Guest commentary:

By Rud and Ann Turnbull

To the disability community in America: Be cautious.

Governor Palin’s comments at her party’s convention bring to mind a famous line from Virgil’s Aeneid: “Timeo Danaos et donas ferentes”: I fear the Greeks even when bearing gifts.

On the one hand, Gov. Palin appealed to the hopes and fears of people with disabilities and their families by proclaiming she will be their friend and advocate in Washington.

On the other, she dismissed Sen. Obama’s experience as a community organizer. She asserted he bore no responsibility for his activities; she contrasted her roles as mayor and governor as freighted with responsibility.

Gov. Palin’s promise has understandable allure for the disability community. But words take on authentic meaning when buttressed by biography.

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From Variety:

DreamWorks has withdrawn www.simplejackmovie.com, an elaborate marketing website aimed at promoting Ben Stiller’s ‘Tropic Thunder,’ in what the newspaper described as a “preemptive” response to criticism from disability rights advocates.

A consortium of groups including the Special Olympics and the Down Syndrome Association of Los Angeles first contacted the studio Friday and set up a meeting with studio executives to express concerns about the film. The meeting is scheduled for this afternoon.

The site, which was aimed at teenage boys and garnered fewer than 35,000 hits, featured a poster with Stiller and the tagline “Once upon a time … there was a retard.”

… “We heard their concerns, and we understand that taken out of context, the site appeared to be insensitive to people with disabilities,” DreamWorks spokesman Chip Sullivan said.

Want to send a message to studio executives and disability rights advocates? Click here.

See also:

• Dreamworks: Simple Jack ‘Retard’ movie offended people so we took site down — Businesssheet.com
• Ben Stiller, Paramount learn that you never go full retard — FilmSchoolRejects blog
• ‘Tropic Thunder’ abandoning ‘Simple Jack’? — New York Magazine
• Tropic Thunder braces for retard backlash — Defamer.com
• Stiller movie in disablity row — Contactmovie.com
• DreamWorks goes no retard, yanks Simple Jack site disabilities — Popgrind.com

And here’s an excerpt from cinemablend.com, headlined Save Tropic Thunder:

Apparently “retard” is now worse than the N word, which seems to show up in every other film without the slightest complaint. That’s right, a word used to describe mentally handicapped people who for the most part don’t know or care anyway, is now worse than a word which was for hundreds of years a symbol of slavery, oppression, and hatred.

It started with some rumbling in comments sections and on message boards around the internet, now disability organizations are apparently starting to demand changes to the movie in order to water it down, lest it hurt the feelings of retards (yep, I said it), and they’re starting to scare off DreamWorks pictures.

From Disability Now:

Stephen Fry, a prominent UK writer, actor and television personality, says people with mental health problems should develop a sense of pride to help banish public stigma. Fry, who has bipolar disorder, draws parallels to the civil rights and gay rights movements.

“Once that pride is there, once we all stand up and account for ourselves and not be ashamed of ourselves, then it makes the rest of the population realize two things,” he said in an interview. “One, that we are just them but with something extra. And two, how close we are.”

… “It’s actually necessary for our gene pool to have some people in it who are just not normal. It is an immense privilege to belong to a group of people who are not normal.”

Update here: Rights groups prepare for boycotts, protest

A national coalition of disability rights organizations has formally requested a meeting with executives at DreamWorks/Paramount to express concerns about negative portrayals of people with intellectual disabilities in “Tropic Thunder,” an R-rated raunchfest that is set to open August 13.

(Earlier posts here and here.)

Ben Stiller plays two characters in the big-budget comedy: a fading action hero (above left with Robert Downey Jr. and Jack Black), and “Simple Jack,” a kind-hearted dolt with bad teeth whose onscreen presence prompts frequent use of words like “retard,” “moron” and “imbecile.”

At a hastily convened conference call yesterday, advocates voiced dissatisfaction over studio promotional materials that feature the slogan “Once upon a time … There was a retard,” as well as worries that the Simple Jack character reinforces hurtful stereotypes. The ad-hoc coalition also requested an advance screening of the film.

Among the organizations represented were the American Association of People with Disabilities, The Arc of the United States, Special Olympics, the National Down Syndrome Congress, United Cerebral Palsy, the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, TASH, and the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts.

While the group was optimistic that the meeting and screening would take place next week, it also discussed possible organized efforts to attract negative attention to the film.

In a New York Times article this morning that references this website, studio executives brushed aside questions about the way the film portrays people with disabilities. Here’s a comment from Stacey Snider, chief executive of the DreamWorks unit:

Ms. Snider acknowledged the risks inherent in the film. It is the first from DreamWorks, she said, to use a so-called red band trailer, which attempts to limit access to online viewers 17 or older. (Visitors to tropicthunder.com can view it only after clicking on “Restricted” and entering name, ZIP code and birth date.)

But the film’s humor, she said, comes at the expense of its own heroes, a corps of knucklehead actors, rather than of the handicapped or anyone else. “The star-studdedness of it, and the absolute playability of it, trumps it all,” Ms. Snider said.

And from the film’s star, director and lead writer Ben Stiller, there was this:

“It’s hard for me to tell people how to react,” he said. “The whole point of the movie is about actors, and the length actors will go to to advance their careers.”

For disability rights organizations, the stakes are high. “Tropic Thunder” is among the summer’s biggest films, with major stars, a production budget of about $90 million and a promotional budget of tens of millions more.

Whatever messages are embedded in the movie will soon be seen by millions of people, and could help to define how people with apparent disabilities are viewed by the public. Current figures from the U.S. Census Bureau put the number of Americans with cognitive disabilities at 14.3 million, or 6 percent of the population 15 and older.

There will doubtless be statements from studio executives who say the film is an equal opportunity offender. It pokes fun at racial stereotypes, with Robert Downey Jr. dressing in blackface and citing the theme song of “The Jeffersons.” Jack Black does fart jokes. Everybody’s offended, right?

Let’s answer that with some questions. People of different races surely were involved in the making of this film, and were able to express opinions about which references were humorous and which might have gone too far. So were people with different sexual orientations.

How many people with cognitive disabilities were involved in the making of this film? Were any people with cognitive disabilities involved in focus groups for this film? How many are employed by Dreamworks, or by parent company Paramount?

See Dave Hingsburger’s essay on one girl’s reaction to the word “retard”:
http://davehingsburger.blogspot.com/2008/05/that-word-this-girl.html

See also: Update: Meeting set between studio, rights coalition

(Paramount Pictures image from the New York Times)

UPDATE: National rights organization prepares for boycott, protest

UPDATE 2: Screenings postponed as premiere looms; Boycott, protests planned

Readers, please send in your comments here

You’ve seen the trailers. Tropic Thunder, a big budget summer comedy by DreamWorks Pictures, is due out August 13. But here’s something the trailers don’t point out: Ben Stiller plays a role that leans heavily on the term “retard.”

There are those who view the word “retard” as offensive and demeaning, and think it fuels social stigma against vulnerable people. And there are others, like perhaps the R-rated film’s star, director and lead writer Ben Stiller (at left in an image from one of the studio’s marketing websites), who may think the word is inoffensive and a good complement to the film’s other gags, stunts, explosions and gross-out jokes.

Already disability advocates are registering dismay about the language on the image above — “Once upon a time … There was a retard” — and conferring about how to address it. Let’s be clear: I haven’t seen the movie, and early reviews are scant. (Click here to see what Variety and the Hollywood Reporter had to say.) Here’s what I have been able to piece together:

Tropic Thunder is a testosterone-pumped action/adventure/comedy featuring mega-stars Stiller, Robert Downey Jr. and Jack Black as self-absorbed actors filming a war movie on location.

Stiller is Tugg Speedman, a fading action star who earlier failed badly in his bid for Oscar glory as “Simple Jack,” a man with an intellectual disability. “Simple Jack” is featured as a film-within-a-film, with Stiller outfitted in a classic institutional bowl haircut and bad teeth. It even has its own marketing website — the slogan is “What he doesn’t have in his head, he makes up for in his heart.” A satirical plot synopsis posted there quotes a critic as saying that Speedman’s Jack was “one of the most retarded performances in cinema history.”

Downey, as the more distinguished actor, gives Speedman advice on maximizing his chance for future Oscars: “Never go full retard.”  When the actors are taken hostage by real guerrillas who turn out to be Jack fans, they force Speedman to re-enact the role for their entertainment.

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The question is posed in the Exploring Race blog, by Dawn Turner Trice, which was featured on the front page of the newspaper’s opinion section. A reader identified only as “Marcus C.” says he has seen many apparently non-disabled African-American people use the preferential parking while going into the bank.

“Is this racial or just about a group of people who just don’t understand they shouldn’t ever park in the handicapped spot?” he asks.

At last count, there were 82 comments posted.

From DiversityInc.com, a publication about diversity in business, a list of seven things you can NEVER say to people with disabilities. (The emphasis is theirs.) Developed with the participation of the National Organization on Disability (NOD) and the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, the list is just the right length to be posted on the office bulletin board.

Take note:

1. “What’s wrong/what happened?” or “Were you born that way?”
2. “Oh, if you just have faith, you can be healed.”
3. Speaking slowly or loudly to someone who is in a wheelchair.
4. “I don’t even think of you as a person with a disability.”
5. “How do you go to the bathroom?”
6. “But you look so good.”
7. “Oh, you’re here, you must feel better.”

And that doesn’t even take into account the standard list of culturally insensitive words like “handicapped,” “retarded” and “slow” to refer to people with disabilities, or “compliments” like “you look so good.”

“These terms are unacceptable because they are linked to a history that the general public isn’t aware of,” says Nancy Starnes, vice president and chief of staff for the National Organization on Disability (NOD). “And just like there are terms that you don’t use for African Americans anymore, the same goes for people with disabilities.”

People actually say this stuff? Given that the Census Bureau reports that there are 11.8 million people with reported disabilities in the work force, surely we’ve got a lot of reliable correspondents out there. Readers, what have you heard? Tell us about your most memorable office interaction.

For inspiration, take a look at DiversityInc’s other lists of cringeworthy comments:

• 10 Things NEVER to Say to Black Coworkers: #1: “You’re so articulate.”
• 7 Things NEVER to Say to Asian-American Executives: #1: “You must be the IT person.”
  
• 10 Things NEVER to Say to Latino Executives
  
• 7 Things NEVER to Say to LGBT Coworkers
• 6 Workplace Myths About People With Disabilities