As a culture, we may be losing our sense of humor
Posted on Sunday, August 17, 2008
One of the not-so-bad parts
of my job is that I can
sneak out to the movies
and call it work. I just got back from a showing of the Ben Stiller comedy Tropic Thunder, a film that not only teases but mauls the Hollywood blockbuster apparatus of which it’s very much a part. It’s a smart and often very funny movie that deserves credit for understanding how ludicrous show business can be. It’s also generated controversy because of a brief dialogue between two of its characters: an action movie star named Tugg Speedman (styled along the lines of Sylvester Stallone ) played by Stiller and obsessive multiple Academy Award winner Kirk Lazarus (no doubt influenced by Russell Crowe and Daniel Day-Lewis ) played by Robert Downey Jr. The two are discussing a recent role played by Speedman of mentally disabled farm boy Simple Jack with a bowl haircut and a mouthful of toppled tombstone teeth.
Lazarus—who has undergone a controversial process to darken his skin so that he can play a black man— allows that the decision to play the Jack character was a brave one, for while playing disabled characters is a proven road to Oscar glory—think Day-Lewis in My Left Foot, Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump—the Academy never rewards actors who “go full retard.” (Think Sean Penn in I Am Sam. )
The joke here is on dim-witted (but not disabled ) Speedman for thinking that such a horribly unsubtle portrayal could attract not only commercial attention but an Oscar statue. Tropic Thunder is making fun of actors who court awards in such ham-handed and obvious ways. In the movie, Simple Jack is a failure, and Speedman is a jackass.
Still, at least 22 disability rights groups such as the Special Olympics and the American Association of People with Disabilities are angry about the use of the “r-word” and the character and have called for a boycott of the film and the theaters that show it. They hold, possibly correctly, that the use of the words “retard” and “retarded” are offensive and hurtful and that some people might see Tropic Thunder and think it clever to fling the words round.
I see their point. And I think when people complain about “political correctness” they’re really looking to license their own boorishness. Some words are loaded and shouldn’t be used without good reason. What’s a cheap laugh worth ? Probably not undue pain to an innocent human being.
(On the other hand, there’s a difference between using the vernacular “retard” and the term “mentally retarded,” right ? In my 2005 review of the aforementioned I Am Sam I referred to Penn’s character as mentally retarded and no one challenged it. )
It seems likely that the movie might contribute to an uptick in the casual use of these hurtful words. Some might have their vocabulary of insults enlarged by seeing the movie, they might adopt the phrase “go full retard” as a catch phrase. Nyuk, nyuk.
But having seen the movie, I feel compelled to defend it, not that it needs my help. But I think it’s clear that in context the real butt of its jokes is Hollywood and its vanities, and that the Simple Jack character is no more a disabled person than Mike Myers’ Guru Pitka in the similarly denounced The Love Guru is a representative Hindu cleric.
Simple Jack is not a bone-headed pandering Hollywood idea of what a mentally handicapped person might be like, but a joke about how Hollywood often misses the point and underestimates its audience. In context, the “rword” in Tropic Thunder is no more offensive than the “n-word” is in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.
Not that Tropic Thunder is the equivalent of Huckleberry Finn, but it is still a work of the imagination that seeks to illuminate the human heart and condition. Like South Park or The Simpsons, Tropic Thunder is a comedy that skirts offensiveness. Those of tender sensibilities should probably avoid it.
Often the words that we don’t—that we can’t—say are among the most potent. And to limit the tools an artist can use cheats society of potential truth telling. We might think of art as a special circumstance where the normal rules of decorum need not apply so long as the work produced justifies the outrage it incites. We ought not confuse a writer with his characters, whether the author in question is Mark Twain or Ben Stiller (and Justin Theroux and Etan ). Characters are made to say things that are morally repugnant and unjustifiable. We’re not supposed to admire Tugg Speedman, we’re supposed to understand he’s a jerk.
That doesn’t mean you have a particular duty to like or even see Tropic Thunder—it is, as the athletes say, what it is. It’s probably more interesting to people like me who have a lot invested in the movies, and I understand how some people might dismiss it as stupid. But it isn’t hateful, it isn’t even very mean—whatever venom it spews it reserves for the kind of people who think making a film like Simple Jack is a good idea.
I understand why some people react the way they do when they hear words and see images they think are hurtful on a movie screen. These people want the world to be less rough than it is, they want people to respect those who are disadvantaged through circumstances beyond their control. They want everyone to understand the validity of each human heart. They are well meaning and in some cases the very best of our kind. They feel they have a clientele to protect.
But the truth is the world is rough, and we cannot hope to educate everyone to our own standards for civilization. Art—especially comedy—has to engage the world honestly to be effective. The characters in Tropic Thunder sound like people, and people sometimes use words that other people do not like. It seems we are, as a culture, losing our sense of humor. That the recent New Yorker cover portraying Barack Obama and his wife Michelle as stereotypical Islamic terrorists fist-bumping in the White House could be construed as anything but a joke on the whispering lunatic right-win fringe is a chilling thought. Are we really so dumbed down that such things are taken literally by people who know what The New Yorker is ? I don’t think so. I think it’s that our yearning for self-approval and the satisfaction we take in being outraged—our smugness—often eclipses our sense of humor.
pmartin@arkansasonline. com
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