Nativize Me

Sandler gaffe proves old habits are hard to shake off in Hollywood

Last week, news broke that some Native American actors working on a new Adam Sandler movie in the area walked off the set over what they say are disrespectful jokes in the script, historically inaccurate costumes, characters who speak in halting English and generally shitty attitudes (my take) from producers.

The movie, called The Ridiculous Six (apparently an oh-so-timely send-up of The Magnificent Seven), features characters called "Beaver Breath" and "Never-Wears-Bra," and Sandler's character is married to someone named "Smoking Fox." In the script, one woman relieves herself while smoking a peace pipe. (You can read all the transgressions at Indian Country Today Media Network and Deadspin.)

It's at this point we must sigh, shake our heads and resolve to never see another Adam Sandler movie again. Not because the jokes are disrespectful, but because Sandler is the laziest actor, writer and producer working in movies today, and that laziness is disrespectful. Sandler has been slacking off since roughly Big Daddy, and the sooner we stop watching his horseshit, the better off we'll all be. He told Jimmy Kimmel he made Blended so he could go to South Africa on vacation.

Laziness aside, the thing that makes Sandler's movies so distasteful is that his characters are never the butts of jokes. Correction: Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore are movies in which the lead characters, played by Sandler, are idiots. In those two films, he's constantly made fun of for being a dum-dum, jackass and moron. Sure, all the other characters are made fun of too, but there's plenty of inanity for all.

But Happy Gilmore has the first traces of what has become a Sandler trope: He makes fun of the weak for being weak—and in a Sandler movie, anyone who is not Sandler is weak—and touts his superiority because he isn't some weak asshole schmuck.

How many times are the women who work at Hooter's derided for working at Hooter's in Big Daddy? How many times is a character made fun of in Blended because she looks like a boy? The Hawaiians in 50 First Dates are high-sterical because they eat Spam.

And lately, Sandler has dipped into the just plain gross. Remember That's My Boy? The film's premise is that a 12-year-old kid is seduced by his hot 30-year-old teacher, and they have a kid together. Imagine that scenario featuring a 12-year-old girl and 30-year-old male teacher. Not nearly as funny, right?

So just who the fuck thought it was funny to give characters names like "Beaver Breath"? The same asshole who thought it was funny to have a transgender character be oh-so-funny to look at it in The Wedding Singer.

A video shared by Indian Country Today Media Network shows one of the producers on The Ridiculous Six set speaking to a group of Native American extras, saying, "If you're overly sensitive about it, you probably shouldn't [inaudible]…We don't want to offend anybody."

I think you offended somebody, dude. I mean, “overly sensitive”? We’re supposed to be living in a more enlightened time, right? In Winchester ’73, the reason James Stewart can get away with asking a Native American character, “You want sell?” is because it was 1950, and no one knew any better. These days, we can acknowledge that great movies have difficult pedigrees (see also: The Birth of a Nation).

But this is 2015. "Beaver Breath" ain't funny, man, and there's not a chance in Hades The Ridiculous Six will be great. There may as well be a disclaimer at the top of The Ridiculous Six that reads, "We don't know anything about Native Americans other than what we've seen in movies, and even then we only retained the dumb shit. We have no respect for anything. Why do we at Happy Madison (Sandler's production company) even make movies anymore? We'd rather keep shooting those videos of Sandler's dog that we used to put online—you know, the videos that aren't funny except to anyone who knows this dog personally."

It’s too bad The Ridiculous Six is a Netflix-only release. Somehow not clicking a button on your remote is less satisfying than actively avoiding a screening. But if the box office trends are any indication, this one will crap out, too. It will just be the Netflix-only version of crapping out.


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