Killers of the Flower Moon slammed as “f*cking hellfire” by Reservation Dogs star
Paramount Pictures/FXMartin Scorsese’s crime drama western, Killers of the Flower Moon, has been a hot topic of conversation that has now been under the lens of scrutiny by Reservation Dogs actor Devery Jacobs for its depiction of Native Americans and their history.
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, the movie takes place in the 1920s. It centers around a series of Oklahoma murders in the Osage nation after a native tribe became wealthy after finding oil on their land. The movie is based on a 2017 book of the same name.
So far, it has received praise from audiences and marks another hit by the famed director and DiCaprio. But Killers of the Flower Moon has pushed Devery Jacobs to scrutinize the movie for its emotionally charged use of events that Natives have faced for years.
Jacobs is an Indigenous Canadian actor known for her leading role in the Indigenous American series Reservation Dogs. On social media, the actor spoke her mind about the downsides of the movie.
Devery Jacobs has “strong” thoughts about Killers of the Flower Moon
The Reservation Dogs actor calls Scorsese‘s Indigenous characters underdeveloped, saying that the use of violence and murder “dehumanizes” their people.
In a lengthy X/Twitter thread, Jacobs didn’t hold back from the aspects of the movie that rubbed her the wrong way. While praising Scorsese as a director, and its actors, she saw major flaws in the movie’s use of pain and suffering of Natives.
“Being Native, watching this movie was f*cking hellfire. Imagine the worst atrocities committed against your ancestors, then having to sit through a movie explicitly filled w/ them, w/ the only respite being 30min long scenes of murderous white guys talking about/planning the killings,” she wrote.
She further discussed that the Osage characters were underdeveloped and not well written. Meanwhile, the white characters were given more depth.
While understanding some of Scorsese’s artistic vision, she continued: “I get the goal of this violence is to add brutal shock value that forces people to understand the real horrors that happened to this community, BUT – I don’t feel that these very real people were shown honor or dignity in the horrific portrayal of their deaths. Contrarily, I believe that by showing more murdered Native women on screen, it normalizes the violence committed against us and further dehumanizes our people.”
Jacobs further criticizes the common thread of non-Native directors telling their stories and giving them a “white perspective and focus.” The Reservation Dogs actor praises the incredible work done by the Osage community in the movie and the Wazhazhe. But the actor can’t help but voice her opinion, saying she’d rather see a “$200 million movie from an Osage filmmaker telling this history, any day of the week.”
Killers of the Flower Moon is now in theaters. Find out more about it here, our review here, and further coverage below:
- Is Killers of the Flower Moon a true story?
- Killers of the Flower Moon ending explained
- What is Killers of the Flower Moon about?
- When is Killers of the Flower Moon on streaming?
- Killers of the Flower Moon cast: All actors & characters
- Killers of the Flower Moon gets near perfect Rotten Tomatoes score
