” Sheridan said.
To further explore this belief and make sure what he had experienced wasn’t “fake,” the Wind River director set out to the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota and befriended some of the place’s Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone population. But what he didn’t quite realize was the brutality of the reality of the challenges faced by the Native Americans.
Not only were they the victims living on a tiny scrap of land and facing massive poverty and unemployment as well as an incredibly high crime rate because the legal authorities couldn’t carry out arrests on the reservation itself, but they also faced prejudice and discrimination from other communities outside the reservation.
All of this led to the beginning of Taylor Sheridan’s infatuation with the Native Americans, their tribes, and their cultures, which he set out to expose to the world in the very way that could properly capture their real situation as well as set up the bigger picture about everything the world doesn’t know but needs to know about the extreme obstacles and brutality faced by the tribe.
The Brutality Native Americans Faced Compelled Taylor Sheridan to Represent Them
While he has also been criticized for portraying the stories of Native Americans through a “white lens” (as per Yahoo Entertainment), Taylor Sheridan still wasn’t one to step back after he had the first-hand experience of realizing the brutishness of what they went through. This is why he made use of his power in the industry to bring the world’s attention to the Native Americans.
Continuing to talk to The Guardian, he said:
“I was told, ‘Hey, you’ve got a pipeline. No one gives a sh-t about our story. In your business, you could actually tell our story. If you get a chance, would you do that? But you’ve got to tell the worst of it. ‘Cos the worst of our story ain’t our fault.’”
Sharing his own perspective on the Native Americans and why he feels they deserve to be seen and recognized by the world, Sheridan continued to say:
“Like any other group, they’re a people struggling to survive, to create a life for their children, themselves. They’re just facing extreme obstacles to do that, created, manifested, and supported by our government.”
The rest is pretty much history, as fans are already aware of from all the great works by Taylor Sheridan, which include Wind River, Sicario, Hell or High Water, and Yellowstone among excerpts of portraying these very situations in others; all of which have been tremendously commended and greatly acclaimed by the worldwide critics.
