As Subtle as Thunder

Chuck discusses the power of satire in Tropic Thunder.

The funniest movie of this summer has to be Tropic Thunder. It was great watching it alone in a theatre and not being embarrassed to laugh out loud. (Normally I'm the only one laughing and it's always at the wrong time. I thought the death scene in Beaches was hilarious -- relax, I'm a stand up comic). The movie was good, old-fashioned raunchy adult humor delivered in a smart and engaging manner.
The movie was good, old-fashioned raunchy adult humor delivered in a smart and engaging manner. The humor took center stage thanks to some great performances by Tom Cruise, Ben Stiller, Jack Black and most of all Robert Downey Jr., who plays an Oscar winning white actor portraying a black man. It was Downey's character that gave the movie its soul, no pun intended. The compelling thing about his role is that it's unthinkable in today's Hollywood that an actor would perform in black face; but the movie pulled it off without being offensive to African Americans and touched upon a couple of serious subjects in the process.

Everyone thinks Hollywood and the entertainment business is a very liberal industry, where you'll find people of all types working together in the creative process. Unfortunately that's not so. Hollywood is no more liberal or enlightened than the rest of America, and it's chiefly responsible for the propagation of many of the negative stereotypes that have characterized ethnic Americans since the turn of the century. In the movie, Downey's character (Kirk Lazarus) is a method actor who prides himself in being able to take on any role, so naturally when the film studio asks him to play a black Vietnam army sergeant he literally becomes a black man by  darkening his skin pigment; although we never get to see if he gets pulled over for DWB (driving while black). Downey's character is juxtaposed against a rapper turned actor, played by Brandon T. Jackson, who resents the fact that the studio couldn't find a suitable black actor to play the part. Their exchanges are very funny, but more importantly writer-director Ben Stiller is actually exposing the fact that even today's Hollywood is still no where near as open as it should be. (i.e., Hollywood is still a little racist.) Even though we have made great strides racially; we have a black Presidential nominee (actually he's half black so we can only be half as racist), the entertainment media still portrays minorities within a very narrow scope. Blacks are usually singing and dancing, Asians solve every conflict with martial arts, Italians are in the Mafia (I know, there is no such thing) and Mexicans ride around in cars that bounce up and down like jumping beans.

There are a couple of reasons why Hollywood continues to perpetuate these images: 1) they sell, so we all share in that blame and 2) there is some truth in all stereotypes. Shoot! I'm sitting here writing this blog while eating a slice of watermelon... seriously I am and it's delicious. But just because there is some truth in stereotypes doesn't mean that they should define the totality of an entire race. In the movie, Downey's character starts to lose his grasp of identity because he's so wrapped up in playing a black man that he no longer knows who he truly is. That's the problem with stereotypes: People start to believe that they are a true representation of a culture or race -- even people who are portrayed negatively start to internalize these images.

Listen, I would love to go on about the socio-political ills caused by the media, but I don't want to pontificate and my wife is calling me for dinner. We're having fried chicken.