'Tropic Thunder' Divides the Internet as Ben Stiller Defends Controversial Film
The actor and director says he won't apologize for the film, but did anyone even ask him to?
Another day, another resurfaced controversy!
Today's argument stems from the 2008 film Tropic Thunder, which tends to cause a stir every now and again due to its portrayal of disability and use of the R-Slur, as well as its use of blackface, which originally led Robert Downey Jr. to hesitate in accepting the role of Kirk Lazarus, a method actor who surgically alters the pigmentation of his skin to play a Black soldier and gets lost in the jungle with other members of the crew.
But the film is satirical, following along with another fictional film, and when Downey realized he'd "get to hold up to nature the insane, self-involved hypocrisy of artists and what they think they’re allowed to do on occasion,” he reconsidered, ultimately earning an Oscar nomination in 2009.
"It’s never an excuse to do something that is out of place and not of its time, but to me it was just putting … a blasting cap on,” he later said. “I think having a moral psychology is job one, so sometimes you just got to go, ‘Yeah I effed up.’ Again, not in my defense, but Tropic Thunder was about how wrong that is, so I take exception.”
But this week, one Twitter user begged Ben Stiller, who also starred in and directed the film, to stop apologizing for it, sparking another round of criticism—and defense—of the comedy.
Benny S., a self-described "R&B Singer/Songwriter/Actor, 2nd Amendment Activist & Seeker of Truth," shared a screenshot of his own Facebook post on Twitter, requesting Stiller, "Please stop apologizing for doing this movie. It was and still is funny AF... Even funnier now with cancel culture the way it is. It's a MOVIE. Ya'll can just get over it. I was DYING laughing when I first saw it back in the day and so was everyone else."
Stiller replied, writing, "I make no apologies for Tropic Thunder. Don’t know who told you that. It’s always been a controversial movie since when we opened. Proud of it and the work everyone did on it."
And it seems to be true that nobody was talking about it until Benny brought it up. He pointed to an older Tweet of Stiller's in which he admitted to apologizing for the film after it came out, but it's unclear if that was actually a catalyst for anyone else this time around.
Plenty of people called out the lack of criticism currently occurring.
"Are these 'liberals who are complaining about this movie' in the room with us right now ?" one Twitter user wanted to know.
"Of course they aren't, this disingenuous f--k is just propping up 'he heard' so he can stand on his righteous 'oh no cancel culture' to further stir the pot and create his little right wing panic," someone responded.
"It's that wonderful time of year where zoomers discovers Tropic Thunder and proceed to completely miss the point," another tweet read.
Others came to the script's defense, calling out potential critics for missing the point.
"People really have to stop taking a couple of tweets and extrapolating that into mass outrage. Unless I completely missed it, I’m not aware of any discussions about this being offensive. The blackface joke in this movie was meant to make fun of the absurdity of method acting," said one.
"They were literally showing how the industry would rather cast a white person to play a black character, over an actual black actor. If you ain’t watch tropic thunder, just say that," another pointed out.
Few members of the Twitter conversation had anything negative to say, but they were shut down by fans.
"hate when people defend blackface in tropic thunder by saying it was 'satire' when the movie made no effort to actually denounce it or be educational. it was used as shock value in a comedic movie (a way that blackface was HISTORICALLY used) so is just simply regressive," one said, but she was quickly accused of never having seen the film, with another user supplying receipts of screenshots and film quotes to the contrary.
Whether there's anyone actually up in arms or not, fans of the series were more than happy to make themselves known.
"Please make a Tropic Thunder 2. About aging actors who try to reprise roles but find out the audience has become too sensitive to enjoy art for what it is," one even suggested, but let's be real: that would be far too meta.
