BellaOnline Forums Family Special Needs Children Protest - Tropic Thunder Disability Stereotype

Read more about what DreamWorks does not seem to be able to comprehend atBellaOnline ALERT: For anti-spam reasons, we restrict the number of URLs allowed in a given post. You have exceeded our maximum number of URLs.

I have been both polite and reasonable while posting in this thread, despite feeling very passionately, because I believe it's possible to have a civil and balanced discussion even if the participants are on opposite ends of a spectrum. To suggest that I cannot read nor listen well simply because I don't agree with you and you have not persuaded me to change my mind, is unfair, unnecessary, and detrimental to your arguments at the end of the day.

We will have to agree to disagree, and wait and see how much of an effect this protest will have on ticket sales, and after that, how ticket sales will affect the behavior of children. I wish you all the luck in the world with your campaign. If you make the world a better place, then I am all for it. However, I continue to believe your efforts, and the efforts of those others speaking about this, would be better spent in another area.

Nobody responds well to an attack, however phrased, upon their intelligence or their compassion. But, with all sincerity, good luck to you.

Raleigh,

On the issue about the movie, I happen to agree with you.

However, I believe you misunderdstood what Pam was saying.



I took the main point to be the "and reflecting" part, not that you couldn't read or listen. More that you weren't looking at it from the POV of a person with disabilities.

But in all fairness, it is very difficult to truly understand how disablilities affect the life of a child (not only physically, but mentally and emotionally as well) unless you have someone in that situation. It is one thing to look in from the outside and have sympathy, it is a whole other world to feel the pain and frustration of your own child.

I know I hurt when my son would come home not understanding why the kids were mean to him, and knowing there was nothing I could do to change the situation other than to help educate people about autism. And that is very little consolation to a little boy who is crying, or even a very big boy (16) who is punching his walls in frustration because he just doesn't know how to get people to like him.

This is one of those subjects that it is impossible to be impassive about - because our hearts are so tightly wound up in it.

I requested that you read and reflect on what Patricia Bauer and her readers have written, as these were the main topics under discussion. I don't know, still, whether you have read the original material, because your comments have not addressed those comments or issues.

I also wanted to know more about you as a person, because sometimes those who post passionate messages expect readers to understand them in a context that we do not have, through the shortcomings of the printed word that always falls short of the rich context of sitting at a table with a neighbor, co-worker or friend.

So far, people who I respect who have seen this movie have found it to be much worse than they expected. I'm sure they'd much rather have spent their time enjoying the Olympic games, the height of summer, digging up yards or having picnics. It really doesn't help to be told we should not be offended or feel that our sons and daughters are threatened by this movie because it is only a pretend movie inside the real movie, as if it had been constructed and acted out by pretend people rather than the same people who made the real movie.

I have read many words that seek to justify the bad decisions involved in making and publicizing the mean and ugly movie within the movie. It did not seem to me that you read Patricia Bauer's discussion or her reader's responses.

Pam W
SE of Seattle

Advocating in Multicultural Communities
BellaOnline ALERT: Raw URLs are not allowed in these forums for security reasons. Please use UBB code. If you don't know how to do UBB code just post here for help - we will help out!

Here's an interesting take on movie making -

Terri Mauro's View of "Tropic Thunder"

BellaOnline ALERT: Raw URLs are not allowed in these forums for security reasons. Please use UBB code. If you don't know how to do UBB code just post here for help - we will help out!

===========================
There are a couple of articles in the Seattle Post Intelligencer newspaper this morning about the protest against the hate language and characterization of developmental disability in Tropic Thunder. I have not checked out the related video and hope it is of protesters.

"...disability groups protest 'Tropic Thunder'
Protestors hold signs criticizing the upcoming film "Tropic Thunder" across the street from the film's premiere in Los Angeles on Monday, Aug. 11, 2008. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles)

View related video

BellaOnline ALERT: Raw URLs are not allowed in these forums for security reasons. Please use UBB code. If you don't know how to do UBB code just post here for help - we will help out!

Will Schermerhorn put together "When you can call me ..." and it is available to be shared in many formats (flash, wmv, quicktime) and as a YouTube movie.

http://www.blueberryshoes.com/psa/index.html

Will wrote: I put this short film together at the request of the Arc of Northern Virginia. It features Virginians with intellectual disabilities who stand to be hurt by thoughtless, cruel names they might be called.

Be sure to credit the Arc of Virginia and the Arc of Northern Virginia, plus Blueberry Shoes Productions
http://www.blueberryshoes.com/psa/index.html

Also see:
http://tinyurl. com/5swbsu

If you don't think it makes a difference to a person with a developmental disability or their family member to hear that people in their circle of friends and community are spreading the word about the hateful language and stereotype in Tropic Thunder, believe me - it means the world to us.

Thank you so much to friends, family and our internet for your words of comfort, support and change in perspective about hate language and Ben Stiller.

Pam W
SE of Seattle

'Tropic Thunder' finds itself at the center of a firestorm
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/movies/374671_tropic13.html

Sounds like a training film of idioms matching
idiosyncratic ideas. All that's left is the
drawings and quarters.
(Some people are scattered.Then again to spread is age.)

CroneWings

Thanks for the poetry.

We are going to have a couple of days of weather in the 90's here, a bit too much for our Pacific Northwest blood. I'd like to spend a few hours exploring the new mall at Southcenter, but the movie theater showing Tropic Thunder is there.

My son does not want to be around people who have seen that movie, and I suppose they will come spilling out of the theater into the shopping and snacking areas where he will want to browse and buy.

Often we will meet friends and the younger generation will shop while we sit and chat, and my son enjoys the exhilarating experience of being on his own with money to spend in a place that has a lot to offer near where my friends and I will be talking. Thinking about what might happen is a big obstacle to giving him the dignity of what used to be a smaller risk.

Hate language and prejudice create an environment of brutal entitlement, bullying and violence. We have seen enough of that already.

The front page story of the Seattle newspaper that ran the story "Tropic Thunder Under Fire for Insensitivity" was "Growing Up in a Killing Culture" - a story about how younger kids are brought into gangs in our area, and their access to guns.

Drawings and quarters, indeed.

Pam W
SE of Seattle

BellaOnline ALERT: Raw URLs are not allowed in these forums for security reasons. Please use UBB code. If you don't know how to do UBB code just post here for help - we will help out!

I signed the pledge at the r word site and put a badge on my blog

BellaOnline ALERT: Raw URLs are not allowed in these forums for security reasons. Please use UBB code. If you don't know how to do UBB code just post here for help - we will help out!