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Thursday, August 14, 2008
A disabled critic on the ‘Tropic Thunder’ controversy
Like many disabled people, I’m angry about what Tropic Thunder has wrought, but I’m not angry about the movie. I’m angry about the controversy that has erupted around it.
Many protesters have blasted Ben Stiller’s new movie for its alleged insensitivity to people with mental handicaps. Stiller stars as an actor named Tugg Speedman who made a movie called Simple Jack. Speedman played the character as a stuttering wretch, and several people refer to Jack as a “retard.”
You can read some of the dismayed comments on our review page, or on this very blog, where a Donald Gallegos says, “Don’t support a film like this whose main thrust is to make fun of these kids.” Timothy Shriver, chairman of the Special Olympics, has been especially vocal in his calls to boycott the film.
There’s just one problem: Tropic Thunder’s main thrust is not to “make fun of these kids.” Like too many movie controversies, this one comes mainly from people who haven’t actually watched the movie. Shriver is on record as not having seen it. If people do see it, and are still offended, then I will respect their position, although I still believe any offense is a result of misinterpretation.
I have seen the film, because I prefer to know what I’m talking about before I make my augments. And in no way, shape or form is this movie mocking the disabled. If Tropic Thunder were truly being mean-spirited, I would have picked up on it. Having a mild case of cerebral palsy, I’ve endured little kids making fun of the way I walk, big kids tripping me in the hall at school, and adults who shy away from me when I approach them. I know how that hurts. And I got none of those feelings from Tropic Thunder.
The real target of the Simple Jack scenes is not “retards,” but actors with egos the size of Australia who play disabled people, seeing it as easy awards bait. The movie makes it very clear that Simple Jack bombed at the box office, and that people see Tugg Speedman as an insensitive twit for what he did. If anything, the movie mocks those who mock the disabled.
Condescending movies like Radio, which portray the disabled as innocent saints worthy of pity, are far more disturbing to me. (Read my original review here). Yet those films get a pass because they makes people feel all warm n’ fuzzy. I’m not going to come down too hard on Radio, because its heart was in the right place, but it still played more like a legend of a caricature than the story of a real disabled man. Portrayals of the disabled, by Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot or Leonardo DiCaprio in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape were so refreshing because they were honest and forthright. They earned their tears.
I’m amazed at how so much of the controversy centers around the film’s frequent use of the word “retard.” If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that words don’t define people. Actions do. And the actions of these protesters greatly disturb me.
By blindly attacking Tropic Thunder, by calling for boycotts, and by spreading assumptions, these protesters only scratch the surface. All they can see is what’s on the outside, and in so doing, they don’t try to understand what’s going on beneath the exterior.
That’s the very same mistake many people make about the disabled. And that’s far more upsetting to me than anything in Tropic Thunder. The whole outcry reminds me of a saying in another movie about someone who wasn’t a smart man: “Stupid is as stupid does.”
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