A number of actors walked off the set of Adam Sandler’s latest comedy on Wednesday.
According to the website Indian Country Today, a group of Native American actors, as well as a cultural advisor, refused to continue work on “The Ridiculous Six,” a Western produced by Netflix that is a spoof of “The Magnificent Seven.”
“The actors, who were primarily from the Navajo nation, left the set after the satirical western’s script repeatedly insulted native women and elders and grossly misrepresented Apache culture … (including) Native women’s names such as Beaver’s Breath and No Bra, (and) an actress portraying an Apache woman squatting and urinating while smoking a peace pipe, and feathers inappropriately positioned on a teepee.”
Sandler and his longtime collaborator Tim Herlihy wrote the script, and it co-stars Dan Aykroyd, Chris Parnell, Steve Buscemi, Taylor Lautner, Luke Wilson, Nick Nolte, Blake Shelton and Rob Schneider, among others.
Indian Country Today spoke with actor Loren Anthony, who said that he initially turned down a role in the movie but “agreed to take the job when producers informed him they had hired a cultural consultant and efforts would be made for tasteful representation of Natives.”
“I was asked a long time ago to do some work on this and I wasn’t down for it. Then 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,” he said.
David Hill, who is Choctaw, was also involved with the film and said the producers have reached out to talk things through.
“I hope they will listen to us,” he told Indian Country Today. “We understand this is a comedy, we understand this is humor, but we won’t tolerate disrespect. I told the director if he had talked to a native woman the way they were talked to in this movie — I said I would knock his a– out.”
nmetz@tribpub.com
Twitter @NinaMetzNews
