In 2016, TV producer Donick Cary’s young son, Otis, asked him if their favorite football team had a racist name. A lifelong fan of Washington’s NFL team, Cary (whose credits include The Simpsons and Parks and Recreation) had a shrine to the squad in his home, which was filled with signed memorabilia, neon signs with the name, and all sorts of Native American imagery that was packaged and sold by Washington’s flagship sports team.
The shrine ultimately became the home base for Hail to the Breadsticks!, a documentary film in which Cary and Otis talk to Native Americans about whether the team name was racist. Spoiler: They land on yes. And the shrine—well, watch the film to see what happens to it. The documentary, which is full of jokes and features a fake cartoon show that is definitely not a Simpsons knock off, looks for any way possible to welcome Washington football fans into this difficult conversation.
The film took a decade to produce, which meant that when the team finally changed its name—first to the Washington Football Team (Cary’s preference) and then to the Commanders—Cary and rest of the filmmakers had to adapt on the fly as the situation changed around them.
This Friday Cary is returning to DC to screen the final product at the Alexandria Film Festival. Cary spoke with Washingtonian about making the film, his rabid fandom, and trying to be an ethical fan.
What has the reaction been here in the DC area and online among Commanders fans now that the movie’s screening?
We’ve engaged with mostly Native American audiences, and the reaction there has been awesome. A lot of the movie is interviews with Native Americans and trying for us to understand the perspective to be Native American in America today, and filtering that through a lot of things: team mascots, Halloween costumes. What we haven’t really had yet is an issue with the sports fans of Washington.
Longtime fans won’t be surprised that this topic was fodder for a film.
There was a lot of debate about whether they should change the name. And then [in 2021] they finally changed the name. I think the fan base, including myself, were kind of like, “Wait, what? Was this good or bad and why?” So part of the movie is about that, and for fans of the team, it gives you a lot of different ways to think about it.
And this was also a fun way for me to spend a lot of time with my team and meet some of the legends without it being problematic. We went to RFK and walked around. I was almost in tears. I was so excited.
Throughout the film, you poke fun at yourself and the team, and get a lot of jokes off. Was that because there’s no other way for you, a comic, to ask hard questions, or did you feel like you needed to kind of have jokes in there to make it more palatable for people?
When my son challenged me on the team [name], I was initially defensive, and I was like, okay, let me take a step back and find some humor in this. For 50 years I fought for this name, but now my eight-year-old’s [questioning] it. That’s funny.
And then on the other side of it, I was finding in Native America a lot of people are really funny. I think that comes with generational trauma. Humor is one of the things that people develop to deal with that, which is kind of great. So we tried to have some laughs.
You were able to book some notable players from the franchise’s history, like Charles Mann, Dexter Manley, and George Starke. Still, there are even more famous players and team executives who weren’t in the film. Did anybody from the team say no to appearing?
We threw the ask out everywhere we could. It wasn’t like we had a a full time publicist working on bookings for us. I’d meet somebody who knows somebody who’s like, “Hey, do you know Tre’ Johnson?” I’m like, “Oh, yeah, Tre’ was a great player. We’d love to talk to him.”
I was thrilled, obviously, to meet Charles Mann. We got Dexter Manley to do a voice in one of the cartoons, which was super fun. Those are legends to me. I tried with [Joe] Theismann and [John] Riggins a little bit. I don’t think we ever got a firm no, but a lot of those guys who were currently broadcasting for the team and stuff were like, do we really want to talk about this name, especially after they changed it? You’re not winning any friends by [saying you’re] either for it or against it.
You booked some pretty prominent Native Americans for the film, like Sterlin Harjo and Deb Haaland.
The movie was really about the Native American perspective, so I did less asking in football. The first real revelation I had when I was talking to Otis [was that] I don’t think I know any Native Americans. I was very naive. I thought it’s because they’re all on reservations and there’s no one around. As we started to look around and ask, we started to find Native Americans everywhere, so we just talked to everybody.
The film portrays a linear process where you shift from being defensive about the old name to being open to changing it. Was it like that in real life?
The first thing we did was go to Alaska. The first guy we talked to, Daniel Lum, was like, “I live in America. I can say whatever I want. I love the team. I’m a huge fan, and I’ll say the R-word whenever I want.” That was reinforcing. I was hoping it would be easy. “No one cares. Great. Let’s keep the [name].” The next day, we met with five Native Americans at [University of Alaska] Fairbanks, and all five of them were like, “Pardon my French, but fuck that team name. Hate it, super racist. It’s bad for our children.” I was like, “Oh, no! Well, I’ve had six conversations: five negative, one positive.”
A lot of Native people you interview get mad upon hearing the team’s former name. Did any of them tell you that you shouldn’t be making this film?
Definitely, and we really wrestled with having the name in the movie. We want the people that we interview to feel heard, and we want the audience to be able to see how we got where we got to where we got to, and why. There were a lot of people who were like, you should never say that name, and I was like, I think maybe that is where we’ll get to, but the audience isn’t there yet, so we have to walk them into this and let them hear all the different opinions.
We were certainly meeting Native Americans who didn’t mind the name. Overwhelmingly, we were finding people did care. And there was some generational stuff. We started to learn about boarding schools. Most of these people who are 55-65 attended boarding schools where they were told you should not use your language, you should not be Native American, you should leave that behind. And in a lot of ways, they had just barely survived, and so they were like, I don’t care about the name, at least we had some representation anywhere. That feels more complicated than I would even understand, but that’s their lived experience.
The current ownership group is kind of dipping back into Native American themed merch. What do you make of that?
It’s a little murky right now. I hope everybody watches the movie and has a very nuanced conversation about this stuff. If they won the Super Bowl as the Commanders, everyone would be happy, and then they’d be the Commanders forever, but they’re struggling right now.
They’re going to open a new stadium at the site where that [winning] team played, so it makes sense that they would have the conversation and ask how do we capitalize on that nostalgia. But I think it’s weird that it involves other people’s culture, involves native imagery, based on the conversations I had.
Has making this film changed your opinion on any other morality issues pertaining to football?
At one point I was thinking that a funny place to end the movie would be like, well, there, great, we solved racism. We’re ready to move on. Then Otis goes, like, “and Dad, tell me what a CTE scan is.” And then we’re like, oh no, here we go again.
I had three concussions in high school playing football. I literally searched the other day: When does Alzheimer’s start? I don’t know how we deal with this stuff. I still watch all the games. I love football. Football is everywhere, and it has things that are problematic about it that we should talk about. This is kind of why we made the movie. Let’s talk about it.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Hail to the Breadsticks! will screen Friday, November 13th at 7:30 PM at the Alexandria History Museum at the Lyceum. Tickets are available via the Alexandria Film Festival.
