I am still deciding whether to go see it at the cinema. The owner of our local multi-plex lets Boo and I in for free to watch the credits of movies that are too long or too serious or too quiet for people to tolerate a bit of “audio descriptive” as I like to call it; when my son narrates aspects of the film. He also does a bit of whooping and flapping when he likes a film, which he does BIG TIME at the credits.
A film like this is bound to have cracking credits. And my son who is 11 next birthday has been asking for Tropic Thunder for the last 2 months when he read about it on the dreamworks website. So If he asks for it, will I say no, wait for the DVD; or will I take him to the cinema and ask the manager if we can watch the credits. And what will happen when he starts whooping and hollering as everyone leaves the cinema?
I won’t do it for spite, if that was my intent then I would take him to see the whole film, and taser anyone who complained. But not taking him to the credits would be unusual.
Hmmmmm.
xx

Was the movie satirical and off color? Certainly to some. Is it reasonable to assume that it will have some kind of demonstrated affect on how people treat each other? Not likely. Is the movie the problem? Not remotely. Was this movement started before anyone had even seen the movie? Yes.

We should ask ourselves what we are fighting for. I know the “the rights of those who cannot defend themselves” mantra. This hardly addresses the actual point. It looks like the desire is to protect people from rudeness. It looks like you hope to keep some people from being impolite to others. Even if we could accomplish this goal would we really want to? Do we really want to live in a world where everyone is so paralyzed with worry about injuring the delicate feelings of everyone else that they can’t function? How far are we willing to go in censoring the words of others? It is a slippery slope, at best.

At some point we have to laugh at ourselves. At some point we have to realize that not everyone is reverent about our situation. Hopefully when we come to this realization we can recognize the fact that we should move on. We can certainly inform others that they have harmed (at least from our perspective) us but we cannot and should not attempt to bully others into feeling shame about our circumstances. Our circumstances are our own. Our sensitivity is our own business and when we attempt to make it everyone else’s responsibility we are not doing anyone a favor.

I laughed all through the movie unabashedly. I did not come out raring to insult some retards. I did not come to the realization that mentally handicapped people should be ridiculed and hurt as much as possible. It is foolish to think that this will come from this movie.

I hate the “Well, don’t go see it” or “Turn the channel” argument. If I don’t like something, I won’t watch it. But I’m worried that little Billy down the street will watch it, believe it and then act on it. (And by “it” I mean any hot button issue of the day.) The argument should not be whether I prefer something or don’t prefer it; God knows that there are tons of things that I prefer that aren’t good for me.

The question should be, “Is it good for me, for you, for society?” Then you run into the problem of who decides what is good for us… but that’s where the conversation should be held.

At least I would prefer it be held.

Everyone has hopes they can make the world a better place. It’s time to start putting actions behind those words. How lucky we are that we can make the world a better place just by the words choose to use. It is so simple. It amazes me that people can actually defend using words that hurt.