Taika Waititi

Creator Context

Summary

Maori-Jewish New Zealand filmmaker whose public profile pairs crowd-pleasing comedy with a long indigenous-representation and anti-racism practice. Early features such as Boy and Hunt for the Wilderpeople centered Maori life without lecture plots; he later co-created Reservation Dogs with indigenous writers, directors, and cast, and through Piki Films backed Maori and Pacific storytellers, including projects about colonisation. He fronted New Zealand Human Rights Commission campaigns against casual racism, called his homeland racist, told Hollywood to decolonize the screen and stop making it so white, put indigenous trainees on studio sets, and at the Oscars delivered a land acknowledgment while dedicating his Jojo Rabbit screenplay prize to indigenous kids. He endorsed Jacinda Ardern and Labour and backed Australia's Indigenous Voice to Parliament. Later credits include the queer pirate romance Our Flag Means Death, LGBTQ supporting characters in Thor: Love and Thunder, and Next Goal Wins, which made a fa'afafine footballer central and insisted on identity-matched casting. He has said comedy is a way to get audiences comfortable before telling them they are racist, and that people are all queer to varying degrees. Genre hits such as What We Do in the Shadows and Thor: Ragnarok still account for much of his fame. Older tweets about gender presentation later drew criticism from some progressive voices.