National Domestic Violence Awareness Project

Some Neat - Native Centric Things I’ve Worked On

joeyclift:

In my other posts, I talked about shows and things I’ve written for that didn’t have a ton to do with being Native. My comedy stuff and cultural background honestly didn’t intersect a ton until a year or two ago. Native issues are oftentimes pretty heavy and I wasn’t sure how, or if I should write jokes about it. 

Eventually, at the urging of a few of my friends who run the very awesome comedy book press “The Devastator”, I wrote a 12 page satire zine about Native representation in media and self published it and my mom, who is a very cool Native artist illustrated it. It’s called “The American Indian Ready To Wear Catalog 2018″ and you can download a free copy here!

http://redcatpress.com/complimentary/

After that got a good response and I had so much fun writing comedy about Native issues, I made a short film called “Telling People You’re Native American When You’re Not Native Is A Lot Like Telling A Bear You’re A Bear When You’re Not A Beat”. (when I came up with the title, I didn’t think I’d have to say it out loud a ton.) You can watch it here.

I originally just made the short to screen at a live comedy show in Los Angeles, but it got such a good response that I submitted it for festivals. It got into dozens of festivals, won awards and even screened at The Smithsonian Museum. (I know, right!?)

Around this time, I was asked to be a guest on the awesome Earwolf podcast Yo Is This Racist as the first ever Native person they’d ever had on the show.

and then off of that appearance, Earwolf invited me to record their first ever All Native podcast “Wow, You’re Native American Too?” where I interviewed awesome fellow funny Native Lucas Brown Eyes. You can check out a few of my Yo Is This Racist episodes and my Earwolf Presents show at these links.

https://www.earwolf.com/episode/pay-a-native-w-joey-clift/

https://www.earwolf.com/episode/we-solved-racism-special/

https://www.earwolf.com/episode/wow-youre-native-american-too-with-joey-clift/

and being one of very few Natives working in comedy, I’ve even tried to signal boost other Native comedians as much as possible. Last year, I produced and co hosted the first ever all Native American comedy showcase at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theater. It was on Columbus Day (because of course it was) and it was a standing room only sellout! Here’s a group photo of all the super funny performers we had on the show.

We did the show again this year and it was another sellout and tomorrow (11/27) we’re doing the first ever All Native improv show at UCB which is another sellout!

Though the history of Natives in entertainment hasn’t been super great, stuff like this proves that people want to hear us and things are getting better, and that’s really neat :)