Reservation Dogs star D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai is nominated for Best Comedy Actor at the 76th Emmy Awards, but the message that he brought to the red carpet was all too serious. The actor, who portrayed Bear Smallhill on the FX series, wore a red hand painted over his mouth as a message of solidarity for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.
This symbolic gesture draws attention to the growing MMIW movement, and according to Native Hope website, this use of a painted red hand “stands for all the missing sisters whose voices are not heard. It stands for the silence of the media and law enforcement in the midst of this crisis. It stands for the oppression and subjugation of Native women who are now rising up to say #NoMoreStolenSisters.”
Data from the National Crime Information Center (which linked as a tool through the Department of Justice website) indicates that thousands of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women have gone missing in recent years without being logged on the NamUs federal missing person database.
Through this symbolic red hand, Woon-A-Tai also brings a visual to a recent statement that he gave Variety, to which he stressed the importance of “telling Native stories through the Native lens.” He added, “‘Reservation Dogs’ has taught me how important it is that we are the ones to tell our stories for us. Nobody should tell our stories on our behalf. That’s been going on for too long. We’ve had too much misrepresentation because of it.”
(An updated list of Emmy winners can be found here.)