From the December 2008 issue of Exceptional Parenting magazine, which has a cover story/interview with Johnny C.:
I knew there was a reason that Stiller was yanked from his guest star spot on Scrubs.
Ben Stiller? Really?
I thought Dr. Cox hated Hugh Jackman. 
I like John C. McGinley and his shows, and by all accounts he’s a wonderful father.
In all fairness to Stiller, though, I don’t think he was picking on handicapped people in Tropic Thunder. He was targeting filmmakers who hide their idiot political and social viewpoints behind handicapped characters. Like, say, Forrest Gump. Just because a mentally challenged guy is portrayed in a sympathetic light, it doesn’t mean he’s not being exploited, and that’s what I think Stiller was getting at. And call me cruel, but I laughed my ass off at Simple Jack.
The Farrelly brothers, on the other hand, are picking on the handicapped. I truly think they’re [del]retar[/del] jerk-offs.
Good post, but don’t the Farrelly brothers pretty much pick on everyone? They seem to have made a joke out of cops, private eyes, doctors, cops again, black people, fat people, dumb people, etc.
I need to bone up on the subject a bit more, but it sounds to me like McGinley (who I really like) needs to learn to distinguish between someone who is a part of a joke vs. someone who is the butt of a joke.
Exactly. McGinley’s is the stupid, knee-jerk reaction to a word without paying attention to the context and the commentary involved. Stiller also makes jabs at the industry’s tendency to fetishize certain dramatic parts for award-whoring attention. Every use of the word “retard” in Tropic Thunder is a reference to a type of acting role and never once a reference to an actual mentally disabled person within the story.
It’s just like people who criticize movies like Trainspotting for depicting drug use without paying attention to how that depiction is actually presented. This is one of those cases where someone is too close to the subject to see it in any except the most personal (and thin-skinned) manner possible. Whoosh!
Thanks for the props, but let’s not be too hard on John. Raising a handicapped child is extremely difficult under the best of circumstances, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he personally had to listen to some social mutant call his kid a retard. I think it’s wrong to criticize Stiller for this, but I also think it’s understandable.
Personally, I love watching both McGinley and Stiller. They both strike me as being pretty bright. I think Ben has more natural talent, but John’s the guy I’d rather have a beer with.
Yeah, they’re equal opportunity knuckleheads, but I dunno, I just don’t find their stuff funny. The Farrelly’s strike me as the guys you watch when the jokes in The Three Stooges keep going over your head.
On edit: With one exception. I just remembered they directed Dumb and Dumber, and I liked that movie so much that I bought it for my girlfriend as a Christmas present. Note to other guys: This was a mistake. Do not do this. She will not be impressed or even amused.
Good posts, both of them.
I don’t think their stuff is quite that dumb, but they certainly take some cheap shots. I remember a friend being appalled at Petey the blind kid in Dumb & Dumber.
I don’t doubt he’s a a nice and upstanding guy, and I don’t envy the challenges he’s faced raising his kid (or any kid for that matter). As a childless dude (now and forever), I just get a little peeved at the hyper-protective mode many parents automatically get in, especially when an issue gets too-close-to-home for them. His reaction may be an understandable one, but it’s still a variation of the Someone-Think-of-the-Children!!! mindset that implicitly discourages debate or controversy if it skirts too close to whatever the Sensitive Topic of the Month is. He doesn’t have to like the movie or the style of humor, but to berate a fellow professional (who’s active in children charities himself) like that is symptomatic of someone who feels the need to project their own lack of objectivity on the rest of us.
I’ll bet Stiller’s Ferrari is nicer than McGinley’s. And has a better garage to park in.
Both of them are pieces of Hollywood shit, in my opinion.
Yeah, but that’s how we are. Don’t fuck with our kids because Papa Bear will come out and rip you to shreds. :mad:
And Ben Stiller was never funny.
All this is just further evidence of why you never go Full Retard [/Sgt. Osiris]
I love Dr Cox, hate Stiller, but somehow loved Tropic Thunder. I think Cox is being reactionary, but I certainly give him a pass for his circumstances.
McGinley’s missing the same point so many other people missed. Ben Stiller and Robert Downey weren’t calling people retards. They were playing characters called Tugg Speedman and Kirk Lazarus, both of whom were supposed to be insensitive idiots. So Stiller wrote a script that depicted Speedman and Lazarus as insensitive idiots and had them call people retards as part of that depictation.
When Carroll O’Connor played Archie Bunker, he wasn’t being a racist - he was portraying a racist. Having a racist character act like a racist isn’t a promotion of racism. And Stiller and Downey weren’t promoting insensitivity by depicting it.
When Ben Stiller is good, he’s very VERY good. But that’s only been twice: Zoolander and Tropic Thunder.
Even then, though, they weren’t being all that bad. Yes, the word “retard” was used quite a bit (did Stiller’s character even use it?), but so what? The dialogue and the point behind the dialogue were completely the opposite.
If McGinley wants to be angry at anyone, he should be having a word with the likes of Sean Penn.
Context, folks!
-Joe
and, not to put too fine a point on it, everyone who bought a ticket to see I Am Sam, The Other Sister, Radio, etc.