The word “retard” has a prominent place in “Miss March,” says Chicago Tribune interviewer Robert K. Elder. The Fox Searchlight film, about a young man who wakes from a coma to find that his girlfriend has become a Playboy centerfold, opens Friday.

Here’s an excerpt of Elder’s interview with actor Craig Robinson.

An excerpt:

Q: In the script, the word “retard” is used over and over. The comedy “Tropic Thunder” received a great deal of criticism for using the same word. Was there any concern over how this might be received?

A: I’ve heard nothing. There could very well be something, but I haven’t heard anything. We shot it probably the same time as ["Tropic Thunder"]. I wasn’t in the editing room. You’ll have to talk to the guys who made those decisions.

Q: But, as a comedian, is that just a toxic word now?

A: It does seem to be. You can see it from a parent’s point of view. But the way they use it in the movie is funny. It’s silly. It’s not going out to hurt anybody. It’s definitely not coming from an evil place; it’s just coming from the way people talk.

News about the film’s use of the word “retard” started surfacing the same day the Special Olympics announced its “Spread the Word to End the Word” effort, with activities scheduled for March 31. The youth-led campaign will be devoted to raising awareness about people with intellectual disabilities, and to calling a halt to the use of the word “retard” as a casual insult.

(more…)

Actor John C. McGinley (Dr. Perry Cox on ABC’s “Scrubs”) is featured in a cover article in Exceptional Parent. Topics of conversation: his life as dad to eleven-year-old Max, who has Down syndrome; what he thinks of those who make fun of people with disabilities, and the film “Tropic Thunder.” An excerpt:

… ["Tropic Thunder"] really cuts me to the core. And it feels to me like the perfect storm of cowardice when you pick on people who can’t return serve. So for Ben Stiller — who directed “Tropic Thunder” — he is just such a punk coward.

… I don’t like any exclusionary language. I hate it. Because all it does it perpetuate negative stigmas about different groups. And where’s the upside? The upside, I assume, is when people use language like that is that someone is trying to elevate themselves by denigrating whoever the subject is. And it doesn’t work that way. It just makes you a jackass. And I loathe it. I hate bullies and that, to me, is like bully language.

Q: What is it you want people to know about people with Down syndrome?

(more…)

By Karen Meyer on WLS-TV, Chicago (ABC affiliate), with video:

Correspondent Karen Meyer interviews people with disabilities and disability rights advocates who are offended by the use of the word “retard” in the film “Tropic Thunder.”

Meyer, who is deaf, speaks and signs simultaneously while the text of her words is spelled out across the screen in close-captioning. “Whether it’s language or action, negative portrayals of people with disabilities often opens doors to prejudice and abuse,” she says.

She uses her own voice to narrate the piece, and includes footage and interviews of people with disabilities. Here’s what people were saying:

“Words are very powerful and your words form attitudes, beliefs, values that turn into actions. People who might watch this movie might say, well people who are retards, I don’t want them working in my company, I don’t want them living in my neighborhood I don’t want them participating in my schools next to my child.”

— Jon Voit,  president and CEO of Seguin Services, a not-for-profit serving people with developmental disabilities.

“When I’ve seen the movie I did not like how they put us down. It was the very vulgarest movie I’ve ever seen. The language and how they made fun of handicapped people.”

— Glenora Mills, a woman with a developmental disability

From Fandango.com:

When some 3,000 filmgoers were asked to choose the top movie-inspired costumes for Halloween, Ben Stiller’s “Simple Jack” character from “Tropic Thunder” was listed as #9 in the men’s category. The character, referred to in the film as a “retard,” stirred controversy among disability rights advocates who said its depiction of people with intellectual disabilities was insulting.

See also:

‘Tropic Thunder’ belittles people with mental retardation, by Kim Clark in the [Rochester,NY] Democrat and Chronicle

An excerpt:

We’ve come a long way in appreciating the abilities of all people. That said, how reckless for DreamWorks to whittle down decades of institutionalized anguish and torment to a mere snicker over a person who may talk slowly or have a crippled body.

DreamWorks, families like ours are not upset because you hurt our feelings; we’re upset because it reminds us that we’re still advocating for basic dignity and human rights.

Susan Senator, writing in the Washington Post’s “On Faith” section, says there’s nothing wrong with being retarded. What’s wrong, she says, is the use of the word “retard” as an insult, designed to reduce a person to only one trait. Senator would like to help people appreciate the “loveliness and complexity” of people like her son Nat, who has a cognitive impairment. An excerpt:

So I got to thinking some more about the case against the word “retarded,” especially in light of the recent uproar over the movie “Tropic Thunder”. And I really feel that the campaign to stop using the “R” word just does not get at the heart of things. Pure censure is something people feel in their heads, in their shame-reddened faces. But do they feel it in their souls? Can they try to understand that there’s not just one way to be, that God works in mysterious ways, as they say, and that you never know how a person – whether retarded or Rhodes Scholar – might affect you at your core. Understanding that will make a difference..

Maybe, instead of stamping out the “R” word, we could come up with a tag line that gets the offenders to think, for a change. A new slogan, something like: “‘Retarded.’ It’s more than you know.” After all, there is far more power in facing something, naming it, and confidently owning it, than there is by running from it. After all, we are much more than our IQ score.

See also:

Words can hurt — letter by Paula Stanovich to the Los Angeles Times. Stanovich is a professor of special education at Portland State University. (See extended version, which appeared earlier as a comment on this website.)

Making fun of a serious disability — letter to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Some words hurt — letter to the Salt Lake Tribune

New film raises disability issues — letter to the Charleston Post and Courier

‘Thunder’ just cruel to nation’s disabled — letter to Baltimore Sun

Film shows ‘heartless ridicule’ by using word ‘retard’ – [Warren, NJ] Reporter

‘Tropic Thunder’: Hollywood still doesn’t get it — Lawrence Carter-Long in disaboom.com

Hollywood can ill afford to dismiss the views of disabled advocates and their allies now. It didn’t have to be this way, but by failing to consider the nations ‘largest minority’ Dreamworks created the controversy themselves.

Disrespecting the disabled belittles us all — Mary Yoder in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

I implore you to think twice before using derogatory terms or laughing at people because they have disabilities. Consider reaching out to someone who has an intellectual disability and find the gifts she/he brings to family and community, or talk to an employer who knows firsthand that people with intellectual disabilities make great employees. I ask you to put people first, period.

Youth sports buzz: Another word to ban on your team — Jon Buzby in the Norwich, CT, Bulletin

Kids often look up to their youth sports coaches more than any other influential person in their lives, including us parents. Schools already don’t tolerate the term. If we add one more heavily-populated place that doesn’t accept it — youth sports organizations — we can really make a difference. And when you think about it, isn’t that why we all coach youth sports?

Protests miss the point of ‘Tropic Thunder’ — James Bowman in the American Spectator

The right to cause offense; Protests at new satirical film are misplaced — David Thomson in the UK Guardian

Disabilities are not a punchline — letter to tricities.com in southwest Virginia

People with intellectual disabilities deserve respect — letter to the Daily Breeze in Cumberland, RI

Reasons why the film’s use of ‘retarded’ is offensive — letter to the Bloomington, IL, Pantagraph

Josie Byzek, writing in The Progressive, says she won’t be joining the boycott of “Tropic Thunder,” but she hopes the controversy will focus attention on “the real pain that slurs cause people with disabilities.” She’d like to see some films that portray people with disabilities as three dimensional people, as well as some with “disabled actors playing roles that have nothing to do with disability.”

An excerpt:

Any person with a disability who has been the target of the R-word knows it is painful. But for decades, many of us have tried to get the media, especially Hollywood, to realize it’s even more hurtful to exploit disability-themed inspiration and pity in order to get a prize of some sort.

… Movies like these depend on nondisabled audiences dehumanizing or infantilizing us.

We don’t want your pity. We want dignity.

Byzek is managing editor of New Mobility (www.newmobility.com), a lifestyle magazine for wheelchair users.