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Not Funny
Tropic Thunder too cool for its own good
AP Photo
Ben Stiller (left) and Robert Downey Jr. in the controversial Tropic Thunder.
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Published: August 17, 2008
I don't usually agree with groups protesting Hollywood movies. Artistic freedom and all that.
The hubbub over Tropic Thunder strikes me as a different affair. Protesters from the Special Olympics and American Association of People with Disabilities picketed the movie's premiere Monday night in Los Angeles, angered by a running joke in Ben Stiller's movie that I agree goes too far.
Tropic Thunder is an inside-Hollywood joke; too inside, I believe, for moviegoers who aren't part of the movie industry. Playing physically, emotionally or mentally challenged characters long has been a SunPass to Academy Award nominations. Need proof? Consider award-winning performances in Rain Man, Forrest Gump, My Left Foot, Shine, As Good As It Gets, Ryan's Daughter and Ordinary People. Only alcoholics and hookers have more dependable track records.
Stiller plays an action star whose nomination grab led to the title role in a movie titled Simple Jack, complete with the stereotypical trappings -- goofy haircut, garbled speech, spastic body movements. It's like a junior-high kid making fun of kids in special-ed classes. But the movie, and his hopes for a nomination, fail.
The scene that has really infuriated some folks occurs when Robert Downey Jr., playing another actor, explains to Stiller's character that his mistake was going "full retard." He even lists all the Oscar-winning performances that held back a bit of "retard."
There's a big difference between the way Tropic Thunder approaches mentally and physically challenged people and the way the Farrelly brothers did in films such as There's Something About Mary, Stuck on You and (as producers of) The Ringer, which had Johnny Knoxville feigning being mentally challenged to fix a Special Olympics race.
The Farrellys don't talk behind the backs of mentally challenged people. They put them up on the screen to speak for themselves, where they usually make more sense than the "normal" people in starring roles. If they're used as punching bags, the bags always punch back. We see them rolling with the punches, and trading a few, too.
Many of the same people protesting Tropic Thunder also publicly praise the Farrellys, who treat the mentally challenged as anyone else would be treated.
DreamWorks flatly states that Tropic Thunder won't be altered in any way to soothe protesters (although the studio yanked a promo Web site dedicated to Simple Jack when the first rumbles were heard). That's fine; they have the right to put whatever they wish on screen.
But if you watch Tropic Thunder, check your own reactions. You may laugh, and you may not like it.
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