Last week approximately a dozen Native American actors and the film’s cultural consultant (referred to in the above video as “Bruce”) walked off the set of Adam Sandler’s Netflix Western Ridiculous Six, citing the film’s offensive depiction of Native elders and women, and its misrepresentation of Apache culture. (For more specifics on the script’s issues, check out Indian Country’s coverage.)
Although the sound quality in the video isn’t great and some of the debate doesn’t make sense outside of the context of set specifics, the recording does capture a producer telling the concerned actors that if they’re “overly sensitive” they should probably leave, and an exchange in which one actor says “you’re trying to tell us what’s disrespectful to us? You try to call us names, and we say it’s disrespectful and you say it’s not?,” only to be told “it’s not meant to be.”
Unfortunately, that “it’s just a joke! The effect doesn’t matter if the intentions were harmless!” (which in this case, I’m not entirely convinced they were) attitude has been a widespread response to the Ridiculous Six walk-off; in addition to Netflix issuing a preposterous statement insisting the film’s diverse cast is “in on the joke,” Sandler’s co-star Vanilla Ice also defended the film to TMZ:
It’s a comedy. I don’t think anybody really had any ill feeling or any intent or anything. This movie isn’t [Dances] With Wolves, it’s a comedy. They’re not there to showcase anything about anybody they’re just making a funny movie.
You can read a controversial leaked page of the “funny movie” here. Netflix–shut this movie and all its accompanying whitesplaining down.
(via The Hollywood Reporter)
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