Tropic Thunder

So there is a new movie coming out entitled "Tropic Thunder". Ben Stiller plays an actor who in a subplot had played a man with disabilities in a past movie.

Here is some of the dialogue:

Ben Stiller's character: "There were times when I was doing Jack when I
actually felt retarded. Like really retarded."

Robert Downey Jr.'s character: "Oh yeah. Damn."

Stiller: "In a weird way, I had to sort of just free myself up to believe
that it was okay to be stupid or dumb."

Downey: "To be a moron."

Stiller: "Yeah."

At another point, about acting like a person with intellectual disabilities,
they say:

Stiller: "It's what we do, right?"

Downey: "Everybody knows you never do a full retard."

Stiller: "What do you mean?"

Downey: "Check it out. Dustin Hoffman, 'Rain Man,' look retarded, act
retarded, not retarded. Count toothpicks to your cards. Autistic, sure. Not
retarded. You know Tom Hanks, 'Forrest Gump.' Slow, yes. Retarded, maybe.
Braces on his legs. But he charmed the pants off Nixon and won a ping-pong
competition. That ain't retarded. You went full retard, man. Never go full
retard."


Pretty sad. Both b/c of the ways in which I have seen folks at L'Arche blatantly discriminated against and shunned, but even more so for its ramifications on those who are not "disabled". In a culture that says you are only worth what you can produce or what you can achieve, folks with disabilities teach us something new about the unconditional love of God. They can give hope to our impoverished way of seeing the world, God, and ourselves. It does something destructive to ourselves and our souls to degrade human life in that way.

I know many folks will say that we are just forcing the media to be PC, but that is to over-estimate the powerful way in which the words we use not only describe the world around us, but also the way in which the words we use create a world around us. The way we speak of reality also influences the way we and other experience the world. I have alternately cried or shaken with anger in public when Walton offers his hand in friendship to people when out on the street or at Starbucks and people refuse to shake his hand. Some people pretend they don't see him, a common thing that many people do to folks with disabilities, but some people have even told me that they will not shake his hand. When we understand that films like this reinforce a culture of exclusion and hatred toward people with disabilities, a culture that tells Walton that he is less than human simply b/c of the way he was born, I hope we will summon the goodness of our own humanity to stand against this portayal of people with disabilities. We have perhaps a few cheap laughs to gain, but I think we lose a lot of our humanity in the process.