To celebrate my brother’s MCAT test taking, my dad wanted to take me and my brother out to the movies. It was cute. But after spending the better part of the day trying to figure out what to see, my brother suggested we watch Tropic Thunder….again. We’ve already seen at the beginning of the week. I wanted to watch Hellboy 2, but no, that didn’t happen. What stopped me from throwing a fit was that Tropic Thunder is absolutely hilarious, bordering on brilliant. Usually I find myself only mustering up a chuckle for many Stiller movies, but this action spoof pushed away a lot of the “family fun” fluff that some of his older movies had, and just went for the ridiculous and even the retarded (its in the movie) which I personally thoroughly enjoyed.
Some audience members might think it way over the top, such as my cousin. But why the hell not? Action movies, although they are a thrill and entertaining, are always mostly improbable, contrived, and even ridiculous i.e. Bruce Willis’ ability to avoid death like an annoying fly in Live Free or Die Hard (which it its self borders on spoofiness). The comedy and the jokes itself are very clever, poking fun at the film industry and the misanthropic, prima donna personalities in the world of movies and movie making. In fact so many jokes fly out that it is hard to even catch all of them.
Best line : “I’m a lead farmer mothafuckah!!”
awesome.
My feelings aside, the film though has apparently garnered a lot of controversy over the use of the word “retard”. Disability rights advocates are up in arms over the mention of the word, which is mentioned several times in the movie, as well as a not so flattering imitation of a person with mental retardation, Simple Jack played by Ben Stiller himself. Although I can understand the uproar and the insult that it may have caused, the movie satirizes Hollywoods approach to mental disabilities, and at time outrightly comments on the depiction of disabilities on screen, not of actual people with disabilities. But of course, all with comedic effect. As for the use of the words “imbecile”, “moron”, and “moronical”, if you’ve watched the movie, Kirk Lazarus (Downey jr.) is actually insulting Ben Stiller’s character in a comedic indirect way, and in no way calling anyone with a disability an “imbecile”. I find it however interesting that a big budget satirical movie is attacked, while a satirical animated show, that depicts people with disabilities and uses the word “retard” shamelessly, has been on air for more than a decade and has not been lampooned by these groups. Look at South Park; ridiculous, satirical, and crass.
Advocacy groups are wonderful, they bring awareness, help people and bring in resources to those who need them. I actually work for one sometimes. However every now and then I often find myself turned off by their media spectacles they make of themselves. Possibly for press attention? I can’t really say. However if that is the case, there are certainly better ways to reach out to the public then attacking a movie, a Ben Stiller movie of all things…
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