April 24, 2015

A Republican mindset probably wouldn't understand that names assigned to Native American women like "Beaver's Breath" or "NoBra," might be offensive. A group of Native extras on the set of Adam Sandler's latest flick, The Ridiculous 6, simply walked out after pleading to producers to address their concerns.

The cast for the comedic Western, which is being produced by Sandler’s Happy Madison production company for Netflix, includes Sandler, Will Forte, Taylor Lautner, Steve Buscemi and Luke Wilson. Some online reports indicate that it is a spoof of the classic 1960 western The Magnificent Seven, while others indicate it takes a broader aim at all the clichés of the Western genre and focuses on an orphan who is raised by a Native American tribe.

One of the problems was that they refused to portray specific tribes with the correct clothing. A young Navajo actress, Alison Young said when their concerns were brought up to the crew, they were ignored. She said one producer told them, “'If you guys are so sensitive, you should leave.'” Another actress who walked off the set concurred that the advice from the cultural consultant went largely unheeded. “Nothing has changed,” said Young.

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Credit: Santa Fe New Mexican
They told me it was going to be a comedy, but it would not be racist. So I agreed to it but on Monday things started getting weird on the set,” Navajo actor Loren Anthony told Indian Country. He said the production made no effort to get anything culturally right on set.

Many don't realize Sandler is a registered Republican. He even performed at the 2004 RNC Convention in New York City. You remember that, the celebration of four more years of George W. Bush, what a guy! The fact that he's more comfortable with his political leanings seem to be inversely proportional to his attempts at humor. I'll admit, I liked movies like Billy Madison, but his attempt at making humor out of a teacher/student sex scandal in "That's My Boy," was disastrous at best.

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