The movie Tropic Thunder and the R-word: Satire or insensitive

Satire

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by Jimmy Ettele

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We have reached a point in our increasingly sterile, spineless, pandering, politically correct country where we have been told a word, a single word, is so offensive, an online free writing site can not even print the word in a question posed to their online writing community. The word can be classified to be considered 'hate speech'. What is the word? Out of the forty thousand or so words in our language, what word has filled our ears with hate? Retard. Retard. Not the 'R-word'. Not learning disabled. Retard. This is the word that may single handedly bring about the end of our nation?

The first thing we must do is be rational about all of this. Rationalizing, being open minded, thinking about things logically can be difficult for a variety of different groups. Christian conservatives, pandering politicians, advocacy groups of all kinds, have a difficult time grasping the concept of rationalizing. Blinded by an agenda, they fail to see the context of situation that deviates from their own twisted dogmas and group motto's. But as I said, rational, sane, logical minds can prevail here.

In this laughable case, the word retard is being used by actors in a movie about a movie. This is why we have controversy? Over a Ben Stiller movie? I must admit when I heard about this "controversy" I thought maybe Don Imus was somehow involved but when I found out the rest of the story, I fail to see a controversy. Think to yourself...this is Ben Stiller. What possible reason would he have to consciously attempt to offend a group of people days before his movie was about to be released?

We must also be cognizant of another fact: sometimes you are going to be offended. It's unavoidable, as much as these groups try, to not find something in a movie, or CD, or television show, or song, or newspaper that does not offend. We are going to have to be a little more thick skinned in cases where Ben Stiller, or Jack Black, or some other actor may have offended you. It wasn't personal, I assure you, it was merely for laughs. We expose our growing lack of backbone and insecurities when words in a movie begin to hurt us.

Given the rate at which our "moral majority" and equal rights groups are going, we will soon have a country as lifeless as the language they wish to employ. Christian conservatives, politicians, advocacy groups for everything from the civil rights of seals to the preservation of rainbows, have injected a stoic, unemotional, unfeeling language.

These groups are taking a word with life and emotion and at times visceral meaning and reducing it to an impotent word that hits like a cloud. These groups spreading their euphemistic language are like a virus infecting our lives with weak language that makes us forget or ignore the seriousness, fun, brutality, atrocity, reality, joy, bluntness, and honesty of life. It's hard to feel something about collateral damage but what about civilian deaths? How do we feel about them? It's okay if the adult entertainment industry makes billions every year, just don't ask Nancy Pelosi to say porno. Ethnic cleansing sounds more like a rug fumigator at a Jewish retirement home than it's intended definition...genocid e. With every euphemism, our lives become more and more watered down until we forget what life is about. Maybe more would care about illegal aliens if we didn't refer to them as guest workers or immigrants.

These advocacy groups so incensed with the lack of sensitivity displayed by Hollywood, fail to see what they are doing by trying to change or erase the language is desensitizing the rest of us. We are forgetting to feel.

So Tropic Thunder will go on. More than likely the studio's will succumb to pressure from organizations threatening boycotts on the movie and remove 'retard' from it's release. However it will surely be apart of the unrated DVD that will land in stores on some undisclosed Tuesday this winter, in fact, just in time for Christmas. But our advocacy groups will continue rallying troops and fighting the hate speech and insensitivity of anyone foolish enough to blurt out a word that doesn't fit with their agendas of soft comatose language. Politicians will continue on with their micromanaged and under a microscope lives. Christians will pursue those who defile their lord's name and all of them will fight, or 'crusade'(as they like to call it) against what they deem insensitive.

Tropic Thunder's use of the word 'retard' is not hate speech. It has nothing to do with hate. The word 'retard' is set in a fictional world. It is set in a satirical world. We need to relax and take a deep breath. Our current language is in sad enough shape as it is, let us not worsen an already flaccid language by retarding the integrity of the words we have left.

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