Sandler's racist Ridiculous 6 "jokes"

These Are the Jokes That Caused Actors To Walk Off Adam Sandler's Set

By Jordan SargentThe scenes that caused the Native actors to leave the set appear to happen within the first 15 minutes or so of the film. Extra Loren Anthony, who spoke to Indian Country Today, described a scene involving a character named Beaver’s Breath as being particularly irritating to the extras:Here is the part in which a Native woman squats and pisses while smoking a peace pipe. The extras noted a character named “No Bra” as being a disrespectful parody of Native American names—there is no “No Bra” in the version of the script we have, though it appears as if that character’s original name, “Sits-On-Face,” was even worse.

Read a Page From the Adam Sandler Script That Caused Native Actors to Quit

By Vincent SchillingNative actors who walked off the set of Adam Sandler’s movie The Ridiculous Six managed to snap a quick photograph of one of the pages of the script that shows offensive language and insults to native women. In the scene, characters "Beaver Breath," "Smoking Fox" and "Never Wears Bra" discuss the novelty of toilet paper, and it is revealed that their own approach to hygiene involves keeping their private parts clean with dead animals.

Additionally, the characters speak in broken stereotypical English.

The script reads as follows:

EXT. CREEK OUTSIDE APACHE VILLAGE – LATER

The Creek area is busy. Braves spear-fish while children play in the water.

Smoking Fox is on the banks of the creek, doing laundry with her best friends: a 30-ish chubby woman, BEAVER BREATH, and a younger woman, NEVER WEARS BRA (both Apache).

BEAVER BREATH

I have a big idea for your wedding: we decorate trees with toilet paper!

SMOKING FOX

What is this “toilet paper”?

BEAVER BREATH

Paper used to clean your chi-wat after taking a chungo.

NEVER-WEARS-BRA

That what dead squirrel for!

Another posting explains why Sandler's racist jokes don't qualify as satire:

The 'Ridiculous Six' Script Reveals "Offensive" Jokes That Caused Native American Actors To Walk Out

By Mark NewtonJust so we're all singing from the same hymn sheet, here is the definition of a 'satire':

The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.

So, do the jokes presented above fall under satire? Well, one of the perhaps unwritten rules of satire is that it should ideally satirize the status quo or the mainstream, and satire has frequently been used by comedians to lampoon politicians and the powerful on all sides of the spectrum. Comedy becomes tricky when it appears to be directed at a minority which has historically been oppressed, often because they have little recourses to respond on the same level.

Of course, issues of race are also fair game for satire, especially how race is discussed within the mainstream media. But the important issue here is that the audience must understand any seemingly offensive views expressed by a character are not genuinely held by the actor saying them or the writer who wrote them--but are merely used to satirize views we know are held by some/or exist. Think, for example, Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report.

The main problem with The Ridiculous Six script is that the ignorant people appear not to be the white characters, but the Native Americans--since they have the silly names and behave in an uncouth fashion. In this sense, the 'stupidity and vices' exposed belong to the Native Americans and not the white characters, suggesting this doesn't really fall under the traditional definition of satire. Of course, maybe Sandler is simply satirizing himself as a white, affluent comedy writer who does not understand the sensitivities of the Native Americans?Comment:  Let's address the question of whether Ridiculous Six is a legitimate satire. For starters, who's the butt of the jokes: the Indians or someone else? If it's someone else, where is that in the script? Because it isn't evident in the excerpts.

Another way to put this is: How are these "jokes" any different from the ones in a racist movie? Again, if some "context" makes them different, where is it? Because it isn't evident in the excerpts.

True, we lack the entire script. But we have the judgments of the people who were there. They confirm what's evident in the excerpts--that the "jokes" are flat-out racist. Until Sandler and Netflix demonstrate otherwise, that judgment stands.

For more on Adam Sandler, see Natives Quit Adam Sandler Movie.