There is a sub-plot in Tropic Thunder about a character named Simple Jack. The headline for Simple Jack is “Once there was a retard whose brain was small but his heart was big.” Later, Jack Black tells Ben Stiller to “never go full retard.” Why is this funny? Please, someone tell me what’s funny about that. It’s not; it’s crossing the line.

Advocates asked Dreamworks to take the Simple Jack sub-plot out…they refused. Yes, this movie is geared to adult audiences, but I guarantee you it’s only a matter of time before the phrase “never go full retard” is heard on the playgrounds.

I am all for humor. I loved Ben Stiller until he pulled this. But many people who have cognitive delays aren’t verbal or have a much lower language base. They can’t engage in this dialogue we’re having now and tell us how they feel. Isn’t it our jobs, as a decent community to protect those who can’t protect themselves?

P.S. - Kids have been throwing around the “R” word on playgrounds for decades and society hasn’t crumbled yet.

A word is just a word, unless you make it something hurtful. I’ve been called many words, b**** being my favorite (my friends have called me that while joking), c*** being the worst when an angry stranger called me that. I don’t think this movie aims to direct the word retard in a hurtful manner to anyone with disabilities, but I can see how people would be upset if they, or someone they love, have been called that in anger or ignorance. But a word can be turned around and made tame. Look at the N word. A white person saying it in anger or ignorance is using it incorrectly, a black person saying it in a greeting or term of endearment does not get any grief, they’ve taken the word back.

Making fun of someone with a disability is NOT right. My cousin was disabled so maybe I’ve come to respect them and see them as regular people more than others might, but I admit, I’ve used the term retard before. Never in a hurtful manner, just to describe someone who’s being silly, or even myself if I’ve done something dumb. I haven’t done it to make fun of anyone, but it’s a word I grew up hearing, so like any other word, it was adopted in my vocabulary. When I use the word, it’s used when someone should know better and still does something dumb. I’ve never used it to describe someone who was born with a disability or acquired it later in life (ie., brain damage from something like an accident), and might not know better.

Are some people over-reacting, possibly. Have you even seen the movie? Don’t pass judgment if you’ve never seen what your protesting against. How can you tell what context it’s given in if you’ve never experienced it?
A movie won’t make me go out and start making fun of people with disabilities. If you want change, people need to make it in the homes and in the schools. Kids need to learn from an early age that it’s OK to be different, it’s what makes everyone so special in their own way, and that it’s wrong to make fun of someone just because they are different.

I’m not going to watch this movie, why? Because I think it looks stupid, but I’m also NOT going to protest it. If I protested every movie that I thought might be insulting in someway, I’d never be able to watch movies or TV.

This movie proves that people with intellectual disabilities are not given a second thought and seen as less than humans. They are exploited as needed to get a quick laugh and make a quick buck. This is a pure exploitation movie. Period. Animals are given more respect than your fellow human beings.

Persons with intellectual disabilities are not morons, moronic, stupid, or imbeciles - which this movie directly implies with the dialog between Stiller and Downey. Morons and imbeciles are educated people like you who should know better and just eat up whatever big Hollywood star gives you. You eat it up greedily and fill up your ignorant belly. It is YOU who lack the ability to form an independent thought. You are so entranced by an industry that really provides nothing to the survival of humanity that you can’t even think for yourself. It’s sad. I love movies, but I am not so in love with them that I will ignore this insult.

Maybe you think it’s fine to call people retards. You have that right. You also have the responsibility of bearing the consequence when you offend someone. In this country, you are not prevented from doing anything. We have unhindered liberty. You can even kill someone. We don’t stop it. We can only bring consequence in the aftermath. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. That’s what separates true intellectuals from the wannabes.

People are arguing that it is only satire. That doesn’t really hold water. Satire can be wrong too when it perpetuates discrimination.

How many kikes, niggers, dumb blondes or fat pigs like to see those words used to exemplify financial stinginess, less than a white man, stupid because of hair colour and gender or weighing more than the average? None I bet. And they wouldn’t put up with it either.

Someone commented somewhere that racism and sexism is worse than ablism or disablism. They obviously haven’t experienced disability discrimination and the exclusion and rejection that comes with it. I have and it sucks.

Disability discrimination is insidious and generally either accepted or ignored by the general public. I think it makes the abloids (those who think they don’t have any disabilities) feel superior. Well goody for all of you. I Guess you must need that false feeling purely because you have doubts.

What I want to know is where was the protesting when movies like “The Other Sister”, “Forrest Gump”, and “I Am Sam” were released, for those are the types of films Stiller and the others are taking aim at. I look at this movie, if it’s done correctly, as one in the line with something like “Blazing Saddles”, which made fun of racism while profusely using offensive language and turning stereotypes around on the characters.

As far as people taking the lines out of context and using them on t-shirts or in the hallways of our schools and workplaces, I think the blame for that rests at the feet of the individuals who purchase those shirts or use those phrases (again, out of context). Honestly, those are the types of people who will find other ways to hurt and ridicule any kind of minority group that they think won’t fight back or undeserving of respect. I think it’s wrong to blame one writer or filmmaker for the wrongs that are considered acceptable by too many others in our society. In fact, I think all of this focus on Stiller’s movie takes away resources better spent on educating the public and changing overall perceptions.

I say this as a person with a loved-one who is mentally disabled and has worked with children with special needs, and I say this as a parent.