Until a couple days ago, all I knew about the movie Tropic Thunder was that Robert Downey Jr. wore blackface in it, and that I wasn’t planning to see it because Tom Cruise is in it. I tend to skip his projects these days because I figure that if I want to see a guy who thinks he’s possessed by space aliens try to act normal, I can hang out in any liquor store within walking distance of the Boston Public Gardens and save ten bucks.
But yesterday I was clicking around news Web sites, and I came across this:
I am so proud of everyone who turned out to Monday’s premiere of the film “Tropic Thunder” to protest its unfortunate and humiliating portrayal of people with intellectual disabilities.
My initial thought was, “Huh. He must have heard Tom Cruise was in it, too,” but it turns out that this was written by Timothy Shriver, the chairman of the Special Olympics, and he’s got a beef over Tropic Thunder because they say “retard” in it. Which is fine; this is America, and no one’s forcing him into a theater at gunpoint any more than they’re forcing me in to watch Xenu’s Child. However, this guy’s taking it to an all-new level:
I am asking… the entire “Tropic Thunder” team to stop showing the film, and asking movie theaters and moviegoers to shut this movie out…Â Don’t show or see “Tropic Thunder.”
Mockery in any form, or for any purpose or directed at anyone, especially those least able to defend themselves, is neither funny nor acceptable. We must work together to bring it to an end.
As soon as I read that I understood exactly what he was talking about, because it jolted me back to a particular night….
* I was a young comedian, doing a show in a basement comedy club with my buddy Ken MacDonald in tow. Normally the place was dead Fridays, but I could hear the buzzing of voices in the crowd. Before I could get in the room proper, the owner grabbed me and said, “Hey Reuter, want to host tonight?” Ken peeled off to the bathroom so I could excitedly negotiate my pay… which, considering Ken was there, wouldn’t cover a third of our bar bill, but what the hell.
The owner and I shook hands on a cash figure, and I turned the corner to see the crowd and…
Retards. Every. Goddamned. Seat. Was filled with a resident of the developmentally disabled group home up Route 9. As I stared in growing horror, I realized that I was looking at 100 retards, with 1,000 fingers, and by process of visual elimination and simple math, I could only account for about 927 of those fingers not digging for boogers.
And I had to perform for them. I told myself to calm down, that only a Goddamned deluded, bleeding-heart dingbat who was hard for the tards would bring seriously retarded people to a comedy show in a bar, that these must be high-functioners who might actually get my material, that –
Ken tapped me on the shoulder and said, “While I was taking a leak, a Goddamned retard came in, dropped his pants and started pissing on the floor! I was like, ‘Jesus Fucking Christ, pal; there’s two more urinals, a stall, and a fucking sink, and you’ve got to piss on the floor? I need a drink!” Considering my dawning understanding that my joke about Strom Thurmond pissing his pants was less likely to be seen as a punchline than a suggestion – or worse, an order – so did I.
The lights came up, and I took the stage to… nothing. None of my jokes hit, even with the camp counselors. I tried my materials, street jokes, fucking knock-knock jokes, and still: nothing. I got so desperate that I finally asked them if they read Spider-Man, figuring I could at least get them interested, when, from the middle of the room, I heard a loud, clear voice:
“You look like Goofy.” And the crowd roared.
I was unmanned. I brought up the headliner, ordered a JD and stared at the bar. Meanwhile, the headliner – Joey Carroll, the darkest comedian in Boston – closed the show by leading the crowd in a singalong of Bingo.
—————————-
Those fucking retards called me Goofy. Me, a working comic who prided myself on the quality of my writing and insight, was tagged with the name of a gamboling, slow-witted Disney cartoon. That’s hate speech, it’s base mockery, and as my man Timothy Shriver said, it is neither funny nor acceptable, and we must work together to bring it to an end.
Which is why I am asking you to join me in protest this weekend: boycott a retard.
If they ask you for paper or plastic, say you want paisley. Pay for your Egg McMuffin with Canadian money. Tell one you want to give them their missing chromosone and jack off on their shoes. Ban the G-word. Boycott a retard. Take a stand.
Because the horrifying alternative is that we realize it’s just a stupid word in a comedy show, we finish our drinks, go home and get on with our fucking lives. You know, unlike that Shriver retard.
————————–
* This story is entirely, one hundred percent, true and unembellished. If you don’t believe me, email Joey and ask him about Retard Night at Laugh Lines in Framingham in 1996.
[tags]Tropic Thunder, Timothy Shriver, retard controversy, Ben Stiller, Dreamworks, Tom Cruise, Robert Downey Jr., dark humor, satire[/tags]
