The Ben Stiller movie about a group of actors lost in a hostile situation was released yesterday and many people have been anticipating it. In all fairness, it looks like a pretty good movie with a nice cast including Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., and of coarse Stiller himself. With that said, what has caused me to write a post is Downey’s character, Downey plays an actor who completes surgery to play a black solider. This is nothing new, and I bet there have been many posts and articles that have been written about this controversy but, I guess it’s my turn.
I do understand that the intensions in Tropic Thunder were not same intentions as the Black Face shows. Downey’s character was suppose to portray an actor that is so over the top that he offends people in the movie without even realizing it, but the irony is, that is exactly what Stiller is doing, offending without realizing. I don’t blame him, or any particular person, it is a stigma the society has over the image of the black race. I haven’t seen the movie but I am willing to bet that a large portion of jokes are going to come from Downey’s character.
Is Tropic Thunder the blackface of 2008? I don’t know, but I don’t think it helps our image at all. People might say that we need to lighten up, but with Caucasian roles there is a balance of positive and negative images, but with black roles, there are positive roles, but the scale tends to tip to one end.
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1 response so far ↓
1 John C. Capune // Aug 17, 2008 at 11:51 am
Not the actor’s fault. The script was probably written by a insipid white person. If anyone is to blame it would be the director.
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