'Into The West's $250,000 Haircut
The Steven Spielberg-produced TNT miniseries Into the West continues to run into controversy regarding its treatment of Native American extras. First it was accused of having not provided shelter during a storm and denying them meals. Now, the production is being sued by the family of a young girl whose (shades of Vendetta) hair was cut off in order to make her look like a boy:
A Mescalero Apache family in southern New Mexico has sued the producers of Steven Spielberg's television miniseries, "Into the West," claiming a set stylist cut an 8-year-old girl's hair without regard for tribal customs.
"It's part of our culture not to cut a girl's hair until her Coming of Age ceremony," the girl's father, Danny Ponce, said Friday in a telephone interview. "The only ones allowed to do that are the parents. Nobody asked for permission."
Ponce filed suit in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque on March 6, naming Turner Films Inc. and the unknown stylist as defendants. The lawsuit seeks $250,000 for emotional distress and $75,000 in damages. [...]
The stylist cut the girl's hair, the lawsuit claims, "to make her look more 'Indian' and like a male Indian child because the movie casting call failed to produce sufficient young male extras of Indian heritage." [...]
"Just because you're wealthy, you don't do something without checking first," Ponce said.
With the cultural tempest that recently brewed over that other Spielberg production, Memoirs of a Geisha, the perpetually PC Spielberg clearly is learning the hard lessons of what happens when you have the best intentions in bringing the stories of other cultures to the screen. In an attempt to avoid any future such problems, all Spielberg productions will put their wardrobe and hair department through a strenous cultural sensitivity training seminar, in which they will learn valuable techniques such as asking every extra if their sketches in any way violate ethnic customs in such a way as to later incur six-figure lawsuits.
