Posted by Jonathan Klotz | Published
Everyone knew that Ernest was back in the late 80s and into the 90s; played by veteran actor Jim Varney, a dim-witted, accident-prone actor who starred in local commercials along the Gulf Coast before he became so popular, Disney executives decided to make him the centerpiece of a feature film. Ernest Goes to Camp launched one of the most profitable comedy franchises in history, resulting in nine new movies in 11 years, but today, the film that started it all has been erased from history. The reason why it is locked away in the Disney vault is because of Hollywood's long history of portraying Native American characters and how Walt Disney himself was tricked by one of his friends.
Standard 80s Summer Camp Adventure
The long exile of Ernest Goes to Camp it has nothing to do with Jim Varney, who died in 2000 and was, by all accounts, a decent man. The film is an 80s summer camp film, following a group of abandoned kids called the Second Chancers as they attend Kamp Kikakee, a struggling summer camp run by Chief St. Cloud, of the Plains Indian. It's a typical throwback against a sinister industrial plot, as Sherman Krader wants to close the camp and drain its resources, though it's heightened by Varney's portrayal of Ernest as the camp's caretaker.
If the out-of-touch portrayal of Native Americans was the only sign against it Ernest Goes to Campwill be broadcast today; after all, Ernest Goes to Africait's on AppleTV. Hakuna Matata How the movie shows Native Americans, of course WHO playing Chief St. Cloud is a problem. Iron Eyes Cody, a veteran of Hollywood Westerns back in the 1940s, plays camp owner Chief St. Cloud, and the controversy surrounding him made the film unwatchable.
The Iron Eyes Cody Scandal
Ernest Goes to Camp he was far from the first film to cast Iron Eyes Cody as a Native American, and you may know him from the famous “Crying Indian” company about garbage disposal. A close friend of Walt Disney, Iron Eyes Cody was a Hollywood actor to play the role of a Native American, but in 1996, it was revealed that his real name was Espera Oscar de Coti, and he was Italian. This was after he spent decades living as a Native American, wearing “traditional” clothing in his everyday life, and fooling everyone, including Disney. Espera denied this until his death in 1999, despite his family issuing a baptismal certificate with his real name.
While Jim Varney's portrayal of Ernest has had diminishing returns over the years, it's unfortunate that his breakthrough film, one of the biggest hit comedies of the 80s, is confined to Disney's close quarters. Song of the South through no fault of his own. Disney produced Ernest Goes to Camp under the Touchstone label, and created by then-CEO Michael Eisner and chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, combined with Walt Disney's close friendship with Iron Eyes Cody, made the film a public relations nightmare. For a while, the film was available on DVD and Blu-Ray, but those prints went out of print a decade ago, making it hard to find today.
The Importance of Being Ernest
However Ernest Goes to Camp is not broadcast, despite a brief period last year when Hulu before a Disney executive realized what they had done, some of Jim Varney's classics are available. In fact, fans of the character will argue that the first film is one of the worst as Ernest is used to and not the animated cartoon that Varney will play him later, especially Ernest Goes to Jailsome think it's the best in the series. Hollywood has given up on comedy, and we'll never get another franchise like Ernest, even though Larry the Cable Guy made an effort at it, but that doesn't mean it has to hide the past, no matter how modern audiences may view it.
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