On August 13th, a new movie, Tropic Thunder, with Ben Stiller and Robert Downey, Jr. will be released. The movie, a $90 million investment from the studio, is revealed through its trailer and advance notices to be offensive to people with developmental disabilities. Stiller and Downey play actors and in one scene, Downey berates Stiller for “going full retard” for his portrayal of a fictional character, Simple Jack, in a movie in the movie. The studio had originally had a “Simple Jack” website that carried that tagline but it has since been taken down because of complaint. Although the Downey character also makes disparaging remarks about African-Americans, there are black actors in the movie who call Downey on his offensive statements. Nothing like this happens when the developmentally disabled are attacked.

One person who has attended an advance showing wrote:

There is one scene (”Never go full retard”), that is horribly offensive. The scene is not critical to the narrative of the movie. The movie is not an equal opportunity offender: The only other people who are made fun of are white, self-absorbed, Hollywood actors; hardly a class of people in need of protection.

As was pointed out by one blogger, this is not the first Ben Stiller written film which is insulting to the disabled. His film There’s Something About Mary, contains a line offensive to the developmentally disabled spoken by one of the characters, “Yeah, I really love those retards.” The only comment to this by any character in the film is asking whether he should be talking like that.

The Arc has already prepared a national boycott based on the result of meetings with the studio. At this point it seems unlikely that the studio will make major changes to a film that is to be released in less than a week. But a national boycott could keep this film from being profitable which would perhaps help with future films released by this and all other studios.

Follow Patricia Bauer’s blog for further developments.