There’s been a great deal of brouhaha over Tropic Thunder over the last few weeks, since the film apparently has some material which could be deemed offensive by some groups. I haven’t actually seen the movie, but I’ve been following the outrage with interest, because there’s a lot of ire over some parts, but not over others, and I don’t really understand why.

The main ire-evoking part of the film has to do with the characterization of people with mental disabilities. There’s a lot of mockery of “retards” in amongst the high jinks, and some people find this offensive. Offensive enough to picket the film and get interviewed on the radio and generally kick up a fuss. Other people say “relax, it’s just satire,” and argue that the whole thing is being taken too far.

As someone with a few ableist tendencies, I try to be sensitive to this kind of thing. I’ve really tried to avoid using words like “retard” and “lame” as insults, and I’m kind of stoked to see so much discussion about this. I’ve always said that getting people to talk about something is the first step, and there is definitely a lot of press, way more than I would have expected. I loved an article by an LA Times columnist who talked about the controversy; discussing the complaints that the PC police were going too far, he said “what if we replaced the word ‘retard’ with Jew? What would happen then?” And he proceeded to illustrate the word replacement in some samples of dialogue for the film, and suggested that people would generally agree that this would be deemed offensive. Personally, I thought it was a master stroke of argument, to illustrate the issue in a way that people could perhaps better understand.

However, in all the uproar over the film, I’ve seen a lot less talk about the fact that one of the characters is in blackface, and I find this deeply puzzling. Maybe I’m just not up on my PC police causes these days, but I feel like people in blackface should be a pretty hot-button issue, especially with all of the talk of race swirling in the media these days.

While I’m glad to see attention drawn to the cause of people with intellectual disabilities, and the need to treat them like human beings, not objects of mockery, why isn’t anyone riled up about the blackface? Relax, it’s just parody, one could argue, a big mockery of how far people will go for  major roles in the film industry. Yet, somehow, I am deeply disturbed by the use of blackface as a comedic plot device, just like I am disconcerted to see an entire class of people singled out for mockery because of their mental abilities.

I’m a big fan of parody, and I think that parody can be used to illustrate a lot of things in our society. But I also think that parody walks a fine line, and sometimes that line gets crossed, and we need to talk about it. If we’re going to be singling out one aspect of a parody film as particularly offensive, I think it’s reasonable to discuss other aspects, and the fact of the matter is that racism is very much alive and well in this society. It disappoints me to see so little attention being addressed to the blackface character, and I wonder if the controversy is, in a way, illustrating our inability to cope with racism just as much as it illustrates our prejudice against people with intellectual disabilities.