Film + TV

Native American metalhead among dozens who quit Adam Sandler's racist new movie

by Tyler Munro

Adam Sandler wrote an insensitive joke? While I never!.

But yes: Word from the set of one of his half-dozen Netflix movies is that the jokes in his upcoming western The Ridiculous Six were so culturally insensitive to Native Americans that at least 12 actors, most of whom were of Navajo descent, left the set in disgust.

According to the Indian Country Today Media Network, the script contained countless examples of cultural disrespect, naming female tribespeople things like “Beaver’s Breath” and “No Bra.” Tales from the set say that one scene in particular sees a woman smoking a peace pipe while urinating, a scene which we can only imagine is bookended by Sandler, seen above in full Native costuming, stumbling in on her, muttering a bunch of “shoo bee da ba doo” gibberish and then yelling some inane, poster-featuring catch phrase.

There’s a musical angle to this story, too: One of the actors who walked off the set was Loren Anthony, a Navajo Tribal member who fronts the metal band Bloodline.

He said that he was hesitant to do the movie until producers assured him there would be a cultural advisor on set at all times ensuring that his people were tastefully represented. Naturally, said cultural advisor also walked off the set.

“[T]hey told me it was going to be a comedy, but it would not be racist,” said Anthony. “So I agreed to it but on Monday things started getting weird on the set,” he said.”

How weird? He says his tribe was misrepresented, and that when they confronted the director about it, he simply brushed it off, saying “the disrespect was not intentional and this was a comedy.”

Things clearly turned quickly for Anthony, whose Instagram and Twitter feeds were filled prior to the incident with remarks about it being an honour to work with Sandler, and how great of a time he was having. Blatant racism, it turns out, is the ultimate buzzkill.

Here’s his band: