Keli Reis – Actor
Entertainment Industry Factsheet
A Message from Joanelle
“When Native women are absent from the media and the larger narrative, it sends the message that we don’t matter, that our lives don’t matter.”
Entertainment Industry Factsheet
Though the film industry had been established for half a century already, 1977 marked the first time a Native actress carried a leading role in a contemporary movie, Joanelle Romero in The Girl Called Hatter Fox.
It took Hollywood 42 years from The Girl Called Hatter Fox to a streaming series with a Native actress in a contemporary leading role, Sivan Alyra Rose in Netflix’s ‘Chambers’ in 2019 (one season)
The disheartening statistics regarding Indigenous representation in Hollywood continues. Between 2003 to 2019, America did not see a Native actress in a co-star, guest-star, or series regular role in episodic television on ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX. For 16 years, these major networks disregarded the Native women’s narrative, contributing to the dangerous epidemic of invisibility of Native women and girls in our society.
Even today, Native actresses are conspicuously absent from lead, co-star, or featured roles on prime-time episodic television across major networks such as ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX.
In 1996, Joanelle Romero, as showrunner, created the first all-Native cast television series pilot, ‘Red Blanket: Home, Home on the Rez.’ This groundbreaking project was pitched to Justine Falvey, President of Amblin Television and associate of Steven Spielberg. Mr. Falvey expressed, “You are 25 years ahead of your time.” (‘Red Blanket: Home, Home on the Rez’ is now streaming on Red Nation Television Network.)
In 2021, Reservation Dogs premiered (3 seasons – FX/Hulu 2023) and Dark Winds premiered in 2022 (now in its 3nd season – AMC Networks 2024).
2024 “Under the Bridge” (Limited series, Hulu)
Regarding Native representation in cinema, Hollywood produced “Dances with Wolves” in 1990, and it took 25 years for Hollywood to produce another major film featuring Native themes, “The Revenant”, in 2015.
In 2022, Prey and ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’, 2023
Native Women in Film & Television founder Joanelle Romero met in person with representatives from ABC Network in 2018 and had talks with NBC Network and CBS Network to give voice to this problematic issue. Due to the persistent work of Native Women in FILM and the #WhyWeWearRED initiative, Native Women in FILM is happy to announce that those meetings ended up fruitful regarding representation. In the fall of 2019, Tantoo Cardinal was cast as a series regular in ABC’s Stumptown (one season canceled ). In 2020, Irene Bedard was cast as a recurring regular on CBS Network’s FBI’s Most Wanted. (in for 2 seasons – role canceled) 2022, Grace Dove was cast in Alaska Daily on ABC Network (on season canceled).
While we celebrate this progress, a few Native actresses working in the film and television industry is a far cry from where we need to go.
A 2025 USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative Report
Women directed only 8.1% of top films in 2025. And those films matter more than the number suggests.
Because when women direct, they hire other women… to act, to write, to shoot, to produce. One decision behind the camera changes an entire ecosystem.
In 2025, the women directing top films included:
- Nisha Ganatra (Freakier Friday)
- Emma Tammi (Five Nights at Freddy’s 2)
- Domee Shi & Madeline Sharafian (Elio)
- Celine Song (Materialists)
- Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (I Know What You Did Last Summer)
- Maggie Kang (KPop Demon Hunters)
- Hikari (Rental Family)
- Chloé Zhao (Hamnet) – RNIFF Alumni
This is how progress actually compounds. Not through abstract parity, but through real people holding real power and bringing others with them.
These films exist, these women are working, and showing up for them changes the math.
Rent them. Watch them. Recommend them. That’s how systems move.
Other issues Indigenous Women face
Sexual harassment, assault, human trafficking, inequality for women in all kinds of workplaces, violence against the land is violence against women.
Violence against Native women has reached epidemic proportions. Four in five Native women will be the victims of violence during their lifetimes. Native women remain the most underrepresented minority in the industry.
While there is no national database on missing and murdered indigenous women, on some reservations Native women are murdered at a rate 10 times more than the national average.
Native women are 2.5 times more likely to be raped or abused than any other racial or ethnic group in the US. Eight in ten Native women will be raped, stalked or abused in their lifetime and one in three Native women will be raped, stalked or abused every year.
Meanwhile, the representation of Native women in mainstream film and television is plagued by invisibility, stereotypes and whitewashing. While the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has reported a body that is 30 percent people of color, only 0.0026 percent of its members are Native women.