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.

The Broken Jug: The Significance of Names

In the play, The Broken Jug, viewers can't help but notice the significance of the judge's name, especially when they learn of the maiden's name too. Adam and Eve are names that are not paired together accidentally. What are the significance of these two names?

First, there is Adam. The name comes from the Bible with as Adam the first man created by God. Due to Adam's mistake in eating from the Tree of knowledge of good and evil, mankind, today and in times past, has been condemned to a life full of suffering and sin. Licht, the court clerk, pokes fun at the coincidental relationship between Judge Adam's fall and Adam the first man's fall. "Adam's first fall was into bed, not out!" Licht's statement leads the audience to believe that not only does he already know what Judge Adam has been up to the night before, he fully understands and is amused by the irony of the sinful judge's name.

The name Eve is also significant when looked at in a Biblical context. Biblical Eve, the world's first woman, causes Biblical Adam to sin, coaxing him the the fruit of the Tree, though Biblical Eve was only convinced to do so because of listening to a serpent in the Garden of Evil. However, Eve the maiden does not appear to have done anything wrong in the play, although it could be argued Eve tempted Judge Adam simply by being so beautiful. This should be no fault of her own, because it is not a sin to be beautiful and certainly not her fault Judge Adam is creepy enough to try to take advantage of her using his high position. Eve's only sin the play is lying, but she only lies because she is afraid of Judge Adam's threats to murder her fiance. Unlike the Biblical Adam and Eve, Judge Adam and maiden Eve are not a pair linked in friendly companionship, but are only linked through Adam's evil hold he has over her obtained by threats. So unlike the Biblical story, the fault in the play lies more with Adam being the cause of sin than Eve.

Another character in the play has a name of significance. Licht, Adam's court clerk, has a name that mean "light." Licht's light comes from his knowledge of Judge Adam's sinful secret, as viewers can guess from his teasing of Adam at the beginning of the play and hints dropped throughout the trial of the broken jug that Licht knows all about Adam's activities of the previous night. However, untrue to his name, Licht does not choose to shine light upon the situation in the courtroom; rather, he chooses to keep silent and watch the awkward struggle of Judge Adam trying to keep his terrible misdeeds a secret. Licht chooses to let Adam out his own awful secret in loo of giving Adam away himself.

So though the names of the play are significant and ties might be made to other sources containing the same names, they do not exactly mirror the stories from which the names might be pulled.