Comedians are no strangers to controversy. Offensive or funny seems to be a matter of personal taste. I recently went to see Margaret Cho and while I find her funny, another person could find her comedy completely distasteful.
So, cut to the purpose of this post...Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder. In Tropic Thunder, Stiller plays Tugg Speedman, one of three self-absorbed actors starring in a war movie in southeast Asia that unwittingly end up becoming real life captives...but don't know it.
Without a doubt, the part of the movie that has people so upset is Stiller's portrayal of 'Simple Jack' a previous role that Stiller's character played in a cheap attempt to gain an academy award nomination. The movie poster for 'Simple Jack' reads "Once upon a time...There was a retard"
The group's captors recognize Tugg Speedman(Stiller) as Simple Jack and make him act out scenes from the movie for their entertainment. I'm sure you can imagine the rest.
From what I have read about the movie so far, opinions seem to fall in one of two ways.
1. The movie makes fun of everyone; if no other groups are getting upset, why should people with intellectual disabilities?
2. The use of the word retard is offensive and hurtful under any circumstance. No exceptions.
Good Morning America had a good piece on the movie this morning. Here is a link to it:
http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=5601545
Another interesting website to visit is r-word.org. Sponsored by Special Olympics, they currently have over 6, 000 signatures opposing the use of the r-word.
What are your opinions?
Monday, August 18, 2008
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1 comment:
Essentially, words hurt. They hurt very bad at times especially when they are bigoted words of hate. Comedy is often at an expense but in this case it is ignorance about intellectual disabilities that trumps the expense and goes directly to offensiveness.
There is political correctness and then there is down-right defamation. Tropic Thunder fits in the category of defamation in my opinion.
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