1.the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc.
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all of this controversy over the movie "tropic thunder" is really irritating. i saw a preview for this movie sometime earlier this year and i wasn't totally turned off, but i also wasn't that interested in seeing the movie. after all of this noise people keep making about black face and the portrayal of a "retarded character", i actually want to pay to see the movie even if i already get in for free just because i want to support what (i think is) the entire point.
okay, i know that i am a really privileged white girl and i probably don't have a whole lot of room to make judgments on people being too sensitive about things. i have relatives who fought in the revolutionary war, the civil war (both for the Confederacy and the Union [although more fought with the Confederacy]) and both World Wars, so i don't have any relatives who had to go through ellis island and struggled to make a living here (even the German part of my family still got here before ellis island opened in the 1890s and my grandpa (the German) grew up in a very poor part of Philadelphia but he is well off now). most of my relatives are middle to upper class white folks, all protestant christians (except for the small crazy group of them who follow the book of Urantia), most of them are republicans, most of them live in the south and most of them are college educated. no one is gay, no one is in a bi-racial relationship, none of them are mentally handicapped and none of them REALLY struggle. i am an extremely fortunate person (sheltered, even?) and i recognize this.
i'm also aware of our country's history of discrimination against racial minorities and people with disabilities. i know about minstrel shows, i know about jim crow laws and i know that there are still extreme racists out there and that an extreme percentage of black Americans are in prison or receiving welfare and that our country's education system is definitely still segregated in its own way (by class and race, in my opinion). (i feel like i should be quoting Tupac here)
however, i don't think this movie is meant to discriminate as much as it is meant to target self-absorbed hollywood stars. so many actors have this holier-than-thou act because they played a handicapped person and therefore they truly understand the hardships that come along with being or having to take care of someone who is handicapped. or because they played someone living on welfare, they understand what it is like. or because they played someone who was raped, they really know what it is like. they don't really understand or even care (at least, most of them don't); they want to play these parts to get publicity or to win awards. i assume that the point of this movie is that ben stiller pretends to care or identify with people who are mentally handicapped because he played 'simple jack', and robert downey jr knows what it's like to be a black man in America because he had cosmetic surgery. i feel this way about most actors out there, and i feel like it is this point the movie is trying to make. ben stiller and RDJ are not making fun of minorities, they are making fun of people who take advantage of minorities. i feel like, in a way, it's actually more respectful to those demographics and should be offensive (but hopefully eye-opening) only to the actors who pull these kinds of stunts. it's called a satire, people, and that's what this movie is. the groups that are up in arms about the movie should be more concerned about the actors who take advantage of these demographics to further their own careers.
