Movie Review: Adam Sandler's "The Ridiculous 6"

Funny story written by Samuel Vargo

Wednesday, 29 April 2015

image for Movie Review: Adam Sandler's "The Ridiculous 6"
Comedy or racist attack? Adam Sandler does it again with "Ridiculous Six".

Although Adam Sandler has made a lot of ridiculous movies, The Ridiculous 6 is his most ridiculous yet. And this film is very offensive, too, making it about as funny as Charles Manson wielding an AR-15.

The exclusive film carrier - Netflix - along with Sandler, and at least one other member of the cast, Vanilla Ice, seem to have a insouciant attitude about this matter, but many American Indians are outraged.

To be honest, I haven't seen the movie. It has not even been released yet. But I've heard enough about it, and read enough about The Ridiculous 6, to know that Sandler should have never have written, nor should he be producing or starring in this thing. And unless he alters the script drastically, when the film airs it will create even more controversy.

The Ridiculous 6 has been explained to be a satire of the old cowboy and Indian westerns of old. And while these films were racist, they are from another time in history. The Ridiculous 6 fails because most movie-goers would never understand the connection between this old, moldy, black-and-white antique type of TV series and full-length film. And it is doomed, too, because The Ridiculous 6's current script is so deplorable in its racist slams, it makes these old b & w cowboy and Indian westerns look tame and lame. Where these old dinosaurs of a Hollywood of long ago left off, The Ridiculous 6 attaches itself with even nastier body slams and sucker punches. Although hyperbole is one of comedy and satire's building tools, this type of over-the-top racism will not be seen as hyperbole. No, it will be considered barbed and vicious attack.

Sandler, whose comedy dates back to his Saturday Night Live days, sometimes performed SNL skits involving lame-brained attacks on some of society's most misunderstood and alienated of peoples, and in The Ridiculous 6 this moron drags the Navajo Nation - and American Indians, as a whole - through yet another one of his retarded urine-fests. The Ridiculous 6 is so offensive and hideous that American Indians who had small roles in the film walked off the set just a few days ago.

Among these people were Navajo Nation tribal member Loren Anthony. "There were about a dozen of us who walked off the set," Anthony told Indian Country Today Media Network, adding that he had initially refused to do the movie. He then agreed to take the job when producers informed him they had hired a cultural consultant and efforts would be made for tasteful representation of Natives.

"One thing that really offended a lot of people was that there was a female character called Beaver's Breath. One character says 'Hey, Beaver's Breath.' And the Native woman says, 'How did you know my name?'" Anthony told ICTMN.

There's another Indian character named 'No Bra' and these characters do outlandish things in Sandler's sad-assed attempt at comedy, like use little bodies of water as a toilet and act out in other vulgar ways. Here are a few more zero-tolerance, zero-sum "zingers" from this horrid racist farce -

"My wife will have a sweet zum-zum, just like Smoking Fox!"

"Say honey, how about after this, we go some place and I put my pee-pee in your tee-pee?"

Aging rapper Vanilla Ice, who plays Mark Twain in The Ridiculous 6, made claims that he is a Choctaw Indian and that Indians should not be offended by this movie, because he, Vanilla Ice, is an Indian, and he is not offended. Vanilla Ice even went on to say that he is so proud of being a Choctaw Indian that he was going to have The Great Seal of the Choctaw Nation tattooed on his forehead, his forearm, or his ass or something.

In reality, Vanilla Ice is not an Indian at all. Some real rootin' tootin' Choctaw Indians who are federally registered as members of this federally recognized tribe did some digging and discovered that Vanilla Ice has no Indian blood whatsoever. It turns out the Vanilla Ice is a descendant of European immigrants, and though there is nothing wrong with this, there are no Choctaw reservations in Germany, the states in the USA where his immediate ancestors settled, or wherever the hell else his people came from. Nice try, Vanilla guy! Hey - it's not bad being White. A lot of us are and most of us are damned proud of it. Hoka hey!

Don't worry, Vanilla Ice, today everyone's an Indian. Even I'm an Indian. I'm 1/10003rd Cherokee, 1/97th Comanche, 1/567th Lakota Sioux and I'm even 1/5,689th Cree. I don't know if this means anything to real Indians, but I sure as hell am proud of it all - I'm thinking about having The Great Seal of the Choctaw Nation emblazoned on the hood of my car!

Yes, things have taken a real flip-flop from the good old days when Andrew Jackson was our President and he sent out his goons door-to-door in the Deep South, to root out Indians from Whites and Blacks. The Indians - part of the Five Tribes (aka The Five Civilized Tribes) - were later sent on a death march, known as the Trail of Tears, to 'Indian Territory' in Oklahoma, so as to leave their lands available to White settlers. Hundreds of thousands of American Indians - if not upwards of a million - died as a result of the Trail of Tears.

This isn't funny. No, not at all. Nobody wanted to be in this parade. So the head of the family would say "I'm not red - even though I might look like an Indian. No, no, no - I'm only 1/17th Creek." And if you look on the Dawes Rolls and other Indian census rolls of this time period, all sorts of preposterous and genetically implausible racial quantums have been recorded in regard to Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Choctaw, and Chickasaw people.

Can you blame them? They were Indians when being Indian wasn't cool. Their identity brought fatal consequences - it was a death sentence. In the Deep South, nobody in their right mind wanted to be federally recognized as anything other than Caucasian, or White, or whatever term they used way back when. And nobody wanted to have that death stamp, 'American Indian', placed on these census rolls. Self preservation even trumps the urge to reproduce in humankind's instinctual cognizance.

Meantime, Sandler is laughing his silly little ass all the way to the bank. Yes, he's pulled himself out of his 'has been' status and now he more or less owns Netflix.

With a net worth estimated at $300 million, Sandler was criticized by Forbes as being one of movie land's most over-paid and overly rated actors, with his films pulling in a measly $3.40 for every dollar paid out. But the man can strum a guitar and there are plenty of other ethnicities, religious groups, and people he can attack with his harebrained brand of comedy. And now he more or less owns Netflix, so his total worth will most likely double in the next year or two. It just proves that even someone who acts and even seems to be mentally challenged can make it in the land of opportunity when many others simply cannot.

Another movie Sandler produced and starred in, You Don't Mess with Zohan (2008), was intended to be a light-hearted spoof of Middle Eastern stereotypes, but Sandler, who plays Zohan, a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces who secretly wants to become a hairdresser in America, upset many people with Middle Eastern ancestry, particularly Jewish people. And Sandler himself is Jewish. Huh. Imagine that - upsetting people of your one's own race, culture and religion. But that's Adam Sandler for you. Anyhow, You Don't Mess with Zohan got horrid reviews but was marked as a box office hit.

To be honest, I've never been a fan of Sandler. I used to look into those dim-witted eyes and hear that monotone, drippy voice of his and actually feel sorry for him, as I would any disadvantaged person. Although I am not privy to his educational records or IQ score, he seems to me to be mentally challenged, but maybe not - this is merely an opinion. Some have even said he's a "comic genius" - so who am I to judge, anyhow? I know of quite a few people who call me an idiot. Anymore, I wear that distinction like a war badge, I guess....

What I will say about Mr. Sandler, though, and with unabashed certainty, is throughout his career he's ridiculed, maligned, disparaged, and even dragged though the comedic mud certain groups of people who are disadvantaged, misunderstood, even alienated, like Cajun Man, one of his regular shticks from his Saturday Night Live days, in which he plays a dumb-looking jamoke - some hillbilly-ish guy - dressed in bib overalls and a straw hat. Sandler would talk in inaudible grunts and gurgles while portraying Cajun Man and he'd make a sorry attempt at the Cajun accent. The Cajun people are a Louisiana tribe of American Indians who have contributed a wealth to Louisiana culture and society.

Sandler can also strum a guitar and sing a tune. And he had a horrid little spot on SNL when he fiddled around and crooned in his stupid, slinky-toy voice about a poor, disenfranchised woman who found it necessary to go to a budget cafeteria, or perhaps, even a soup kitchen, just to feed herself in "Sloppy Joe Lunch Lady Land". Wow. There's nothing like punching down some poor soul on capitalistic society's lowest rung. What's the worst is that the lunch lady is a victim of an existential existence that she most likely will never be able to overcome.

This is hardly satire. Satire is a literary form which normally takes the side of the disadvantaged and oppressed and ridicules and maligns a dominant culture, which is the social dragon causing all the turmoil. Sandler's skits were oftentimes the exact antithesis of this definition. A highly talented comic on SNL, one of the show's all-time greatest comedians, does a skit on the bleak opportunities many women face in this little ditty - but it works, showing a social dragon for what it is - and a nasty vampire that continues plaguing American society today. And Eddie Murphy's skit also has enough of a satiric vitriolic bite included as shock factor that this skit screams: GIRL, YOU'VE GOT TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT YOUR LIFE AND YOUR CONDITION! And unlike Sandler's lunch lady, who is obviously elderly and probably mentally ill, to boot, many women finding themselves trapped in the situation Murphy describes can do something about their plight. At least the group Murphy squawks about have a few options to get out of their nadir.

Out of fairness, Sandler has starred in some real gems that many have fond memories about, like: Happy Gilmore, The Wedding Singer, Punch-Drunk Love, Billy Madison, The Waterboy, 50 First Dates, Funny People, Reign Over Me, and Big Daddy. None of these films caused the fury that The Ridiculous 6 has already generated, and the film hasn't even aired yet. But who knows, the script might be altered and toned down and by the time show time hits the world's TV sets, a very different movie will premiere to make this commentary moot. Let's hope so, anyhow.

Rather than give a plot summary of each film in the immediate preceding paragraph, I'll just give a general synopsis of them all: All of these involved a central figure (played as Sandler) who was not very bright - sometimes moronic and even obtuse - and in some of the films, little kids also had leading roles. Many of these movies had as part of the plot getting, or keeping, a woman, in a relationship (with Sandler's character, of course) and all of these works were meant to be light-hearted comedies that both men and women would enjoy. - Sort of a date-night movie before or after dinner, and right after the movie ended, people forgot all about the movie and were on to do something else....

When Sandler sticks to roles in movies like these, he seems to be a hit and generates applause. Why in the world is he doing a racist movie like The Ridiculous 6 when he's got this formula film-making in his favor? The man's got himself a fail-proof model that might not win him great reviews, let alone an Oscar, but it's cash cow to the max!

Moreover, what winter wonderland season would be the same without listening to this staple a few times?

Let's all be Jewish now.

Naw, let's leave Jewish folks alone.

Just be whoever the hell you are. If they can't take a joke, f*ck em.

The funny story above is a satire or parody. It is entirely fictitious.

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