Most of the people lingering around Westwood’s Mann Bruin Theatre Monday afternoon didn’t come for the movie: They came for a protest.
As Ben Stiller’s Vietnam-flick spoof, “Tropic Thunder,” premiered to generally positive reviews, the American Association of People with Disabilities, the Special Olympics, The Arc of the United States and others weren’t so thrilled.
The mass of close to 100 people, which included representatives from the Special Olympics, Best Buddies and many people with intellectual disabilities, gathered outside the theater Monday to express disapproval of the film’s treatment of intellectually disabled individuals. Their objections implied a belief that the movie-within-a-movie character, “Simple Jack,” to whom the other actors refer as the pejorative “retard,” marginalizes the intellectually disabled population and represents an institutional insensitivity akin to Hollywood’s blackface minstrelsy of the 1920s and ’30s.
The studio’s steady defense, however, didn’t signal its readiness to face the protesters. At the premiere, a wall of vined trellises shielded the red carpet from the demonstration. Barricades lined the street corners and a larger-than-normal staff of policemen and security guards monitored the demonstrators.
Considering the backlash’s extensive media coverage and the sheer number of people involved in participating organizations, this protest just might start a public discourse necessary to bring the intellectually disabled out of the margins and into the spotlight.
“We’ve had some success the past 10 years. We made a movie with the Farrellys that particularly attacked this using humor. We’ve seen some strides in Hollywood, with … people with Down’s syndrome acting, and we’ve seen some sensitivity, some progress, so we thought we were further along than this,” Shriver said.
