Some of the best movies ever made are offensive to large groups of people because they challenge the ideas held by the public. Buctainment showed the movie “Tropic Thunder” on Friday, and in my opinion it is not great social commentary, film nor even comedy.
Advocacy groups for people with disabilities have expressed protest over the popular movie, mostly because of its portrayal of mental/communicative disabilities. A handful of people also showed up to the campus to peacefully show their opposition.
The group was diverse, consisting of faculty, community members, including a school teacher, and students from different majors.
When asked why they were there, the group nominated Cynthia Chambers, an ETSU professor in the special education program, to explain, “It is insensitive to show [the movie] without information.”
The group was passing out flyers explaining why some of the material was offensive and listing examples of language that should be avoided.
Representatives of Buctainment, who chose the movie in advance, were making a good effort to be sensitive to the community while still showing it.
“We pick the movies based on what we think people would want,” said Steven Sherman, president of Buctainment. “This may or may not change our choice of movies in the future, but it’s something we’ll start looking at.”
Caitlin McCauley, another organizer, said, “I am happy that people are expressing opinions respectfully and as adults.”
It was clear by their announcement prior to the movie, as well as their offer to stay afterwards to address any discussions desired, that a great deal of effort went into being sensitive.
As for social commentary, the ideal situation would be to show the offensive material and reasonably discuss it. Referring to “Tropic Thunder” as satire gives it too much credit as the movie was clearly more intended for cheap laughs than introspection, but aside from that, Buctainment should get high marks for their efforts all around.
Michael Stockwell, a freshman biology major, dismissed the controversy saying, “People need to get over it, we’re adults and it’s just a movie.”
It was, of course, rated R for language and maybe the corny violence, using dialogue that would justifiably offend almost any other minority group the filmmakers could think of, such as homosexuals, African-Americans, veterans and drug addicts (not to equate these groups and their respective struggles).
There was, however a marked difference between the comedic styles used to make fun of those issues and the issues affecting people with disabilities.
Mentions of a character’s closeted sexuality were lightly tread upon, and a more major aspect of the movie was the white guy acting as a black guy.
The latter was actually discussed throughout the movie, and it was clear they were using this unique situation more as a jab at actors than minorities. In fact, the entire theme of the movie made fun of people in the film industry.
However, they simply did not do a good job, whatever their intentions were, toward disabled people.
The idea of Ben Stiller’s mentally disabled character was poorly done and Robert Downey Jr.’s portrayal of an African-American easily sufficed for the point they were trying to make: comedy and offensiveness.
It really is too bad that those offended by the movie were not intending to watch it. Being exposed to other’s expressions and how the public responds to it can be a valuable source of information.
If anything can be taken away from this movie, it is simply that those producing and showing it were unaware either that their actions would be offensive or that that the offense would come back to hurt them.
Obviously, using the N-word for African Americans or the F-word for homosexuals would be a financial mistake because more people would protest and prevent others from paying for it.
Since the film used the R-word for disabled people 16 times, clearly the public is for whatever reason not as concerned with the sensitivities of that particular group.
Perhaps the social commentary should focus on why this is so.

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