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Choctaw Nation Chief Gary Batton poses with Sydney Freeland, producer and director of the Marvel Studios series, Echo that features a Choctaw character. Matt Swearengin | Durant Democrat
The Choctaw Nation has launched a new website dedicated to Marvel’s highly anticipated five-part series, Echo, and the Choctaw cultural representations showcased throughout the story.
The main character, Maya, is Choctaw.
During a red carpet event at the Choctaw Cultural Center to preview the series last November, Choctaw Nation Chief Gary Batton said it had been about four-five years ago that the tribe was approached about breaking down Native American stereotypes.
“We just started having this collaboration that has eventually turned into this series called Echo,” Batton said. “Echo is about Maya Lopez which is the main actress in this. She is deaf and she is an amputee but she’s resilient, she’s strong, she displays our culture, our history. Our language is going to be shown as a subtitle on this film. It depicts a reflection back on our history from stickball games to all those types of things, so it’s my goal that this film shows who we are as Choctaw people and what our culture and history is about.”
Batton said Maya portrays a “tough Choctaw.”
“We call it a Tushka warrior that goes through difficult times, but she’s a very strongwilled person just like we are,” he said. “Very resilient, just like we are as Choctaw people.”
During the red carpet event, Sydney Freeland, director and producer of the series, said she was fortunate to have the opportunity to bring the character to life.
“So when I came on board, the character was Choctaw and so one of the first things that I wanted to do is to engage the Choctaw Nation and to engage the people here and the community because while I’m Native American, I’m Navajo,” Freeland said. “I grew up on the Navajo reservation. It’s a completely different experience although there are some shared parallel experiences. It was important for me to gauge the background, culture and tradition and languages that we could sort of draw from their expertise.”
The tribe said the Echo website serves as a resource for tribal members and fans seeking to delve deeper into the Echo series and the Choctaw Nation’s contributions to the Marvel Universe.
The website provides information about the tribe’s history, traditions and language allowing visitors to explore the significance of the various cultural symbols, practices, and beliefs that are woven into Echo’s narrative. It also features exclusive interviews with the tribal leaders behind Echo, shedding light on the collaboration that went into authentically portraying Choctaw culture and the importance of accurately depicting Native culture.
Audiences can watch Marvel’s Echo series on Hulu and Disney+ that began on January 9.
Visit https://echo.choctawnation. com and learn more about the partnership between Disney, Marvel and the Choctaw Nation.