10 Surprisingly Unethical Movie Moments

Tropic Thunder – Entire Movie

When it comes to the delightfully messed up world of offensive comedy, Sacha Baron Cohen has become the unrivalled king; anyone who managed to watch Borat, Brüno or The Dictator without their chin falling half way to their chest might want to think about being checked for mild paralysis. Less expected, however, was that a comedy from Ben Stiller would attract its own group of very cross – and very vocal – protestors.

Tropic Thunder offers a generous menu of morally questionable content. First off, we have a ridiculous portrayal of mental disability, which is followed closely by the fact that Robert Downey Jr. played a character in entire ‘blackface’ make up. If neither of these strike you, how about an outrageous stereotyping of the Vietnamese? Or the turning of heroin addiction into a comedy?  No? Perhaps the belittling of war veterans will do it? Poking fun at the overweight? Homosexuality? The Pope? The Jewish? British? Australians?

The story within a story – er, within a story – of Tropic Thunder follows four fame-hungry actors whose desperate searches for recognition have led them down a variety of paths before coming together to make a Vietnam war epic. For Australian method actor Kirk Lazarus (Downey Jr.), it is no problem whatsoever that his character in the war movie is African-American, undergoing skin pigmentation surgery beforehand and resolutely adopting an accent and other various mannerisms. Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), a one-time action movie mega-star, recently played the role of Jack in the fictional movie Simple Jack in a – now infamously misguided – attempt to raise his Oscar credibility. Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) has made a fortune out of toilet humour movies, and is now busy injecting as much of that fortune into his blood stream as humanly possible.

The list goes on. Cheerfully disobeying its own famous advice to ‘never go full [whatever it is you’re pretending to do]’, Tropic Thunder started from usual Stiller-silly comedy expectations, and then maxed out its moral acceptability account in as many departments as it could think of, in shamelessly brazen detail. There were a few moments of silent disbelief while this sunk in, and then the outcry began. Over 20 different disability advocacy groups in America objected to what they saw as the shockingly inaccurate and insulting character of Simple Jack, picketing outside theatres and clamouring for widespread boycotts of the film. It was true that the use of the word “retard” immediately put Tropic Thunder outside of the claim that it wasn’t deliberately trying to be offensive (although, for anyone who found the word jarring the first time, there were another 16 uses with which to get used to it).

But here’s the thing. Tropic Thunder is absolutely deliberately offensive. They just weren’t the offenses everyone thought they were. Really, Tropic Thunder had one theme and one theme only; the merciless mocking of Hollywood itself. Tropic Thunder’s collection of hopeless characters represents the extremes of acting life, and the absurd lengths to which some actors will go for fame and praise; the point was not to parody mental disability, or racism, but to parody those who do use such serious subject matter as a vehicle for their own award-driven glory (which makes the ironic fact that Downey Jr. actually got an Oscar nomination for his scene-stealing turn as Lazarus even more brilliant).

Aside from anything else, Tropic Thunder actually does manage to achieve a delicate balance between satirical comment and totally stupid fun. It clearly wasn’t going for cheap laughs with its manhandling of all things politically incorrect: You can’t walk purposefully out into the middle of a shooting range without knowing what the consequences are going to be.

And if the stroke of genius that is the faux trailers at the movie’s start wasn’t enough proof that it is actors themselves who are the jokes here, there are four final words that might just seal the deal: Tom Cruise – fat suit.