Tropic Thunder Protest Update

A summary from the protest at last night's Hollywood premiere of "Tropic Thunder" (from Andrew Imparato, President & CEO of AAPD):

Last night was a beautiful expression of solidarity.  200 self advocates, parents, people in wheelchairs, folks from Special Olympics, The Arc, Down Syndrome groups, TASH, AAPD, actors with physical and intellectual disabilities, college students, all coming together to just say no to hate. Many thanks to all those people who marched on a hot street corner for four hours to send a message to Hollywood and to broader society that we have had enough with hate speech.

Photos by Blair Williamson, photographer, actor, self-advocate

 

 

Comments

[charlie]

you know it's interesting that just one month later, this movie is not hot topic. If we all can find a single valve in the fcc who is to blame for allowing these movies to be produced , maybe we can stop it from happening to us next month. The bottom line is, yes, it is offensive. ANd no, people won't immediately stop. But there needs to be regulations regarding the media to stop the use of the R word.

[NICOLE LEBLANC]

TO EVERYONE IN HOLLYWOOD, STOP USING OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE AND PUTTING PEOPLE WITH DISABILTIES DOWN!!! THE R-WORD EATS AT OUR CORE!!!!!! IT IS RUDE AND DISRESPECTFUL!!!!!! JUST LIKE THE N WORD IS TO BLACK PEOPLE!!!!

[Leigh]

So a "simple" character played by a character in the movie who is blasted for playing that "simple" character is wrong, but "nigger" and gay jokes are just fine. See, if people would protest all of it, then it's more equal, but that would also mean almost every humorous situation would be banned from movies as most comedy is based on the misfortune or insult of another.

See, these protests only draw more interest by the general public and make more people want to see it. When people see it and see how blown out of proportion these protests are, it paints disabled people and their "supporters" as being overly sensitive.

So protect all or nothing. It's just thin-skinned to only protest one group being joked about.