Poster from the movie-within-the-movie in "Tropic Thunder."The American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) calls "Tropic Thunder" "shocking" and says it "mocks people with disabilities."
From AAPD's Justice for All news alert:
Trailers for "Tropic Thunder," a big budget summer comedy/action/adventure movie due out August 13, don't make mention of Ben Stiller's role as the lead actor in "Simple Jack" - a movie-within-the-movie that makes prolific use of the word "retard" and plays into hurtful stereotypes.
Created by DreamWorks Pictures, "Tropic Thunder" features performances by Jack Black, Robert Downey, Jr., and Ben Stiller as actors who are filming a war movie on location. Stiller's character plays Tugg Speedman, an action star whose fame is fading and who failed in his bid for an Oscar starring as "Simple Jack," a man with an intellectual disability who can speak to animals. "Simple Jack" is featured as a film within "Tropic Thunder" in which Stiller wears an institutional bowl haircut and bad teeth.
The movie within the movie has its own marketing website, featuring the "movie" poster slogan "Once upon a time...There was a retard" and the overall slogan of "What he doesn't have in his head, he makes up for in his heart." One of the fake "critics" of the "movie" on this marketing site critiques Speedman's performance as "one of the most retarded performances in cinema history."
While the studio may claim this is all meant as comedic reference to Hollywood films that starred non-disabled actors in disabled roles (Forrest Gump, Rain Man, etc.), lots of folks aren't laughing, including the 14.3 million Americans with cognitive disabilities, their friends, and families.
A clip of the movie and an unofficial transcript is available on the JFActivist blog.
Journalist and blogger Patricia E. Bauer is working with disability organizations to collect ideas about how the disability community should respond to the film. Bauer reports that "disability rights organizations have confirmed that a meeting with DreamWorks executives has been set for 5 p.m. Pacific time August 6 to discuss the film’s depiction of people with disabilities."
