He's not supposed to care about being sensitive.

A Native-American cultural adviser and a dozen Native American actors left the set of Adam Sandler’s new movie The Ridiculous 6 because they were too offended to participate.

Among the complaints: The film named female characters things like “Beaver’s Breath” and “No Bra” and the costumes were not culturally accurate.

“We were supposed to be Apache, but it was really stereotypical and we did not look Apache at all. We looked more like Comanche,” said Loren Anthony, one of the actors who quit.


Now, it seems a little silly to agree to participate in what is clearly a satire film if you’re going to be offended by satire — or to participate in an Adam Sandler movie if you’re going to be offended by anything.

I mean, had they seen any of his other films? Was the Waterboy sensitive to southern culture? With its portrayal of Louisianans as people who sit around in the backwoods eating alligators, so irrationally religious that they think football is “the devil”?


Hell, the fact that Sandler even hired Native-American actors to play Native-American characters seems groundbreakingly sensitive if you compare it to some of the other things he’s done. Like, oh, you know, having Rob Schneider paint his face brown to play a taxi-driving Palestinian terrorist wannabe in Don’t Mess with the Zohan. Or having Rob Schneider paint his face brown to play a wet-T-shirt-contest-and-booze-loving Arabian prince named “Habeeboo” in Click. Or having Rob Schneider paint his face yellow to play a Japanese-Canadian minister who pronounces all of his Ls like Rs in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, a film where two straight males “pretend to be gay” — that is, demonstrate stereotypically “gay” behaviors — so that they get married for financial gain.

#related#Of course, it’s not just Rob Schneider. Don’t Mess with the Zohan in general is filled with enough stereotypes to give any social-justice warrior a heart attack. If anyone took it seriously, they’d think that Middle Eastern people do literally nothing but fight with each other and eat hummus.


So — considering this, why would these people agree to be in one of Adam Sandler’s movies if they were going to get upset by something as simple as clothing that makes them look like Native Americans of one tribe instead of Native Americans of another tribe? Well, actually, many of them said that they had initially hesitated to participate because they were worried it would be too offensive, but then decided to do it once they heard there would be an adviser.


That actually kind of makes sense, which brings me to the question that we really should be asking: Why did Adam Sandler hire a cultural adviser in the first place? What did he think would happen?

It’s no surprise that a commitment to political correctness was one that Sandler couldn’t keep, and his failure to do so isn’t what offends me — it’s the fact that he felt it would be a good idea to try.


Come on, Adam — you have made millions of dollars and won over millions of fans with your crude brand of humor. Why on earth would you back away from it?

I can’t see inside his head (and I’m not sure that I’d want to) but this seems like yet another example of a comic feeling pressure to change what he’s doing to appease the wishes of the politically correct crowd, despite the fact that what he’s doing is so clearly working for him.

Now, I’m not saying that all of his movies are good — he’s made a lot of bad ones, and The Ridiculous 6 will probably be one of them. However, I am saying that I’m not going to be so arrogant as to insult one of the most successful comedians in recent years by suggesting that some cultural adviser would know more about the art than he does.

After all, what if Adam Sandler had let a sensitivity adviser review Billy Madison? Someone like that would have probably objected so strongly to the characters’ misogynistic behavior (“I dare you to touch her boob!”) that the entire thing would have been shut down. And a lot of people would have spent a lot fewer hours laughing.