A new star-studded movie from the writer/director of Crazy Heart recently hit the theaters and depicts a bleak life of drugs and thugs in the Ramapo Mountains. Out of the Furnace stars Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Sam Shepard, Woody Harrelson, and Forrest Whitaker, to name a few. But the film, about a recently returned and much traumatized Iraqi war veteran who ends up on the skids, also features a gang of Jackson Whites (a name that is historically a slur against the native Ramapo people and has specific negative connotations) and so-called north Jersey mountain hillbillies who live in trailers.

Recent press conference held about Out of the Furnace. Photo Credit: Mahwah Patch

The film, reviews of the film and the depiction of the Ramapough Lenape Nation have stirred up great controversy. Today, Wednesday, from 1 – 3 p.m., a panel discussion on the recurrent stigmatizing myths about the Ramapough Indians, as perpetuated in the film, will take place at the Ramapo College of New Jersey Pavilion.

Out of the Furnace contains a telling confrontation between brothers, played by Bale and Affleck, where Bale coaxes his brother to “come and look at the mountain,” suggesting its great healing powers. The mountain referenced is in the Ramapos.

Affleck’s character, an Iraqi war veteran, shoots back, increasingly angry: “I gave my life for this country? What does it want? What’s it done for me?!” he yells up in his brother’s face now, close and angry.

IMDb full cast listing, showing Jackson White gang members.

The New York Post’s Tom Donnelly reviewed Out of the Furnace with the sensational headline “New movie lifts curtain on NJ’s Ramapough Mountain people,” and which depicts the Ramapoughs in the movie as “tough-as-nails New Jersey hillbillies” who live terribly impoverished, hold bare fist fight in matches to the death, and comprise a backwoods kingdom of drug running and violence.

Immediately upon reading the review, Mahwah Mayor Bill Laforet previewed the film and voiced objections to the portrayal of the Ramapough Lenape Indian Nation. Laforet spoke about the film at a recent press conference, along with Ramapough Chief Dwaine Perry and Mahwah Schools Superintendent Lauren Schoen.

Laforet said Donnelly’s NY  Post review “wrongly characterizes the residents of Stag Hill,” the northern New Jersey seat of the Ramapough Lenape Nation. Donnelly’s review of the film appears to have been removed from the Post’s website.

Wednesday’s panel discussion is sponsored by Ramapo College Masters in Sustainability and will include Ramapough Lenape Nation Chief Dwaine Perry, Sub-Chief Vincent Mann, Mahwah Mayor William Laforet, Judith Joan Sullivan, Esq. President, Ramapough Conservancy, Archeologist and Author Ed Lenik, and Hillburn native Chuck Stead, Adjunct Professor, Ramapo College and Cornell Cooperative Extension.

Wednesday’s panel discussion starts at 1 p.m. Visitors: Enter the college at the north entrance (closest to Rt. 17 and obtain a parking pass at the security booth.

Press conference photo courtesy of Mahwah Patch: caption shows Ramapough Lenape Nation Chief Dwaine Perry (left), Mahwah Mayor Bill Laforet (middle) and Mahwah Schools Superintendent Lauren Schoen.