Ben Stiller is standing by his controversial comedy “Tropic Thunder.”
Stiller, 57, took to Twitter on Tuesday to guarantee a fan he makes “no apologies” for the R-rated 2008 comedy.
“I make no apologies for Tropic Thunder,” Stiller wrote. “It’s all the time been a controversial film since once we opened. Pleased with it and the work everybody did on it.”
The movie comprises a number of controversial gags, together with one by which Robert Downey Jr. performs an Australian actor, Kirk Lazarus, who undergoes beauty surgical procedure to darken his pores and skin so he can play a Black military sergeant. Within the movie-within-a-movie plot, Lazarus continues to put on blackface exterior of filming and will get criticized by a Black actor for it.
Stiller, who starred in, directed and co-wrote the movie, has stood by “Tropic Thunder” prior to now. In 2018, he recalled the controversy the movie stirred upon its launch. On the time, “Tropic Thunder” drew boycotts from a number of incapacity advocacy teams, together with the Particular Olympics, for its use of a phrase used to disparage mentally disabled individuals and for scenes by which Stiller performs an actor, Tugg Speedman, who takes on the position of a mentally disabled character named “Easy Jack.”
“Truly Tropic Thunder was boycotted 10 years in the past when it got here out, and I apologized then,” Stiller tweeted in 2018. “It was all the time meant to make enjoyable of actors making an attempt to do something to win awards. I stand by my apology, the film… And the nice individuals and work of the @SpecialOlympics.”
Within the movie, Stiller, Downey and Jack Black painting hapless actors who by accident stumble into an actual warzone whereas filming a struggle film.
Throughout a 2020 look on the “The Joe Rogan Expertise” podcast, Downey mentioned his motivation for taking the position.
“I get to carry as much as nature the insane self-involved hypocrisy of artists and what they suppose they’re allowed to do occasionally,” Downey stated.
He added: “Ben, who’s a masterful artist and director … knew precisely what the imaginative and prescient for this was, he executed it, it was inconceivable to not have it’s an offensive nightmare of a film. And 90% of my Black mates had been like, ‘Dude, that was nice.’ “
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Contributing: Rasha Ali
This text initially appeared on USA TODAY: Ben Stiller makes ‘no apologies’ for controversial ‘Tropic Thunder’
