Sonny Skyhawk and Mark Reed know Hollywood; they’ve lived Hollywood.   Between the two, they have 75 years  experience in front of the camera working on more than 120 television and film productions. As Natives in this behemoth industry, they understand as well as anyone the flagrant discrimination and marginalizing Indians have received during the past century of motion pictures.  

It was this frustration that led Sonny Skyhawk to establish the advocacy organization American Indians in Film and Television more than 20 years ago. Today he and Reed, the group’s current president, continue their mission to alter the depictions of Indians onscreen and advocate for more Native representation in the industry.  

They don’t offer their message with a spoonful of sugar; a frank style that has cost them jobs in this still small company town.  They’ve wrangled with network chiefs and challenged the prevailing mindset by their annual report card which grades the networks on how well they’re doing representing Natives. Straight up and straight forward.  

Whereas some activists may quibble with their methods, one thing is undeniable. Sonny Skyhawk and Mark Reed are true believers; as you will see in our following interview… 

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Sonny, what led you to establish American Indians in Film and Television?
Sonny Skyhawk (SS) ~ I established American Indians in Film and Television in 1983 or '84, somewhere around in there. It was due to my experience as an actor in film and television. Mainly, it was because when I was an actor on particular shows, I remember all the Indian people always being told to “stand over here and wait until you can eat and you can eat when everyone else is finished.”  The Indians only got to eat after all the food was gone; it was trampled over, and hardly anything was left.  

All our Indian people—who were mainly used as extras—were being mistreated. That’s what prompted me to start American Indians in Film and Television as an advocacy organization. To not only promote the accurate depiction of American Indian people but the respectful treatment of Natives in the medium of television and film.  

Does your organization rely on volunteers to promote its efforts? If so, do you list the names of those who work on your behalf? 
SS ~ We’ve never given names of people who work on behalf of the organization, mainly because of the blackballing that occurs in Hollywood that’s still alive and well, even after all these years. Mainly, it’s been Mark and me who’ve been out front. 

Mark Reed (MR) ~ I’ve been involved in  the political advocacy end of   the organization for about six years.  The reasons I got into it was when I  attended a meeting of the Screen  Actor’s Guild. I started getting the stats and numbers and saw the inequity for American Indians in all productions and the stereotyping that still exists. Mainly it’s the lack of opportunity of roles for actors who just happen to be American Indian. There just aren’t any.  

Your organization is primarily known for its “report card” where you grade network television in its casting and/or hiring of Natives to work in production roles.  What else does your organization do?  
MR ~ What we do is meet with the networks twice a year and go over their programs and diversity programs, and analyze to see if they’re working or not working. We also keep an eye on the news stories that are published. We recently saw a news report on NBC here in California, for example, that was very damaging to Indian country.  We had to sit down with the network and get them to do a retraction or do a further story. 

The networks will not actually volunteer to do these things; they have to pushed into doing it. You have to get them to understand that it’s a wise business decision and a wise moral decision. And it boils right down to the civil rights of Natives.  

Your annual “report card” consistently gives out mostly failing grades to the networks. How do you respond to those who say that your energy could be better spent than counting the number of Native-specific roles in prime time television and the number of Native people hired for these and other roles? 
MR ~ In prime time television last year, there were 8,000 guest starring roles—not one American Indian. One thousand recurring roles, not one  American Indian.  Four hundred regular roles, not one  American Indian. It is beyond comprehension that they could not find one American Indian to play a guest starring role, at least. It’s appalling that they don’t have any American Indians.  

Do you also monitor the motion picture industry as well?  Why or why not? 
SS ~ First of all, television is a medium we can monitor. They have to answer to not only the conglomerates that own them, but they have to keep records of the people that they hire, their ethnicity, etcetera. We can monitor television much more easily for that reason. Television is subservient to the FCC. They are responsible to a lot of people along the road. They are public servants to a certain extent. 

Let me give you an example. The news feature Mark mentioned before appeared on the NBC Los Angeles television affiliate. Called “Without a Tribe,” it was about the Pechanga tribe and the station ran a teaser for seven days on the local news. It was terrible.  Anyone watching this would have thought that “jeez, what a bunch of greedy people these Indians are. They’re making all this money, they’re all getting rich, and this is what they’re doing? They’re kicking their own members out?” That was the perception.  

With that report, the station basically put all Indians in this hemisphere in the same basket. That’s why we had a meeting with them. And because of it, not only are we going to have an apology, but a retraction from the network. 

MR ~ They’re (the station) creating a tremendous amount of collateral damage for those nations that aren’t gaming nations. 

SS ~ If you’re going to say something, it better be accurate. We’re the last ethnic group that’s still fair game for public disrespect.    

Since you’ve been involved in this issue have you noticed whether there’s been some upward progress?  Are things getting any better? 
SS ~ We see some progress, but then again, it’s so spotty, it’s again not. As soon as we see an advancement, we see two steps backward. A piece like this report that came out of a major network is one example. 

MR ~ The perception in the United States of who we are has been so skewed by the images broadcast through the years, it will take a long time just to change it.  We’re one population that’s fair game. And a piece like this one that’s run on a major network undoes so much of the progress. I mean, if you had a piece like this about Hispanic community, they’d have marches in Los Angeles, Chicago, Florida, and New York. If you did it to the Jewish community, it’d be the same thing. There would be major, major retaliation. But when it’s Natives, it’s fair game.  

Why do you think this is? 
SS ~ We have to be proactive—that’s why we want to talk to people; we want to educate them who we are as Indian people. Show them that we are doctors, lawyers and cab drivers and educators and policemen. We’re everything that is the makeup of what is now called America. Yet, we are still being perceived in a position of loin cloths and feathers.  

A while back, we got together a bunch  of people who are show runners—these are the people who put together shows on television. And we said, “Everyone in the audience close your eyes and think about your impression of a Native American." And then we followed that  up with the question, “What was the main impression you have in your head of Native Americans?” You want to know what their image was?  It was the character in Dances with Wolves! 

That’s  the problem. We’re still being looked at and perceived as loincloth, eagle-feather wearing, horseback riding individuals.  And that’s a perception of a hundred years ago. We have yet to bring them (the studios and networks) into step as to who we are as a people today and the contributions we’ve made to this great country. To me it’s tantamount to genocide; they’ve tried to do away with us mentally and kept us a loincloths and feathers.  

You are so right. In middle-class suburbia, many people don’t think of Indians being around at all in contemporary America… 
MR ~ That’s why American Indians in Film and Television is so important. Because images in the media are so important and so moving. In the 100 years of the movies, American Indians have been misrepresented and portrayed as the savage killing all the settlers. Today they don’t know what to do with us, so we’re just excluded entirely. 

The term I use is “romantic discrimination.”  Because of the other populations in the United States, they romanticize what the United States was prior to when the Europeans arrived. They’ve romanticized it for years in movies and television. They can’t perceive changing this mindset to a contemporary piece. 

Some argue that because Natives represent such a small percentage of the population, you won’t see productions with a Native theme.  As a follow-up, why aren’t Native actors even hired for roles that don’t call for any particular ethnic group? 
SS ~ It’s been our quest, our struggle all along.  

MR ~ We need to infiltrate behind the scenes. The producers, the directors, the writers.  As it stands right now, there are only 11 self-identified Indians out of 14,000 members of Directors Guild. 

American Indians in Film and Television is working hard to change the status quo within the entertainment establishment.  Why not work from the outside and create a base there? 
SS ~ Our main focus and impetus it to create change from the inside. We know you have to work inside the system to be able to create our own stories from our own perspective. We’re doing that by working with the four or five major television networks. With the film industry, we don’t have much control over that since it’s investor driven. There’s a certain amount of arrogance in the film community.  

My main thrust is knowing that the images of our people have suffered in the past and I’m trying to turn that around. Because our young are not being counted. Period. This is not a political issue, it’s a social issue. It’s a continuing injustice.   

I want to thank you both for your dedication to this issue. How do people get in touch with you if they want more information or would like to contribute in some way? 
MR ~ We’re working on putting up a website, but we don’t have one yet. So any people interested in contacting us can reach us by our emails~~ Mark Reed at:  triplep.ranch.@verizon.net  and Sonny Skyhawk at:  reelndn@charter.net

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American Indians in Film and Television is also lobbying to get a federal holiday established honoring Native Americans. For information on how you can support this resolution, please contact Mark Reed at  triplep.ranch.@verizon.net.  Please type “Support for Indian Holiday” in the subject line.