The R Word and Tropic Thunder

I knew there would be protests against "Tropic Thunder," Ben Stiller's puncturing of the bloated hot-air balloon of Hollywood ego. But I had anticipated that they would be against Robert Downey, Jr.'s depiction of an Australian actor in blackface as an African-American in this satire about actors in a Vietnam war epic who get kidnapped by druglords who think the players are narco-terrorists.

So I was blindsided by the impassioned eloquence of readers, inflamed by Timothy Shriver's persuasive commentary, who are outraged by the movie's casual use of the "R" word. That would be a six-letter epithet that rhymes with "regard" -- a schoolyard put-down of the developmentally-disabled. The R word is bandied about in one scene where Stiller's character, an actor who once played the Forrest Gump-like "Simple Jack," gets a crit from the Aussie thespian. Advocates charge that my review exhibits as little regard for the disabled community as do the makers of "Tropic Thunder."

Ben Stiller's stock-in-trade is the comedy of humiliation. The target of humiliation is almost always the character he plays. The exchange in "Tropic Thunder" employing the R word dehumanizes the men who use the epithet, not the disabled. Which is why I seriously doubt impressionable viewers who see the movie will be tossing around the R word when they leave the theater.

My feelings about picketing movie theaters about "Tropic Thunder" is that protests give free publicity to the product the picketers want to suppress. The best defense against offensive art? Life-affirming art.

Youthinks?