Actor Ben Stiller made it clear that he will not bend the knee to the woke outrage mob regarding the controversy surrounding the 2008 movie “Tropic Thunder.”
Earlier this week, a Twitter user implored Stiller to stop apologizing for the controversy swirling around blackface-wearing and the mentally challenged farm boy characters in “Tropic Thunder.” The fan told Stiller that “liberals” are trying to cancel “Tropic Thunder,” but he proclaimed that the movie is “even funnier now with cancel culture the way it is.”
Stiller replied on Twitter, “I make no apologies for ‘Tropic Thunder.’ Don’t know who told you that. It’s always been a controversial movie since when we opened. Proud of it and the work everyone did on it.”
In 2018, Stiller admitted that he apologized for his mentally challenged character “Simple Jack,” but also said he stood by the premise of the character and “Tropic Thunder.” Stiller made the comments while defending Olympic Gold medalist Shaun White, who wore a Simple Jack costume for Halloween.
“Actually ‘Tropic Thunder’ was boycotted 10 years ago when it came out, and I apologized then,” Stiller tweeted. “It was always meant to make fun of actors trying to do anything to win awards. I stand by my apology, the movie, Shaun White, And the great people and work of the Special Olympics.”
In 2020, Stiller admitted that “Tropic Thunder” probably couldn’t be made in the climate of political correctness.
“Honestly, I don’t know if it’s the politics as much as just the atmosphere of the political correctness now and everybody being afraid to say something that’s offensive,” Stiller said.
“But at the time — that’s the thing to me that’s so complicated about how we approach what’s appropriate and what’s not in terms of the timeframe that it was made,” the Hollywood actor continued. “It doesn’t necessarily mean that anything was more appropriate at another time, but you have to look at the context and realize that that’s what was happening.”
Fellow actor Robert Downey Jr. has also refused to apologize for “Tropic Thunder.”
Downey played pretentious Australian method actor Kirk Lazarus, who undergoes “pigmentation alteration” surgery to temporarily darken his skin for his portrayal of Staff Sergeant Lincoln Osiris — who is black.
“I think that it’s never an excuse to do something that’s out of place and out of its time, but to me, it blasted the cap on [the issue]. I think having a moral psychology is job one. Sometimes, you just gotta go, ‘Yeah I effed up.’ In my defense, ‘Tropic Thunder’ is about how wrong [blackface] is, so I take exception,” Downey said during a 2020 interview on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast.
Downey said the controversial acting roles were meant to “hold up to nature the insane self-hypocrisy of artists and what they think they’re allowed to do on occasion.”
Speaking of “Tropic Thunder,” Downey added, “It was impossible to not have it be an offensive nightmare of a movie.”
In 2020, Stiller batted away woke backlash and defended the cameo of Donald Trump in the movie “Zoolander.”
Could You Make Tropic Thunder Today? w/Robert Downey Jr. | Joe Roganwww.youtube.com
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up!