Not so Simple Jack

Upon first seeing the trailer for the film Tropic Thunder, the prevailing thought that swam around in my head was something along the lines of, “What in the name of Al Jolson is Robert Downey Jr. doing in blackface!” This sentiment was quickly followed by thoughts of how the NAACP and other African-American rights groups would attempt to have Downey Jr. ceremonially drawn and quartered on Hollywood and Vine. But an odd thing happened on the road to politically correct outrage.

It looks as though the African-American community and various advocacy groups got a sense of humor. They seem to grasp that the idea of Robert Downey Jr. playing an Australian method actor in a movie, who in turn is playing a farcical black man who is part Uncle Remus and part Dolemite in the movie-within-the-movie, is in fact satire. It doesn’t hurt that Downey Jr. has the chops to pull something like this off or that there is a legitimately African-American character, played by Brandon T. Jackson, there to tell Downey Jr. how fucking moronic he’s being, but it seems as though audiences are able to grasp the idea that Downey Jr.’s blackface is simply a vehicle for mocking the absurdities of method acting. Examples that come immediately to mind are Christian Bale dropping from a healthy 185 lbs. to an anemic 122 lbs. for his role in The Machinist or Daniel Day-Lewis refusing to break character and leave his wheelchair when playing the severely paralyzed Christy Brown in My Left Foot.

However, another character in Tropic Thunder managed to provoke the ire of advocacy groups across the country. Ben Stiller’s character in the film, Tugg Speedman, is an action movie star whose popularity has begun to wane. Before embarking on the absurd movie-within-a-movie around which Tropic Thunder’s plot centers, Hellzapoppin’ Apocalypse Now, Stiller’s character tried to garner an Oscar nomination by playing a mentally disabled man named Simple Jack in a film of the same name (It’s tagline is “Once there was a retard”). In the film, Simple Jack was a failure for Stiller as Tugg Speedman and in real life Simple Jack has become a problem for Stiller as director/actor.

Offensive? Probably... Pickett-worthy? Not-so-much.

Dozens of groups that support the rights of the mentally disabled have been picketing Tropic Thunder for Stiller’s portrayal of Simple Jack and for the film’s liberal usage of the word “retard,” which is thrown around 17 times during the movie. Groups ranging from the Special Olympics to the American Association of People with Disabilities were out to protest this past Monday at the film’s L.A. premiere. The protesters held up signs reading things like, “We have abilities, not disabilities” and “We are people first,” while many of the organizations are calling on the public to boycott the movie.

Before I get to the movie, I have to take umbrage with one of the signs that the protestors were holding. A mentally disabled person saying, “We have abilities, not disabilities” is just ignorant. I truly believe that the mentally disabled community is a vibrant and productive pocket of our society. That being said, the word is part of what your condition is now officially called and is in the title of your largest activist group. You are mentally disabled, thus you have mental disabilities. It would be like a paraplegic man saying, “I have enough upper body strength to crush your head like a honeydew, not the inability to use my legs.” Just because the former is true, it doesn’t mean the latter must be true as well.

That said, I think that the mentally disabled community’s outrage is a little misplaced. Granted, I have yet to see Tropic Thunder because it won’t be released until August 15th and I’m not exactly in a position to nab tickets to any early premieres, but from all of the reviews of the film that I have read so far, it doesn’’t appear to be targeting the mentally disabled community at all. The crux of the argument behind Simple Jack is that the Academy will deliver an Oscar on a silver platter to any actor that “has the courage” to play a mentally disabled character. By my count, 13 actors playing characters who were either mentally or physically disabled have been nominated for the best actor Oscar in the past twenty years. Of those fifteen, eight came home with the Oscar, including 2 mentally disabled characters: Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man and Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump.

There is a legitimate complaint to be lodged against the academy for fawning over actors portrayals of the mentally disabled like tweeners lusting after Zac Efron (hey, I’m hip with the kiddies……I read Tiger Beat). They gave Sean Penn a best actor nomination for I Am Sam for Christsakes. Did you see that movie? It was a Hallmark Channel made-for-TV movie with A-list actors and a big budget. This type of behavior is patronizing towards the mentally disabled because it implies that they are such a sub-class of human being that simply doing a convincing job acting like one in a movie is worthy of an Academy Award.

The usage of the word “retard” in Tropic Thunder could have been insensitive—I don’t know. What I do know is that the mentally disabled community is not the target of these jokes in the same way Robert Downey Jr.’s “skin pigmentation” isn’t a jab at African-Americans. All I’m saying is that the next time some actor wins an academy award for playing someone with a severe learning disorder or down syndrome, the mentally disabled community should take a long look at itself and try to see whether picketing a satirical war-comedy is really that important.