Ben Stiller Says Making ‘Tropic Thunder’ Today Would Be ‘Incredibly Dicey’
Yep, we’re still talking about Tropic Thunder, the outrageous 2008 comedy about the making of a Vietnam War movie.
The film is packed with over-the-top racial and ethnic stereotypes, including an Oscar-nominated blackface performance by Robert Downey Jr. For everyone who points to just about any pre-2010 comedy and says, “You couldn’t make (this or that raunchy movie) today,” this is the one time they might be right. Even director Ben Stiller agrees.
“Obviously, in this environment, edgier comedy is just harder to do,” he recently told Collider. “Definitely not at the scale we made it at, too, in terms of the economics of the business. I think even at the time we were fortunate to get it made, and I credit that, actually, to Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks. He read it and was like, ‘Alright, let’s make this thing.’”
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Stiller has a point about the money. No studio is handing out $100 million to make a comedy these days, but let’s be honest here. When people say “Tropic Thunder couldn’t be made today,” no one is talking about the economics.
“But yeah, the idea of Robert playing that character who’s playing an African-American character, I mean, incredibly dicey,” Stiller explained. “Even at the time, of course, it was dicey too. The only reason we attempted it was I felt like the joke was very clear in terms of who that joke was on — actors trying to do anything to win awards. But now, in this environment, I don’t even know if I would have ventured to do it, to tell you the truth. I’m being honest.”
From a satirical point-of-view, Stiller isn’t entirely wrong. Downey’s character is a commentary on oblivious actors and the ridiculous lengths they’ll go to win just about anything. But when a theater full of 18-year-olds was howling at Downey’s Kirk Lazarus, were they laughing at his theatrical pomposity? Or were they laughing at Downey’s grossly stereotypical Black accent and accompanying blackface makeup? My money is squarely on the latter.
It’s been nearly 20 years, but the creatives behind Tropic Thunder are still wrestling with the ethics of the comedy they created. Downey Jr., like Stiller, stands by the satire to this day. Earlier this year, he compared the movie to the classic sitcom All in the Family while talking to Rob Lowe on his Literally podcast. While he couldn’t remember Norman Lear’s words exactly, he believed Tropic Thunder and Lear’s show were trying to accomplish the same thing. “(Lear) said, due to the content of this show, please understand that we’re looking at bigotry and racism and all this stuff through a lens that we might laugh at it to understand how pointless it is,” Downey told Lowe (who called Tropic Thunder “my favorite movie ever”).
Put his performance in a vacuum, Downey said, and it’s easy to pick apart. But he argued Stiller and company were making a larger point that deserved to be heard, “a railing against all of these tropes that are not right and had been perpetuated for too long.”
