Tropic Thunder--for an out-of-box comedy experience!

My suggestion for a film to watch is Tropic Thunder.


The plot centers around a group of spoiled actors who are lost in the jungle while making a war movie. Ben Stiller plays Tugg Speedman, an almost washed up hero who earlier failed in his bid to win an Oscar while portraying Simple Jack, a character with an intellectual disability. Speedman’s portrayal of Simple Jack is featured as a movie within a movie. There were even fake websites and a “mockumentary”--Rain of Madness (which parodied the documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse) for this movie, which was loosely based on the filming of Apocalypse Now, and how difficult the filming was for Francis Ford Coppola in 1979. 

The word “retard” is used 16 times in this movie. 

Also in the movie: 

• Mocking references to gay and fat people. 

• One character portrayed as a white man who has darkened his skin to play a black man. A black character criticizes him several times for impersonating a black man. 

• Extensive use of vulgar humor and profanity. 

• Many jokes about the shallowness, self-involvement and ignorance of actors and Hollywood executives in general.

I thought the film was hilarious, but I am sure many, many people might not like the film.

I was inspired to choose this movie after I saw an article on the news this week about people being outraged over Nick Cannon wearing white-face.

Nick Cannon on CBS

Seriously?!?!?

In the 1800s, play authors were ridiculing the government and the justice system, making fun of women and children being assaulted and potentially raped, and laughing at people dying, but there are still people in society today who make a big deal out of comedy and theater. Shakespeare performed plays dressed as women because females were not allowed on stage, and yet many people still criticize and alienate cross-dressers. How does that happen, when a society seems too go backward instead of progressing forward?

I think the lines are blurred as far as comedy and what is real for people. In today’s society, we mock people for everything. Our motto in comedy is pretty much ‘anything goes’, but there are always those 'political correctness' nazis who say, “The nerve of you people!” Needless to say, hypocrisy runs rampant in modern culture, and is widely acceptable, but a good comedy, created just to make people laugh is horrible! (insert sarcasm here).

Tropic Thunder breaks every ‘politically correct’ rule known in our culture, and I think this is an interesting movie to analyze for our class, because it gives us a hint of how viewing audiences may have felt during the eras many of our class plays were written.

I enjoy stepping out of my box, and I feel we have done that several times in this class. Keeping with the spirit of out-of-box experiences, I think this movie has all the awkwardness and uncomfortableness in the name of comedy that we can stand, and that many plays we have studied exemplified at the time they were performed.

My only concern is, this movie is quite vulgar. I wouldn’t want to offend anyone.

Tonino = Arrogance

According to Merriam-Webster, arrogance is “an insulting way of thinking that comes from believing that you are better, smarter, or more important than other people.” In think that word best describes Tonino in The Venetian Twins.

A few times during the play, Tonino proclaims to others that he is a “gentleman” and a “honest man.” An example is after he is given Zanetto’s jewels and money by Arlecchino, “A casket of jewels, a purse full of money, it would have made a good haul for somebody, but I’m an a gentleman, and I don’t take other people’s things.” However, I believe his true character shows as the play progresses. Not long after he acquires the money and jewels and swears to find who they belong to, he uses them for his own amusement at the Professor’s house, “she’s [Colombina] picked the wrong pigeon this time. But this could be fun” and decides to play detective. He also revokes his friendship with Florindo after seeing that he is trying to steal Beatrice from him and insults those he views as inferior to him, (to Lelio) “what about you, you little caricature.” Tonino does redeem himself by defending his friend Florindo before he is murdered in the street and with his speech on why women and marriage do not destroy a man, but instead men allow themselves to be destroyed. In between these great actions, though, he seems to strut about the place finding the faults in others while not realizing his own.

In my opinion, Tonino’s character was one that the audience could learn a lesson from. That lesson being: no one is perfect, no matter how much one thinks they are. People in the 18^th century may have seen how heroic and kind-hearted a person Tonino was at the beginning of the play, when he saved Florindo, and thought to themselves, “this character is just like me” and by the end of the play had them thinking, “I know I try to do good, but what am I doing that is causing harm to others?”