{"id":230852,"date":"2021-04-20T01:36:07","date_gmt":"2021-04-19T22:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/rutherford-falls-marks-one-of-tvs-first-native-american-sitcoms\/"},"modified":"2021-04-20T01:36:07","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T22:36:07","slug":"rutherford-falls-marks-one-of-tvs-first-native-american-sitcoms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/rutherford-falls-marks-one-of-tvs-first-native-american-sitcoms\/","title":{"rendered":"#’Rutherford Falls’ marks one of TV’s first Native American sitcoms"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#’Rutherford Falls’ marks one of TV’s first Native American sitcoms<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n

Jana Schmieding was ready to give up on Hollywood right before she landed a writing\/acting role on Michael Schur\u2019s sitcom \u201cRutherford Falls\u201d opposite Ed Helms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI had been submitting my writing to all these festivals and script<\/a> competitions to try to get my work seen,\u201d Schmieding, 39, told The Post. \u201cI lost hope in 2018 and I was about to wrap it up and move home with my parents \u2014 feeling really frustrated that I would never have a job as a TV writer. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut then I met Sierra Teller Ornelas who is Navajo Mexican-American; she\u2019s the [\u2018Rutherford Falls\u2019] showrunner and she pulled me in to a meeting with her and Ed Helms and Mike Schur. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo it really took a Native woman to see me and pull me up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ed
Ed Helms as Nathan Rutherford (left) and Jana Schmieding as Reagan Wells (right) in \u201cRutherford Falls\u201d <\/figcaption>
Colleen Hayes\/Peacock<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The sitcom, co-created by Schur, Helms, and Ornelas \u2014 and premiering Thursday (April 22) on Peacock \u2014 follows inhabitants of a fictional Native American reservation and its neighboring town in upstate New York, Rutherford Falls. Nathan Rutherford (Helms) is the blowhard descendant of the town\u2019s founders who lands in hot water over an issue with moving a statue of his ancestor, while his childhood friend Reagan Wells (Schmieding) is trying to get the local tribe\u2019s cultural center off the ground. It\u2019s an uphill battle, since it\u2019s a room located in a casino and its main visitors are drunk guests who think it\u2019s merely a place to charge their phones.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other characters include Reagan\u2019s scheming boss Terry Tarbell (Michael Greyeyes), who Reagan finds intimidating; Nathan\u2019s assistant Bobbie Yang (Jesse Leigh); and town mayor Deidre Chisenhall (Dana L. Wilson), who\u2019s short on patience for Nathan\u2019s antics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Jesse
Jesse Leigh as Bobbie Yang (left) Dana L. Wilson as Mayor Deirdre, Jana Schmieding as Reagan Wells (right) <\/figcaption>
Colleen Hayes\/Peacock<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cBeing able to act with Ed Helms, who is absolutely a comedy icon that has become a comedy mentor \u2014 I almost don\u2019t have words to describe how exciting that has been for me,\u201d said Schmieding, who is Lakota and enrolled in the Cheyenne River Lakota Sioux Tribe. \u201cAnd I also got to work closely with Michael Greyeyes, who is a Native performing mentor and a Native icon. I feel like I got to touch all different parts of the creative process in this project.\u201d<\/p>\n

The series<\/a> is among the first Native American sitcoms, although there are several other Native TV shows in the pipeline \u2014 including FX\u2019s \u201cReservation Dogs,\u201d co-created by Taika Waititi, in which Schmieding has a small role.<\/p>\n

\"Jana
Jana Schmieding as Reagan Wells in \u201cRutherford Falls\u201d <\/figcaption>
Colleen Hayes\/Peacock<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIn this industry, a lot of times Native people are relegated to period pieces,\u201d said Schmieding. \u201cWe are really seen as a people who existed in the past and were eradicated \u2014 so we have a lot of roles that are mystical and magical and metaphoric instead of actual. I think [\u2018Rutherford Falls\u2019] is a great opportunity for non-Native people to see Native folks existing in contemporary times, because that is our reality. We do exist in contemporary times. The sitcom language that we\u2019re speaking is a great entryway into more specific Native narratives to be shared.\u201d<\/p>\n

The series features one of the largest Indigineous writing staffs on American television, with the writers room consisting of Indigenous people (five out of 10), including Schmieding.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Ed
Ed Helms as Nathan Rutherford (left) Dana L. Wilson as Mayor Deirdre (center), Jana Schmieding as Reagan Wells (right) in \u201cRutherford Falls\u201d <\/figcaption>
Colleen Hayes\/Peacock<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never collaborated with this many Native people on anything, so the fact that it was a creative job and that it has four other native writers involved, and Native performers and designers involved in the production \u2014 this has been a dream collaboration. It\u2019s been the highlight of my life so far.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have really struggled to have a voice in this industry, so it\u2019s been really exciting to be part of that. I believe that it\u2019s important that we have laughter along with our pain and that we are telling jokes to each other and laughing at the jokes that we wrote for ourselves. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important to me that we are not the butt of the joke anymore. We are the creators of the jokes.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#’Rutherford Falls’ marks one of TV’s first Native American sitcoms” Jana Schmieding was ready to give up on Hollywood right before she landed a writing\/acting role on Michael Schur\u2019s sitcom \u201cRutherford Falls\u201d opposite Ed Helms.\u00a0 \u201cI had been submitting my writing to all these festivals and script competitions to try to get my work seen,\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":230853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/04\/jana-schmeding-rutherford-falls-06.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[102594,76381,98045,51503,75646,71367,5081,1373],"class_list":["post-230852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-4-19-21","tag-ed-helms","tag-michael-schur","tag-mike-schur","tag-native-americans","tag-sitcoms","tag-tv-shows","tag-what-to-watch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}