{"id":78,"date":"2010-03-08T08:01:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-08T08:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/03\/movies-and-the-r-word.html"},"modified":"2010-03-08T08:01:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-08T08:01:00","slug":"movies-and-the-r-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/03\/movies-and-the-r-word.html","title":{"rendered":"Movies and The R-Word"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago, a reader of this blog wrote to ask me what I thought about the use of “the r-word” in movies. She wrote about a movie where one scene includes a joke about the word “retard.” In her words, “I found the movie in it’s entirety funny even when one scene made me cringe. Some of my closest friends say “that’s retarded” or “that’s so gay.”I try to tell them I’d rather they not say those things, but I don’t write them off as a whole. Maybe movies I should write off as a whole because they are edited over and over before the final cut.”<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/div>\n
What do you think? <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n
My post last week (“Our Daughter Penny and the Word Retarded<\/a>“) was an indirect response to this question. I’m posting here an unpublished Op-ed I wrote two summers ago in relation to the movie Tropic Thunder:<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the Problem with the \u201cR-word\u201d?<\/span><\/p>\n

Tropic Thunder<\/i>\u2014a new Ben Stiller comedy\u2014opened last week. It\u2019s received a lot of attention. Mr. Stiller and his fellow cast members appeared on the Today Show, The Charlie Rose Show, NPR. Trailers for the film have run during NBC\u2019s Olympic coverage and before blockbuster hits of the summer. Clearly, DreamWorks expects Tropic Thunder<\/i> to bring in plenty of profit.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s also generated some controversy. In the movie, Mr. Stiller plays an actor named Tugg Speedman. Speedman\u2019s most recent role was in Simple Jack, a film with the tagline, \u201cOnce upon a time there was a retard\u2026\u201d According to the National Down Syndrome Congress, the film uses variations of the term \u201cretard\u201d at least 16 times.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Stiller has tried to explain why the use of the word retard in Tropic Thunder<\/i> really has nothing to do with people who are intellectually disabled. He says the movie simply satirizes actors who go to excessive lengths to get \u201cin character,\u201d particularly in the pursuit of an Oscar. Robert Downey Jr.\u2019s character, for example, plays a black man, and he undergoes a procedure to change his skin color. Thus Hollywood is mocked twice over: first using the motif of race and also through Speedman\u2019s role as Jack. It\u2019s simple satire, and anyone who doesn\u2019t see that is missing the point. <\/span><\/p>\n

Satire or not, the movie uses people with intellectual disabilities (and the laughter that their stereotypes provoke) as a means to the end of poking fun at Hollywood. And it rankles me to think that men like Mr. Stiller, men with money and power and fame, can get away with\u2014can make millions of dollars from\u2014picking on the vulnerable among us. Promotional T-shirts have been made with a line from the film: \u201cYou never go full retard.\u201d I\u2019m not sure everyone who purchases a T-shirt will appreciate the satire.<\/span><\/p>\n

The thing is, as Stiller himself has noted, an African-American man plays a role in the film in order to counter-balance Downey Jr.\u2019s character. But no one speaks on behalf of individuals with intellectual disabilities. And then there\u2019s the use of the word \u201cretard\u201d in and of itself. As with any word that categorizes, and mocks, an entire group of people, the \u201cr-word\u201d treats all intellectually disabled persons as if they are the same, as if they do not warrant individuality, as if they can be separated from \u201cthe rest of us.\u201d Of course, mockery at the expense of others is also just plain mean, and a cheap trick as far as humor goes. <\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe I wouldn\u2019t mind so much if I thought that the word \u201cretard\u201d was a joke only among a certain subsection of our culture\u2014adolescent boys, for instance. It\u2019s not. To cite one example: TIME coined a word about a year ago. The word was \u201ccelebutard,\u201d short for \u201ccelebrity retard.\u201d They used Paris Hilton as their model. I wrote a letter: \u201c<\/span>Making fun of celebrities is one thing. Making fun of \u2018retards\u2019 is another. In the same way that it is common practice not to disparage someone\u2019s race or gender, neither is it acceptable to malign the condition of countless individuals whose mental capacities are out of their own control. Please take more care with your words, and your humor, in the future.\u201d I received no response.<\/span><\/p>\n

From a movie targeting young men to a magazine with a primarily college-educated audience, \u201cretard\u201d is considered funny. Acceptable. No big deal.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always winced when I\u2019ve heard people toss around \u201cretard,\u201d but in recent years, it\u2019s become personal. Our daughter Penny has Down syndrome, and we were told when she was born that she would be \u201cmentally retarded.\u201d It\u2019s a medical term given to those whose IQ is lower than 70 (a \u201cnormal\u201d IQ is 100). We haven\u2019t subjected Penny to an IQ test\u2014she\u2019s two and a half\u2014and I\u2019m not convinced that she\u2019s as cognitively delayed as the literature about Down syndrome suggests she should be. But regardless of her intelligence, Penny has the features of a child with Down syndrome\u2014the extra fold of skin around her eyes, an occasionally unruly and protruding tongue, a tiny nose, pronated feet. She has features that would allow a stranger to look at her and summarize, \u201cretard.\u201d Try as he might to say otherwise, she is the one maligned by Mr. Stiller. She is the one who gets hurt when another generation of Americans are taught to laugh about mental retardation.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to introduce Mr. Stiller to Penny. I\u2019d like for him to hear her say, \u201cHi, Ben!\u201d with a big smile and a wave. Or watch her kiss her little brother on the head, or ask if she can \u201cwock Wilwum\u201d (rock William). I\u2019d like for this abstract concept, this joke, to become a concrete reality. I\u2019d like for Mr. Stiller (and TIME, and the countless adults and kids who routinely use the word \u201cretard\u201d as a joke or a slur) to realize that human beings like Penny are exactly that\u2014human beings. People with disabilities aren\u2019t a different species. They are real people, and to reduce them to a joke is to reduce the
\nhumanity of us all. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago, a reader of this blog wrote to ask me what I thought about the use of “the r-word” in movies. She wrote about a movie where one scene includes a joke about the word “retard.” In her words, “I found the movie in it’s entirety funny even when one scene made…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disability","category-down-syndrome"],"yoast_head":"\nMovies and The R-Word - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/03\/movies-and-the-r-word.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Movies and The R-Word - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A few weeks ago, a reader of this blog wrote to ask me what I thought about the use of “the r-word” in movies. She wrote about a movie where one scene includes a joke about the word “retard.” In her words, “I found the movie in it’s entirety funny even when one scene made…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/03\/movies-and-the-r-word.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-03-08T08:01:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"amyjuliabecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Movies and The R-Word - Thin Places","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/03\/movies-and-the-r-word.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Movies and The R-Word - Thin Places","og_description":"A few weeks ago, a reader of this blog wrote to ask me what I thought about the use of “the r-word” in movies. She wrote about a movie where one scene includes a joke about the word “retard.” In her words, “I found the movie in it’s entirety funny even when one scene made…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/03\/movies-and-the-r-word.html","og_site_name":"Thin Places","article_published_time":"2010-03-08T08:01:00+00:00","author":"amyjuliabecker","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/03\/movies-and-the-r-word.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/03\/movies-and-the-r-word.html","name":"Movies and The R-Word - Thin Places","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-03-08T08:01:00+00:00","dateModified":"2010-03-08T08:01:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/03\/movies-and-the-r-word.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/03\/movies-and-the-r-word.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/03\/movies-and-the-r-word.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Movies and The R-Word"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/","name":"Thin Places","description":"Amy Julia Becker on Faith, Family, and Disability","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b","name":"amyjuliabecker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","caption":"amyjuliabecker"},"description":"Amy Julia Becker writes about theology, disability, family, and culture. Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}