The ‘Tropic Thunder’ Offensive

Ben Stiller must have known when he wrote and directed his upcoming comedy Tropic Thunder that a storm of backlash/boycott could result. Now, after months of online viral marketing for the war film-within-a-film Hollywood spoof, and just days before its release, enough people have seen it to mobilize an offensive of their own. Disability groups, including the National Down Syndrome Congress and the American Association of People with Disabilities, want to lighten Ben Stiller's pockets.

Stiller’s action hero character Tugg Speedman attempts to draw the Academy’s attention by portraying a mentally disabled farm boy named Simple Jack (whose promo website DreamWorks has since removed). I’ve seen the film, and what these boycott spearheaders need to understand (and I’m shocked they didn’t) is that the movie isn’t taking aim at the mentally handicapped, but rather the egotistical actors that going to any length to further their careers, much like Robert Downey Jr.’s “serious” actor undergoing extreme skin-graft surgery to play a black soldier. Some moviegoers may join the boycott, but these kinds of things tend to only enhance viewer awareness and curiosity, and will, if anything, increase the film’s total gross. The groups involved in the boycott take particular issue with the use of the word “retard,” but one of the groups involved in the protest goes by the name of Association for Retarded Citizens. How retarded is that? DreamWorks has responded to the pressure by saying that no cuts or changes to the film will be made. You go, mega corporation!