As Crip Power notes, disability rights activists have been talking a lot about the new movie Tropic Thunder, and there is a boycott being organized for its repeated jokes about “retards” (Crip Chick also has a rundown of TT protests and a petition—go).
I haven’t seen the movie and I don’t plan to, so I don’t know how the whole story goes or what the context of the jokes in this trailer is. What I do know is that this clip had an awful lot of messed up stuff going on.
First, the entire basis of the film is to make a mockery of the kind of horrible-beyond-imagination situations American foreign policy has created. Why are there horrific guerrilla wars in faraway tropical lands? Well, certainly in part because America gave people there the guns and landmines to fight them. And because our government purposely removed democratically elected leaders, creating crisis situations.
I’ve heard stories of women and children raped, people having their noses cut off, toddlers whose fingernails were pulled out in front of their parents, all with the support of our government.
Sorry, but that’s not funny.
It’s also not funny when Ben Stiller throws a little Asian child violently through the air. That shit has really happened. It isn’t funny.
I don’t believe anyone would think an adult man violently throwing a white kid was funny.
In addition to the imperialist premise of the film, one of its plots centers around an actor who changed his race from white to black to play a role*. I can’t be sure, but I’m guessing there are tons of hilarious jokes about how black people and white people are so inherently different, and I’m guessing that those jokes don’t actually make any effort to break down what white privilege means, or to counter the implication that what is white is “good,” and what is black is “bad.”
I’m sure it’s sexist too… There’s only one little joke about women in “pantsuits” being humiliated in the trailer, but they must do better than that when they’ve got a whole 90 minutes, right?
Then there’s the retard jokes—extended dialogue and visual riffs about “retards” and how stupid/hilarious they are.
There are a lot of things I find funny, but picking on the less powerful from a position of power is not one of them. As rape jokes and jokes about men not being “masculine enough” show, jokes and ridicule are actually one of the most basic ways our culture enforces existing power structures. Humor, as much as any other aspect of culture, is about power.
There are ways to be funny without being mean.
Observe.
*Update: I didn’t realize it from the trailer, but this character is not played by two different actors. It’s played by a white guy who literally dons blackface for the movie… I’m just… speechless.
Here’s you —->
Here’s the point —-> .
It’s a satire of Hollywood. A satire of actors so ignorant and idiotic they have no idea how horrific their shit does stink
Henry–
I’m not “missing the point” of the humor, as you assume I must be. I get the jokes. I
just think they’re not funny. I refuse to watch a movie and totally remove it from a
social context
where racism and ableism run rampant, and where real wars like this are going on
because of us. Genocidal violence is not an effing joke.
As someone without a disability, I don’t believe I have a right to determine for people who do have
disabilities whether their offense at this movie is legitimate. If they say it’s offensive, then it is.
- ->.
In all fairness, the “black” character played by robert downey jr. was one of the only successful parts of the satire. It was made really clear that this actor had made a ridiculous, ignorant choice, and none of the humor was focused on inherent differences in races. The humor all came from RDJ putting on a voice that came right out of a bad film from the 70s, the joke being that this asshole thinks this is what black people sound like. So while I won’t argue against the disability activists, and I wouldnt argue against people of color who feel offended, I think the film handled the blackface issue fairly responsibly.