Lily Gladstone has made history as the first Native American to be nominated for an Oscar for best actress for her performance as Mollie Burkhart in Martin Scorsese’s "Killers of the Flower Moon." Her accomplishment is a long time coming, given the long and difficult history of Native American representation in film and television.Gladstone has Blackfeet and Nez Perce heritage through her father and was raised on a Blackfeet reservation in Montana. She was always interested in theater and performance, inspired by 'Star Wars' and the plight and strength of the Ewoks. After studying acting and directing in college, she joined a theater group and landed some roles in acclaimed indie films. Gladstone was about to walk away from acting altogether when she received a zoom invitation to meet Scorsese to discuss her audition for his latest film "Killers of the Flower Moon," set in the 1920s. She got the role of Mollie Burkart, an oil-rich Osage woman who marries a white man (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) who, in an attempt to solidify and steal her money, helps kill her family members. Gladstone has already earned a Golden Globe and a SAG award for her powerful performance and has become the first-ever Native American to be nominated for an Oscar for best actress. If she wins, she will become the first Native American to win an Oscar. Native American representation and agency within film and television has been marred by many challenges throughout film history. They have often been stereotyped, mischaracterized, whitewashed or simply omitted from film. The earliest films featuring Native Americans held them in a negative light, seeing the group as hostile and aggressive. The 1914 film, “The Battle at Elderbush Gulch,” directed by D.W. Griffith depicted Native Americans as puppy-eating aggressors who surround white settlers in a mob and are eventually killed by the white characters. Later, the Western genre became hugely popular, with 140 Westerns released by Hollywood between 1940 and 1960. These movies often banked on the "cowboys versus Indians" trope and featured gun-toting white cowboys heroically slaying Natives. In the 70s, film depictions improved slightly, with Native Americans no longer seen as the enemy, but instead as peaceful, wise people who lived outside of modernity. These films, though still, centered and starred white voices and arguably exoticized Native life and culture. Most of these films have ignored the true reality of the Native American situation, which includes settler colonialism that wiped out roughly 90% of the population, the forced dislocation from lands and reeducation programs that attempted to eradicate native culture. Even when Native Americans were given roles in films, they often were played by non-natives. Then there’s the other phenomenon of non-native people posing as Native Americans, like Sacheen Littlefeather and Buffy Sainte-Marie, colloquially known at “pretendian." In the case of Sainte-Marie, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation has alleged she has white, non-Native ancestry after an investigation, but Saint-Marie denies this. Native actors often find themselves lumped into a single group, when in reality there are 574 nations across the U.S., many with their own unique languages, cultures and religions. The tide is turning slowly as more Native American and indigenous people have their voices heard and stories told. The popular FX show "Reservation Dogs" and the movie "Smoke Signals" are just two examples of an increase of content being made by Native peoples. Gladstone is proud to be the first, but says she will not be the last. She told the New Yorker, “It’s all circumstantial that I have this moniker of the first, and I’m certainly not going to be the last. If I’ve kicked the door in, I’m just trying to stand here and leave it open for everybody else.”