"Stanksgiving" in Happy Endings

As you may recall, last year the TV comedy Happy Endings revealed that one of its characters, Dave, was 1/16 Navajo. I analyzed that bit in "Navajo" in Happy Endings.

This year Happy Endings did a follow-up bit for Thanksgiving. Titled More Like Stanksgiving (airdate: 11/21/12), it supposedly exposed Dave to the history of Indians in America.

Here are its references to Indians. First, Alex announces that she and Dave will prepare a Thanksgiving meal. Dave reminisces:DAVE: Although, this time of year is always a little bittersweet for me.

[Knowing Dave is about to launch into some faux-Indian nonsense, the others groan and sigh.]

DAVE: Thanksgiving is a real reminder of my people's hardships. As an American living with 1/16th Navajo-ism, I'm going to use this as an opportunity to educate, perhaps enlighten, all you white people and throw an authentic Thanksgiving.

BRAD [gestures at himself because he's black]: White people?

DAVE: You guys wouldn't understand. None of your ancestors were at the first Thanksgiving.

JANE: Okay, neither were the Navajo.

DAVE: One of our many snubs.

JANE: Yeah.At their apartment, Dave asks Alex about the clams she was supposed to buy. She thought it was a mistake and bought clamps instead.DAVE: Al, quahog clams were a featured dish in the first Thanksgiving.

DAVE [sighs]: I guess I gotta go get some now to prove to you guys how much better an authentic Thanksgiving is.

ALEX: Oh, Dave, c'mon. I respect your cultural traditions.

ALEX [gets a tray of tipi-shaped treats from the refrigerator]: That's why...I made...Navaho-hos.

DAVE: Tepees, Al? The Navajo did not live in tepee. I am deeply...offended by this.

[He takes a treat.]On his mission to buy clams, Dave is at a gas station getting gas. He's wearing a fringed leather jacket to signify his Native side:DAVE [to passersby]: Baa Ahééwiindzin Bijí. Happy day of thankfulness.

PASSERBY: Oh, shut up.

MAN [in a Pilgrim's outfit]: Excuse me, sir? We were headed to the Thanksgiving Day parade when our car ran out of gas about a mile away.

WOMAN [in a Pilgrim's outfit]: Can we borrow a few dollars for gas?

DAVE: The irony. You see, it's the custom of my people to help strangers in need. And this on the day of thanksgiving.

DAVE: You know what, I'm gonna hit the ATM.

MAN: Nice guy.

WOMAN: Total sweetheart.While Dave gets cash, he sings to himself about his "heart of an eagle." Meanwhile, the "Pilgrims" get in his car. When Dave approaches the car window, they snatch his money and wallet, then drive off.

Without his phone, Dave can't call for help. Still eager to fulfill his mission, he enters a deli and asks for clams. The proprietor complies:PROPRIETOR: All right, here are your quahogs.

DAVE: Great. One detail. I don't have any traditional money....

PROPRIETOR: Well, no clams then.

DAVE: C'mon, man, here's the dealio. Some Pilgrims stole my car and phone, so I can't call my friends because I don't know any of their numbers. I called the cops, but apparently they won't take me to get clams because they, quote, aren't a taxi service for idiots. So I was hoping that you and I could have a little barter situation here vis-à-vis...a trade.

PROPRIETOR: This is a real store.

DAVE: If I don't show up with a sack of clams I'm gonna look like a real dope.

PROPRIETOR: I do like that jacket.

DAVE: This jacket for some clams? I mean, this thing is choice. Plus it's 30 degrees outside. You're trying to trick me into a very uneven trade. The story of my people.

PROPRIETOR: White people?

DAVE: You who focus on 15/16ths of a man.

PROPRIETOR: Tell you what. The clams...plus this blanket.

DAVE [exasperated]: Fine.

PROPRIETOR: Fine.

DAVE: Fine.

[They make the trade.]

DAVE: Joke's on you. All my friends hate that jacket.As he goes outside, Dave sneezes. He realizes the blanket may have cat hair on it, which he's allergic to. He looks back and see the proprietor stroking a cat.

Dave in trouble

Sneezing, shivering, and desperate for money, Dave remembers he has one thing of value in his pocket:DAVE: Oh. My Rock Bottom Remainder tickets. I can sell these...for money.

DAVE: Mm. Thank you, rocking scribes.

DAVE [shouts to passersby]: Six tickets for Rock Bottom Remainders! Six tickets for Rock Bottom Remainders!

[A man approaches Dave.]

MAN: Hey, I love RBR. How much?

DAVE: 200 bucks.

MAN: All right, man. You gotta deal. That's great.

DAVE: Yeah? All right!

[The man pays for the tickets.]

DAVE: Oh, you don't understand what kind of day I've had. You see, I'm 1/16th Navajo--?

[The man grabs Dave, turns him around, and handcuffs him.]

MAN: Sir, you're under arrest for scalping.

DAVE: "Scalping"? "Scalping"?! Ah, c'mon, man! Why would you do this to a fellow Rock Bottom Remain dude? What are you doing looking for scalpers, anyway? We're nowhere near a concert venue.

MAN: No, but we are outside a police station.

[The man leads Dave, protesting, into the station.]

DAVE: "Scalping"? The Pilgrims drove me to it!Finally Dave returns to the apartment without the clams. The others hadn't noticed he was gone. He narrates what happened with the police:DAVE: --and then they got my car back.

[The others make sounds of happiness.]

DAVE: But, then they confiscated my RBR tickets.

[The others make fake sounds of sympathy.]

DAVE: But it wasn't all bad. I mean I wanted an authentic Thanksgiving and I got so much more. I experienced the entire plight of the Native American people in just one day.

JANE: Ohh, no you didn't.

PENNY: That is wildly insensitive.

DAVE: And, 'cuz of my hardships, I feel as though I've earned the right to bestow upon myself my own Indian name.

PENNY: Oh.

DAVE: So henceforth, I'll be known as "Has Ordeals with Clams."

BRAD: I don't like it.

MAX: Now, is that a legal name change? Or is this like the time you wanted us to call you "Lindsey"?

DAVE: It's so much bigger than that.

PENNY: Oh, excuse me, Linds.Analysis

My thoughts on the Stanksgiving episode:

The good

It's great to see Native history in any format--especially in a network TV show where people aren't expecting. And for a silly comedy, Happy Endings does a reasonable job of recapitulating that history. Traditional foods, welcoming strangers, ripped off by Pilgrims, getting cheated in trades, given infected blankets, forced to scalp and punished for it...that about sums it up. At least through the 19th century.

As it did last time, Happy Endings also gets credit for using a genuine Navajo phrase. Anything that indicates Native languages are still spoken is good.

The bad

The show doesn't distinguish between true and false, misleading, or stereotypical information. In the first category, the Navajo weren't at the first Thanksgiving and didn't live in tipis. In the second category, Indians generally don't wear fringed leather jackets or give themselves "funny Indian names."

The show has no "voice of reason." All six characters are kind of buffoonish. So there's no one to point out the difference between true and false or stereotypical. That limits the already limited educational value of the episode.

The ugly

Even if Dave is a comical character who suffers for his effrontery, he's still a white man adopting a phony Native identity. He isn't an enrolled Navajo and he wasn't raised in the Navajo culture. He has no excuse for pretending to be an Indian rather than a white man with Native roots.

His situation is reminiscent of Elizabeth Warren's. But once her background became known, she didn't claim to be a Cherokee or act like one. She stuck to honoring her (alleged) Native heritage based on her family stories.

That's an appropriate response. Appropriating a Native identity isn't. If Dave told a group of Indians he was 1/16 Navajo and wanted to share "his" culture, they'd criticize and scorn him.

Yet no one really challenges Dave except to groan or sigh. No one tells him, "The joke's over, Dave. By pretending that a drop of Native blood makes you Native, you're insulting real Indians. This is deeply offensive if not outright racist. Stop it now or I'm leaving."

The show is normalizing the idea that New Agers, wannabes, or anyone with a faint connection to Indians can "choose" to be Native. There's an implication that Indians existed in the past but are now gone. All that's left is white people upholding some almost-forgotten Native traditions.

We've heard similar "reasoning" in many cases. Starlets will justify saying or wearing something stereotypical because they're a tiny bit Native. Companies will justify their stereotypical marketing images because the founder talked to someone who said it would be okay. In each case, non-Indians invent reasons to appropriate a culture that isn't theirs.

How about putting a real Native character in these Native-themed episodes of Happy Endings? Have someone who could straighten Dave out about claiming to be Navajo, wearing a fringed jacket, adopting a "funny Indian name," etc. That would be more enlightening than this halfhearted attempt to share Native culture via white people.

It would be funnier, too. I can just imagine the double-takes and eye-rolling as a real Indian listened to Dave pontificate about his ancestors. That kind of reality is what's missing from Happy Endings' take on Indians.

Overall impressions

Here's one reviewers take on the episode:

Happy Endings "More Like Stanksgiving" Review: Has Ordeals With Clams

by Bill KuchmanHoliday-themed sitcom episodes are always tricky proposals; it's easy for writers to get sucked into penning sappy storylines. I consider How I Met Your Mother to be the gold standard of Thanksgiving episodes, having given us both "Slapsgiving" and "Blitzgiving." After "More Like Stanksgiving," it looks like Happy Endings is ready to join that rarified air.

First off, "More Like Stanksgiving" was an excellent Happy Endings episode, possibly the best one of Season 3 thus far. Every character was in play, every member of the group delivering line after line of great material. The actual holiday of Thanksgiving was a part of the episode without the entire thing coming off like an after-school special. There wasn't some gooey message telling us how to feel at the end. And like HIMYM's "Slapsgiving" and "Blitzgiving" episodes, the story in this episode wasn't exactly the family dinner stuff Norman Rockwell would've painted. Dave claiming to have experienced the entire Native American plight because he got caught scalping tickets? Brilliant.I'll agree that the Native story arc was well-constructed. I didn't think it was particularly funny. The other parts of the episode were funnier.

Overall, I'd say it was a good episode, not a great one. Like a lot of comedies these days, Happy Endings excels at snappy one-liners. It's ultimately forgettable because the characters are story props, not real people with depth.

For more on the subject, see Halloween Party in Happy Endings and Navajo Writes for Happy Endings.

Below:  Dave the "Navajo" just before the "Pilgrims" rip him off.

Halloween party in Happy Endings

With a Navajo writer on staff, you'd think the TV show Happy Endings would do a better job of representing Indians. Instead the show gives us another woman in a sexy Indian costume.

In the episode titled Spooky Endings (airdate: 10/26/11), the gang attends a Halloween party. A prominent attendee is a woman in a buckskin skirt, braids, and a headband with feathers. She's in the background in roughly half the party scenes--perhaps a dozen shots.

There's also a man in a buckskin outfit and a black wig with braids. I think he's supposed to be an Indian too, although he may be a caveman.

You have to work to include a character in that many scenes. I imagine the director (Fred Savage of The Wonder Years) telling the phony "Indian maiden" to move into the camera shot. "People won't know it's a Halloween party unless they see a stereotypical Indian."

For more on the subject, see "Little Indian Girl" in Community and Halloween Joke in Family Guy.

Below:  Demonstrating how obvious the "Indian maiden" was, she's in two of the six publicity stills.

Navajo writes for Happy Endings

Ah, here's the explanation for the unusual Navajo theme in last week's Happy Endings. Here's a blog entry dated 4/12/11, which was the day before the TV show debuted:

Multi-talented Weaver Sierra Ornelas Writes “Happy Endings”The weaving Teller-Ornelas family will be glued to their television sets tomorrow evening when the new comedy “Happy Endings” premieres on ABC. Sierra Ornelas, Barbara Teller Ornelas’ multi-talented daughter Sierra Ornelas is one of the writers for the series, which explores modern relationships. The show is on after “Modern Family” at 9:30 Eastern and Pacific time, 8:30 Central and Mountain time. Sierra is also an accomplished weaver of the 100 weft count tapestries that her family is famous for. Congratulations on the premiere, Sierra! I hope the show is a big hit!Here's a video showing Ornelas at work in a room of six female writers:

Casey Wilson Corners the Female Writing Staff of Happy Endings

Comment:  Having a Navajo writer on staff explains the choice of a Navajo ancestor and the Navajo words. Cherokee would've been the more obvious and plausible choice.

Ornelas isn't listed as the writer of the episode Yesandwitch, but she probably contributed ideas and jokes. I trust she pointed out the script's problems and the other staff members overruled her. If she wrote these scenes herself and the others let her...well, they weren't that great. They were kind of hit-and-miss, if you ask me.

For more on this season's TV shows, see Columbus Day in Saturday Night Live and Pete Littlebear in Up All Night.

Below:  "Sierra Ornelas (right) with Mom, Barbara (center) and brother Michael Ornelas."

"Navajo" in Happy Endings

The TV show Happy Endings, which debuted last year, is kind of a twentysomething Friends. Last week it had a Native-themed episode, Yesandwitch (airdate: 10/12/11).

The show begins with Penny announcing her mother Dana is coming to visit:PENNY:  Ohmigod, you guys, look at this text she just sent me recently. "Sail the oceans of your dreams, and be the discoverer of great places. Happy Columbus Day."

BRAD:  Damn, she even makes Columbus Day sound cool.This uncritical view of Columbus doesn't bode well for the episode. And things do get worse.

Here's the bit we're concerned with:After his food truck didn’t make Time Out Chicago‘s Hot List, a crestfallen (read: “another boring white guy”) Dave decides to explore his heritage, as per Dana’s advice.And the result:DAVE:  Sit down, ladies, 'cuz I'm about to blow your minds. Did some research, and I...am one-sixteenth...[whispers] Navajo.

[He unveils a 2" turquoise pendant on his chest.]

DANA:  That is the lottery of ancestry.This scenario is unlikely, to put it mildly. When people "discover" they have an Indian ancestor, it's usually from a big Midwestern tribe: Cherokee, Creek, Chippewa, Choctaw, etc. You know, where people have intermarried freely with their white neighbors.

The Navajo are one of the most isolated tribes, meaning there's much less chance of intermarriage. Remember, we're talking about Dave's great-great-grandparent, who would've married in the mid-19th century. Yes, a Navajo could've married one of the few white settlers in the sparsely inhabited Arizona Territory when Indians were considered marauding savages, but it's unlikely.

But there's no reason to think this is a fraud or mistake. Somehow Dave's grandparents never mentioned that one of their grandparents was a full-blooded Indian. So let's go with the claim that he's genuinely 1/16 Navajo.

The restaurant scene

A little later, Penny, Dave, and Alex are at an outdoor restaurant. Dave is wearing a fringed leather jacket, Penny questions him about it.PENNY:  So this is definitely a Navajo thing, and you feel good about that?

DAVE:  It's a metaphor. Each fringe represents a tribe. Each bead a white man's broken promise. Plus it's reversible.

ALEX:  And this is all helping you with a new sandwich?

DAVE:  Yes! And it is great. Buffalo meat, green chiles and corn. Although I couldn't find the Navajo word for sandwich, so I'm calling it seit'aad. Which is an actual sand...witch.

PENNY:  A real witch...who lives in the sand?

DAVE:  "She who buries her victims in the many dunes."The episode's problems begin to multiply. Dave makes up a victimhood story for his jacket, which no real Native would do. Then he makes up a Navajo legend about a witch who lives in the sand.

His goal is nominally to boost his truck's business, but he isn't talking to his customers. He's talking to his friends, and to the audience. He, which means the show's writers, are making up a phony Navajo rap for our benefit.

So Indians are victims living in the past. Indians have strange beliefs about evil magical beings. And anyone who's 1/16 Navajo can claim to be an Indian. That's what we've learned so far.

The only positive note is that Dave utters what sounds like a real Navajo word. And what looks like a real Navajo word in the closed captioning. I doubt it means "sand witch," but it may mean something.

Dana's depression

It turns out Dana is depressed because her husband is leaving her. The gang tries to cheer her up.DAVE:  Dana, you know what they say. [Pretends to fire an arrow.] Nizh-oh-nee-ay.

DANA:  Oh my gosh, Dave. Do you think you're a real Navajo now?

DAVE:  Made a few friends at the American Indian Center.

DANA:  Have you? [Drops a paper towel on the floor.] Did that make you cry?

DAVE:  No.

DANA:  Because you're not a real Indian, David!

DAVE [pouting]:  "Native American."

[Dana leaves in a huff.]

PENNY [trying to cheer up Dave]:  Dave, you're one-sixteenth Navajo, and don't let that white woman take that from you.Okay, Dana finally bursts Dave's bubble. He isn't Native just because one of his 16 great-great-grandparents was.

The reference to Iron Eyes Cody, the crying Indian, is okay because Dana is being sarcastic. She's mocking Dave's belief that he's an Indian, not mocking Indians.

But she's upset, and Dave doesn't concede the point. Moreover, Penny reinforces Dave's "Navajo" identity. The message to the audience is muddled at best.

Again, Dave's use of a Navajo word is a positive. I think he said something about nizhoni. That roughly translates to "walk in beauty," a core Navajo philosophy. It might be something you'd say to a depressed person who's lost her way.

The big finish

Finally, Dana and Penny sing a number at a boat show. The gang arrives with a group of well-wishers to cheer Dana on. I think Max calls them "Americans and Natives." The implication is that the group includes some of Dave's "friends" from the Indian center.

One is clearly an Indian. He looks like actor Rick Mora, although someone assures me it isn't Mora. He doesn't say anything, but we get a few glimpses of him. There may be other Natives in the crowd, but they're gone too quickly to be sure.

This is a mildly pleasant ending, but it could've been better. The show should've had a few more lines to address the whole "Navajo" thing. Something like:DAVE:  Sorry about the whole "Navajo" thing. Guess I got carried away.

DAVE:  Here, meet some of my friends from the Indian center.

PENNY:  No fringed jackets or big pieces of jewelry?

INDIAN #1 [laughing]:  Nah, we left them in our teepees with our canoes and totem poles.

INDIAN #2:  We don't have to dress like stereotypical Indians to prove ourselves. We know who we are.However you say it, you get the idea. Introduce real Indians to counteract Dave's "fake Indian" routine. Show the audience that Indians are like anyone else.

All in all, Yesandwitch wasn't a bad episode. The ending and the Navajo words almost counteracted the misguided beginning.

These days, a lot of TV shows take this kind of uneven approach toward Natives. They try to be sensitive, to send a positive message, but they can't help using clichés and stereotypes. It's better than pure stereotyping, but it leaves much to be desired.

For more on this season's TV shows, see Columbus Day in Saturday Night Live and Pete Littlebear in Up All Night.

Below:  Dave in his "Navajo" jacket watches the singers with an Indian behind him.