« The Daily Memo - 3/22/06 | Main | The Daily Memo - 3/23/06 »

The authors of this article disavow responsibility for the 24-year-old joke included herein

Turner Films has been sued by the family of an 8 year old girl who appeared in last summer’s “Into the West,” which was produced by Steven Spielberg and aired on TBS. The girl, who is a member of the Mescalero Apache tribe, had her hair cut to look more like a boy. However, the show’s stylist allegedly cut the girl’s hair without consulting the family, who would’ve vehemently refused to allow the girl’s hair to be cut. This is because the haircut violated the tribe’s beliefs and traditions, which forbid the cutting of a girl’s hair before a Coming of Age ceremony that takes place during puberty.

If the stylist really did do this without consulting the family, that’s rather appalling. I mean, even if there wasn’t a tribal issue here (if, for example, she was just a regular Hollywood brat being thrown into the movies by her parents), it seems a bit cavalier to chop of all that hair without consulting the parents. Maybe the folks who work for Turner and Spielberg should follow the time honored adage, before doing things like this with kids on the set, to “phone home.”