Creator / The 1491s

The 1491s are an indigenous sketch comedy group based out of Minnesota and Oklahoma, taking their name from the year before Christopher Columbus's arrival. Debuting on YouTube in 2009 with "New Moon Wolf Pack Auditions!!!!", a parody of "The Twilight Saga: New Moon," the troupe has since gone on to release over 100 videos depicting aspects of contemporary Native life through a comedic or satirical lens on their channel. While most take the form of comedy sketches, some are music videos or highlights on other Native creators.

They made an appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart in a 2014 segment about indigenous mascots, and in 2018 produced their first-ever play, Between Two Knees. Currently, the troupe is gaining wider recognition for their work on Rutherford Falls and Reservation Dogs, the latter being created by 1491s member Sterlin Harjo. As of the second season, all members of the troupe are part of the Reservation Dogs writing team.

The 1491s are:

• Dallas Goldtooth (Mdewakanton Dakota/Diné): Actor, author, artist, Dakota language instructor, environmentalist
• Sterlin Harjo (Seminole/Muscogee): Filmmaker and television director
• Migizi Pensoneau (Ponca/Ojibwe): Television and film writer, producer, actor
• Ryan Red Corn (Osage Nation): Artist, writer, actor
• Bobby Wilson (Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota): Artist, director, producer, actor

Selected works:

• The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: ("The Redskins' Name—Catching Racism"; 2014)
• Between Two Knees (2018)
• Rutherford Falls (writing, acting)
• Reservation Dogs (creation, production, writing, acting)

Tropes:

• Always Someone Better: "More Indianer Than You" features a competition between a white man and a Native man, with the white man proving his assertion of being able to out-Indian the other guy at every turn. He wins at everything from having a bigger bolo tie to counting coup while dancing in much fancier regalia and impregnating a Native woman while the other guy sits sadly with a bottle of lotion and some toilet paper.
• Anachronism Stew: Despite "Origin Stories - Gathering of Nations" being set in 1981, the plot centers around a man who falls and hits his head while trying to take a photo of his friends with a smartphone.
• Anthropomorphic Personification: Jealousy in "Fighting Jealousy" appears as a man whispering in the guy's ear that causes him to act out. They then get into a physical fight, but to anyone else, it looks like the guy is fighting himself and saying strange things of his own volition.
• Ass Shove: The practice sparring in "Self Defense" consists of the more expert of the two repeatedly trying to stick things up the novice's butt while grappling.
• Bait-and-Switch: "Hunting" sets up the woodland footrace between the two loincloth-clad hunters to result in hunting wild game, only for their destination to be a fast-food restaurant.
• "Basic Instinct" Legs-Crossing Parody: Upon waking, Wood Spirit Guy in "Deer Hunter" crosses and recrosses their legs while cheerfully addressing the hunters. The spirit's wearing underwear under their pelts, thankfully.
• Bestiality Is Depraved: "Native American Porn Audition" takes a shot at the Navajo, explaining that the actress won't need to work with any sheep because they "couldn't find any Navajos who would do a straight porno."
• Bitch Slap: The titular "Slapping Medicine Man" helps people's problems by bitch-slapping them for actively detrimental behavior that's the root cause of their woes, such as a man who doesn't bother turning up for work but complains about getting fired often.
• Bizarre Alien Reproduction: Intercourse for the Na'ai is described in "The Avatars" as the male inserting his braid into the female's vagina. K'arl cut his hair off to avoid sex and child-rearing with his overbearing wife, and Grandpa Turok Makto III is insistent that his braid can still work, despite its ragged appearance.
• Bolt of Divine Retribution: Each blasphemous statement uttered in "Blasphemy," from wondering what eagle meat tastes like to commodifying ceremonies, earns the offender an immediate lightning bolt from the sky.
• Braids, Beads and Buckskins: "The Indian Store" has the two shopkeepers attempting to invoke this, swapping out their hoodies and Starbucks cups for shirtlessness and beaded accessories once it's time to open for the day.
• By the Hair: In "Hunting," Ryan-as-Hawk Eye pulls Dallas-as-Chingachgook's long hair to get ahead of him in their footrace. Ryan having short hair means the same can't be done to him.
• Comic Sutra: The basis for "Native American Porn Audition," as the actress is asked if she's okay with a wide range of moves such as the "treaty-breaker," the "Muscogee marble-toss," and the "Blackfeet duck-and-dive."
  Interviewer: The, uh, "land bridge."
  Trixie Bottoms: [thoughtfully] I'm fine with that, as long as she's a blonde.
• Crotch-Grab Sex Check: The titular hunter in "Deer Hunter" tries this on the catatonic wood spirit he accidentally shot, but comes up inconclusive.
• Cutting Back to Reality: The guy in "Fighting Jealousy" gets into a WWE-style fight with the personification of Jealousy, only for the camera to cut to him fighting and yelling at himself.
• Disproportionate Celebration: "Honor Song" pokes fun at the Dakota propensity for performing honor songs for very small actions, such as picking up litter and lending a friend a single dollar.
  Dallas: Dude! What are you talking about? We don't sing honor songs for everything!
  Ryan: Yeah, your people are always doing that for shit they should've been doing in the first place.
• Fan Disservice: "N4 Indian Shoes" stars comedian Tito Ybarra, advertising the titular sneakers. He makes a big show of stretching and dancing seductively at two girls (all played in slow-motion), but neither are entranced because he is quite rotund and his skin-hugging exercise gear leaves nothing to imagination.
• Groin Attack: Dallas thinks he's clinched victory when he slaps a distracted Ryan during their "Stoic Off!!!" He jumps up in victory, allowing Ryan to headbutt him right in the groin. Only then does the "K.O." announcement appear.
• Gruesome Grandparent: Grandpa Turok Makto III of "The Avatars" does not get along with his grandsons Jeff and Rapatar Blue Bush, with all their exchanges coming in the form of curse-laden insults. He's racist towards Jeff's Sky Woman wife and kicks Rapatar out of the tree for being a jobless stoner.
• Haunted House: Dallas goes to stay at Mig's isolated cabin in "Cabin in the... Forestses," only to be haunted by a creepy apparition of an Indian man.
• Henpecked Husband: K'arl Makto barely talks at all during "The Avatars" when he's interviewed alongside his wife K'luk K'luk, as she's a rugged Na'ai woman who spends their interview portion delivering her opinion on Avatar and its misrepresentation of the strong matriarchal Na'ai society.
• Hypocritical Humor: Bobby denounces the usage of marijuana and alcohol in "The Poisons That Kill Us." He continues his tirade while drinking coffee and eating a White Castle meal, complete with soda. At the end, he leaves to buy cigarettes.
• I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: The title character of "Deer Hunter" is barely finished telling the others "safety first" when his rifle goes off and shoots (what they had thought was) a deer. Upon further examination, the shooting victim was a wood spirit wearing pelts and antlers.
• Indian Burial Ground: Revealed to be the reason for Mig's haunted cabin in "Cabin in the... Forestses." A spirit plate appeases the ghost, and he happily skips off into the forest.
• Kissing Cousins: In "Fighting Jealousy," a guy drives his girlfriend away after saying weird things under the influence of Jealousy, and she rebuffs his attempt at reconciliation. The first reason she cites is the aforementioned weirdness. The second is that they're first cousins.
• Kitschy Local Commercial: "Bad Medicine Removers" videos advertise a cleaning crew of natives who clear bad spirits out of locations. The first showcases an office space cleanse, citing spirits as the reason for malfunctioning technology. The second one advertises smudging hotel rooms before the customer arrives, cleaning everything from suspect bodily fluids to "dead hooker spirits" from the room. The commercials feature stilted voice work, awkward action shots of the employees, and exaggerated "happy customer" reactions.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: "Willy Jack" follows the adventures of Billy Jack's son, who defuses situations through love and forgiveness rather than his father's brand of violence. He laments that people want his father more, seeing the fighting as a sign of masculinity.
• Mockumentary:
  • The "A Day In The Life Of A Powwow Emcee" series is shot like a documentary, intersplicing interviews with scenes from his daily life. The first and third are about his home life (his unenthusiastic wife and teenage sons, then his overbearing new wife who forced him into retirement) while the second documents the training of a new emcee.
  • "The Avatars" interviews the Makto family of Na'ai about their culture, family, and depiction in Avatar. The interviewees are crotchety veteran grandfather Turok Makto III, passive K'arl and his overbearing wife K'luk K'luk, half-Na'ai Jeff and his Sky Woman wife, and rapper-wannabe Rapatar Blue Bush.
• Noodle Implements: When Noah's auntie walks in to retrieve him from his weird uncle Dallas's advice session in "Man Talk," Dallas is interrupted mid-explanation of a bizarre set of instructions.
  Dallas: See, first thing you do is get some Miracle Whip—
  Auntie: Noah, are you in here?
  Dallas: [makes gesture of spreading it inside something] —and you have to put it—
  Auntie: [stares] What are you doing?
• Not What It Looks Like: In "It's not what it looks like!" Migizi has a discussion with Bobby about the latter's unfortunate choice of accessories, as displaying "rolling logs" (a swastika) and an eagle on his hat and a banner with a lightning-shaped SS (for his Seriously Sober group) unintentionally make him look like a Nazi. Bobby then accidentally inks a black smudge above his lip.
• Offing the Annoyance: The annoyingly perky Wood Spirit Guy promises constant companionship in this life and the next to the hunters in "Deer Hunter." Cue gunshot sound and the hunters relishing in a meal of game meat.
• Parental Obliviousness: Emcee Howard LittleHeadFiddlerOldHorn of "A Day In The Life Of A Powwow Emcee" is very out-of-touch with his children. He describes his younger son as a "juggler" fan of "Insane Circus Posse," but more egregiously, can't read between the lines about why his older son is focused on his flute and why he really likes fancy dancers but not so much the dancing itself.
• Pixellation: In "Pipeline Protest," Jimmy Jack Johnson (introduced as "Jimmy Jack and his Johnson") of the Cowboy-Indian Alliance has his genital region pixellated. The entirety of his outfit is a hat, socks, and shoes.
• Shout-Out: The Native characters in "The Halloween Hell No" are dressed as Arthur and Francine, allowing the Arthur to ball his fist per the meme when he spots a white guy wearing Native clothing as a costume.
• Shrouded in Myth: In "Origin Stories - Gathering of Nations," Chief Crazy Horse is described as having "skin red like fire," ankle-length hair that was blacker than a black guy, and a six-foot penis.
• Strip Poker: At a college party, a boy asks a girl for her number, only for her to initiate the titular "Strip Hand Game" with the scrap of paper instead of giving it to him outright. It takes until he's down to his socks and underwear until he successfully [[guesses the correct hand.
• Stylistic Suck: The spirit vision of Crazy Horse in "Origin Stories - Gathering of Nations" involves a variety of blatant stock photos. Crazy Horse himself is poorly superimposed on a night sky image.
• Token White: Though he's Osage, Ryan tends to play the role of the white guy or the guy who swears he's Native, as he's the "pale one" of the troupe.
• Training Montage: The second installment of "A Day In The Life Of A Powwow Emcee" focuses on the training of a new emcee in the local gym. His tasks range from the practical, like helping a curmudgeonly walker user get to the elder seating section, to the inexplicably athletic tasks of running suicides and practicing punches.
• Translation: "Yes": Dallas, as Chingachgook, says a lot of words in nonsense Ojibwe that the subtitles translate as "True that" in the "Hunting" video.
• Tropaholics Anonymous: The subject of "Indian Man's Anonomy's" is a support group for men confessing their bad vices and shortcomings, which include fathering thirteen children, liking white women, sending dick pics, and being a know-it-all.
• Versus Character Splash: The "Stoic Off!!!" begins with a splash of both competitors' stoic squints with a large graffiti-style "VS." superimposed on the shots.
• White Man's Burden: "Wounded White Warrior Savior Photographer" intercuts a National Geographic interview of photographer Aaron Huey with video of Ryan taking awkward (and often intrusive) photos at a powwow. Huey describes his photography at Pine Ridge Reservation and how being there on assignment changed his perspective on life, while the 1491s' video wordlessly demonstrates the interloping nature of these photographers.