Mental disability groups protest 'Tropic Thunder'

[mdmc]

Source: yahoo

Dozens of people from organizations such as the Special Olympics and the American Association of People with Disabilities protested the movie-industry spoof across the street from the film's Los Angeles premiere at Mann's Bruin Theatre on Monday. The protesters held up signs with slogans such as "Call me by my name, not by my label" and chanted phrases like "Ban the movie, ban the word."



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080812/ap_on_en_mo/film_tropic_thunder_protest

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I often wondered why NYS kept "retarded" in the title of the department that covers services for the developmentally disabled? http://www.omr.state.ny.us/hp_faqs.jsp

[fight4my3sons]

1. I wondered that too

when I worked for ARC,DC

[Ian David]

3. NAACP still has the word "Colored" in it. UNCF still has the word "Negro" in it.

Once you've got lawyers, guns and money invested in your brand name, there is a strong disincentive to change it due to the linguistic fashions of the time.

[Ian David]

2. Having not seen the movie yet, I still somehow feel entitled to give an opinion.

Because that's one of those things we get to do on the internets.

But I did at least read the entire article referenced by the O.P.

And I did once stay at a Holiday Inn Express.

So, FWIW, my opinion is that as offensive as it is to call someone a retard, I'm going to provisionally stay on the side of the people who made this movie.

I'm familiar with Ben Stiller's work, and I think it's a safe bet that he was not making fun of the developmentally challenged, but was instead making fun of the way that Hollywood exploits the mentally challenged.

This movie makes fun of Hollywood, including the way Hollywood exploits various minorities.

It is a satire in the tradition of Mark Twain, who would not have been able to write his anti-racism story about Tom Sawyer without using "The N-Word" to expose the word's ugliness.

And if people don't get it, then they're making the biggest blunder since the day George Washington drowned with all those shoes.

[Bluenorthwest]

5. Lots to 'not get' in this film....

As with all edgey comedy. But I will say that I see the word 'retard' used as an insult and the term 'retarded' used as a discriptor here on DU almost daily. Those who use it here are not making fun of Hollywood, nor are they being satirical in any way. They are saying 'Rove is a retard' and not for one second thinking they are using a slur. They don't think about it at all.
Following the common use here and in other places, I'm not at all suprised that the advocacy groups are not extending large scale benefit of the doubt to the film makers. Why would they?
Now. That being said, I actually know some of the people involved in this film, and making fun of disability is not at all what they would want to do. So I am certain it was not the intention, and that you are probably right about the film having other targets. This film also has a white actor playing a white actor playing a black character...for reasons of ego and a lack of understanding. They are mocking the white guy, and his attitudes. I have alread read some folks pissed that they 'painted a white guy to play black'...which they did...but 'tis satire. A joke. Taking the piss out o' Hollywood.
I would like to see those slurs fade from useage here at DU however.

[Ian David]

7. Agreed on all counts.

Remember the episode of "All In The Family" when Gloria has her baby?

And Archie shows up in blackface because he was supposed to be performing in a minstrel show (or, as he called it, a "menstrual show").

As always, the writers wanted to make it clear that Archie was a racist (or at the very least, racially insensitive) and they were holding Archie up for ridicule.

I don't think anyone believed that Norman Lear was being a racist for having Archie wear blackface.

As in Tropic Thunder, the writers are not trying to be racially insensitive-- they are making fun of racially insensitive people.

I'm going to see this movie.

And I will post a more informed opinion later.

And I am also willing to bet that the same people who will disagree with me later are the same people who disagreed with me over the Borat movie.



See also:

124. BIRTH OF THE BABY (PART 2)
Archie arrives at the hospital direct from his minstrel show -- in blackface -- just in time for Gloria's blessed event.
http://www.allinthefamilysit.com/episodes_part3.shtml

[Bluenorthwest]

8. Norman Lear and Dave Chapplle

Norman was a genius as were those who worked with him. Still, the Archies of this world, many of them, watched the show thinking Archie was the 'voice' of the authors.
Dave Chappelle walked away from his show, and one ton of cash, basically because he became unsure about the same sort of thing. He was making satire, but was much of the audience seeing that or were they just laughing at the sterotypes, not the satire of those sterotypes? Which level of the joke is getting the reaction? I think Dave wondered if he was fooling himself into thinking he was being deep when he was really just making racial jokes. He understood that when entering such territory, one must be constantly dead on with the material, or risk playing to the lower levels of such comedy, and frankly I don't think he thought it could be done week after week on a fast TV schedual. So he walked away rather than risk falling below the quality level and turning into what he was supposed to be sending up.....now that is an artist with some ethics!
I wish more comics and writers of all kinds were as thoughtful as Chapplle, or as skilled as either Dave or the great Norman Lear. Norman is a hero of mine since childhood. Always nice to see him get a mention. He was a huge infulence on me in every way. All in the Family also had episodes about a character Archie called 'a retard', played by Richard Masur. As always the lesson was one we could stand to hear again and again.

[Ian David]

9. I'm wondering if Carlos Mencia has the same worries Chappelle and Andrew Dice Clay had.

I think Carlos Mencia is brilliant and funny, yet I always feel guilty about laughing at some of his stuff.

Mencia's heart seems to be in the right place, although I worry that he does go over the line sometimes, and that MANY people are walking away from his show with the wrong message.

And if you want to criticize someone for making fun of retarded people, Carlos Mencia (while I am sure he means well on this, too) is probably a more appropriate target than Ben Stiller.


YouTube - Carlos Mencia, Bush Is A Little Retarded
Carlos Mencia talks about how Bush is stupid. ... What is ...
2 min 21 sec -
Rated 4.9 out of 5.0
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYKR4TuV9mY

Carlos Mencia - On Retarded People - Roclife
Jul 19, 2006 ... Carlos Mencia - On Retarded People Video/Image Center.
www.roclife.org/forums/showthread.php?t=74912 -

Carlos Mencia - Dickipedia - A Wiki of Dicks
Many readers may find it comforting to learn that Carlos Mencia is not actually a real person, but is instead a fictional persona invented to give people ...
www.dickipedia.org/dick.php?title=Carlos_Mencia

[Bluenorthwest]

10. Carlos I don't like

And I doubt he questions anything that makes him $$.

[happyslug]

11. I remember Eastwood "Mighty White of You" in Dirty Harry, and how flat it was.

My father used that term quite often, and it NEVER was flat, but then he never used it against a African-American, it was always against someone who was WHITE. Basically it was an insult to a WHITE MAN, implying he was no better then a poor black (He was from the South and all of its prejudice). Thus the phase as used by Eastwood in "Dirty Harry" was flat, it carried no insult if aimed at a black,

The best use of the Phase was by the Man who had lead the Homestead Strike of 1892 against Andrew Carnegie. In 1919 a reporter found him working in a Mexican Iron Mine dying of emphasize (From working in mines for the previous 20 years for he had been black-balled by the Steel Industry do to his activity in the Homestead Strike). When he reporter told this to Carnegie, he offered to give him a pension, when the Reporter told this to the the ex-strike leader, the Strike leader looked at the Reporter and told him No and "That was mighty white of him" and walked back into the mine to work with his Mexican co-workers.

My point is watch most so called "Racial Insults" (and similar insults), many are NOT to insult the group being mentioned but to insult the person the comment is aimed at i.e. he is no better then the perception most people have of that race or other group. If this is what the movie is about then more power to it, but most people are like Eastwood, completely miss that the insult was aimed at the person NOT because he was of the group being insulted, but that he was no better then the popular perception of that group.

[DeeDeeNY]

4. The word retarded means slowed or delayed

It's unfortunate that idiots who say "ree-tard" have corrupted the meaning of any form of the word, including using "retarded" as a synonym for "stupid", as in "that idea is retarded". Some are just bullies who need to make fun of those more vulnerable to bolster themselves up, and some are just ignorant.
My sweetheart of a son can be described either as someone with mental retardation or someone with developmental delays, which is really the same thing, but in any case he is a far better person than jerks who say ree-tard or make fun of those on the "short bus".
The makers of this movie were so intent on being outrageous that it clouded their judgment as far as crossing the line into stupidity and offensiveness,IMO. Unfortunately, all this will do is create more publicity for the movie.

[Teaser]

6. I think, in this film, Stiller is making fun of the process

that would get a movie like "Simple Jack" made: i.e. Hollywood suits are insensitive jerks.

I can't say I disagree.

[Ian David]

12. Movies like "The Ringer"?

This comedy is about two guys who decide to rig the Special Olympics to pay off a debt by having one of them, Steve (Knoxville), pose as a contestant in the games, hoping to dethrone reigning champion, Jimmy. Mentally-challenged high jinks and hilarity surely follow.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0267891/

[Freddie Stubbs]

13. Although 'developmentally disabled' is now the preferred term, mentally retarded is still

commonly used. But using the word 'retard' as a noun to describe a human being is considered a slur. I know this from my previous work as a fundraiser for an organization which provided services for developmentally disabled adults.