A group of Native American actors walked off the set of comedian Adam Sandler’s latest movie over racially charged jokes and stereotyping, according to reports.
Actor Loren Anthony told The Associated Press that he and eight others quit the production of Sandler’s Netflix project, a satirical Western titled “The Ridiculous Six,” after producers ignored their concerns over the film’s portrayal of Apache culture.
“Right from the get-go, it didn’t feel right. But we it let it go,” Anthony, a Navajo actor who started work as an extra on the movie Monday, told the AP. “Once we found out more about the script, we felt it was totally disrespectful to elders and Native women.
Anthony said the script included offensive names for Native American female characters and featured a scene where a Native American woman urinated while smoking a peace pipe.
The actor told the Indian Country Today Media Network that the offensive names included “No Bra” and “Beaver’s Breath.”
“They just treated us as if we should just be on the side,” Anthony told ICTMN. “When we did speak with the main director, he was trying to say the disrespect was not intentional and this was a comedy.”
The movie is a spoof of western “The Magnificent Seven” and is the first in a four-movie deal between Sandler and Netflix that was announced last October.
“The movie has ‘ridiculous’ in the title for a reason: because it is ridiculous,” Netflix told The Associated Press in a statement. “It is a broad satire of Western movies and the stereotypes they popularized, featuring a diverse cast that is not only part of — but in on — the joke.”
Will Forte, Steve Buscemi, Taylor Lautner, Terry Crews and Vanilla Ice star in movie, with Frank Coraci directing a written by screenplay by Sandler and Tim Herlihy.
Associated Press
Reuters