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Mentally Challenged Challenge ‘Tropic Thunder’
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Ben Stiller’s new acting/directing/producing/writing/catering/set building/latrine emptying nod ‘Tropic Thunder’ has received almost universal acclaim. Except from one particular segment of the population: The Mentally Challenged.
The film is a sendup of Hollywood attitudes about a group of prima donna stars who go on location in the jungle to shoot a war epic and end up in the middle of a real war. The all-star cast includes Robert Downey, Jr., Jack Black, Jay Baruchel, Nick Nolte, Matthew McConaughey, and even a cameo from Tom Cruise.
Stiller plays an aging action hero desperate for legitimacy -- even playing the title role in ‘Simple Jack,’ the story of a mentally-challenged farmhand who can talk to animals, in the hopes that it will win him the Oscar or at least a nomination.
The film makes the valid point that Oscar tends to have a weakness for intellectually disabled characters: Dustin Hoffman in ‘Rain Man,’ Sean Penn in ‘I Am Sam,’ and most famously, Tom Hanks in ‘Forrest Gump.’
But this is comedy. So any serious critique must be cut with a healthy dose or irreverence. Stiller and company bandy the R-word about like a badminton shuttlecock, including a cast mate’s critique of ‘Simple Jack’ that actors who have won Oscars playing the mentally challenged "never go full retard."
Sensing a bit of a backlash from the intellectually disabled community, the film’s distributor DreamWorks invited reps from several groups for the disabled to a screening in advance of Monday’s premiere in Los Angeles.
They weren’t amused. Andrew J. Iparato, president of the American Association of People with Disabilities, called it “offensive from start to finish.” A coalition of twenty-two disabilities groups have called for a boycott of the movie. DreamWorks insists the film “is in no way meant to disparage or harm the image of individuals with disabilities.”
Admittedly, it’s hard to take that at face value. But when seen in the larger context of the film -- a critique of Hollywood pretension -- it’s perfectly valid. Stiller is merely pointing out a certain prejudice. We like films about mentally challenged people as long as they’re not too challenged and icky. We only want to see disabled people who are funny and happy, whose disability can be written off as just another personality quirk. When the portrayal is too real, we turn off. We don’t want to know.
Perhaps the coalition might take a moment to rethink its knee-jerk reaction to Stiller’s movie, step back, and take in the bigger picture. The problem isn’t the movie, it’s the culture.
