Tropic Thunder - The perils of political correctness

This is an excellent article from Slashfilm.

By: Peter Sciretta

Tropic Thunder might be the funniest movie of the Summer. And when anything is so extremely enjoyable, there must also be an evil entity trying to put a stop to the pleasure. And like any good story, the villain in this case isn’t a cliche bad guy, attempting to rid the world of laughter. Not at all. In fact, I’m sure they believe they are doing the right thing for the betterment of this country, humanity, etc. And by THEY, I mean organizations - groups of people who have decided to band together in an attempt to make things better for the people around them, who clearly “don’t know any better”.

At face value, it might seem like a tough feat to defend a movie where a white guy puts on blackface… Where Ben Stiller plays a actor who takes on the role of a mentally retarded character in hopes of Oscar gold… Or Where Tom Cruise is hilariously funny and not the slightest but weird. But truth is, there is nothing wrong with Tropic Thunder. There is something wrong with the explosion of political correctness in America. The film does not cross any lines of political correctness, if anything it satires Hollywood’s treatment of mental disorders.

A coalition of disability groups have announced a national boycott of Tropic Thunder over the film-within-the-film Simple Jack. But it doesn’t stop there, they have begun to talk to members of Congress for “a resolution condemning” what he called “the movie’s hate speech.” Oh C’mon. They can’t be serious, can they? It’s in the New York Times, so it must be true. Dreamworks has screened the film more than 250 times before opening week, and received little to no complaints until a viral website for the movie Simple Jack caught the eyes of these disabled advocacy groups. Paramount quickly removed the websites from the web, bowing to the group’s pressure.

Thankfully the studio has come out and announced that they would not be altering the cut of the film due to the pressures of such organizations. And to that I say THANK YOU. It’s very easy for a big corporation to be bullied by these little groups in today’s connected society. Its is good to see that Dreamworks is not backing down.

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