Ooh, the PC police have put the clamps down on “Tropic Thunder,” and more specifically on “Simple Jack” – the meta and fake, movie within the movie that stars the dull-witted Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller’s character) as a sweet mentally challenged boy who overcomes various obstacles.
As previously noted, Stiller’s Speedman character is normally an action-star who tries to do some “serious acting,” by taking on the role of the simpleton in “Simple Jack.”
Vulture does some good blog reporting with a couple of finds on the New York Times site and on Patricia E. Bauer’s blog, a woman who reports “news on “disability issues.”
Apparently Stiller has gone too little far with his simpleton jokes and people are getting offended (the film is apparently incredibly raunchy in many ways). The fake “Simple Jack” website has been pulled (though the url still works, it just now displays a blank page) and Bauer has reported DreamWorks has agreed to meet with advocates about their concerns over ‘Tropic Thunder’ and the “representation of a character with intellectual disabilities.”
‘Simple Jack”s tagline is: “Once Upon a Time There Was a Ret*rd.” Bauer says the “the R-word” is a no-no. As many have already noted, including the Times, “Tropic Thunder,” was not cheap to make and produce and it needs to make every dime it can to get out of the red, so early controversy less than two weeks before the film opens (August 13) is probably not a good look (though it probably can’t hurt it all that much to be fair).
Dreamworks probably can’t do much at this point in the game other than pull the “Simple Jack” site (which they’ve done, even the Google cache page seems to not be working) and shy away the marketing from that character, but the ads are done, the trailers are made and the ship is moving full steam ahead. We do know there was supposed to be a viral/ scene-from-the-movie clip that was to be called “Never Go Full Ret*rd” (which Bauer has excerpted on her site) that was about to surface imminently, but presumably that’s never going to see the light of day as viral pre-promotion, given this new little stir. But yeah, you’ll surely be able to still see it in the movie.
Oh, ‘Never Go Ret*rd’ the viral clip was apparently released, but it’s apparently been already pulled. Robert Downey Jr. praised the scene in an early GQ article around the time “Iron Man” was released. He probably hopes that’s been forgotten now.
We may have to pour one out for the loss of “Simple Jack,” but don’t be too sad, we still have a page for Jack Black/Jeff Portnoy’s fart-happy meta-comedy “The Fatties.” Or at least, we do for now…