by Jason DeWitt
Hollywood star Ben Stiller isn’t sorry he made the Hollywood satire Tropic Thunder, even in light of the character played by Robert Downey Jr. — a Method actor who undergoes skin darkening and other drastic physical alterations to play a black soldier in the movie within the movie.
Stiller took a stand on the controversial 2008 film this week, responding to a tweet alleging he had apologized to the “woke” cancel culture mob for participating in the film.
“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,” Stiller tweeted.
The post came in response to a conservative user named Benny S. after many left-wing users blasted the film, and demanded it be removed from streaming services.
He wrote, “@BenStiller Please stop apologizing for doing this movie. It was and still is funny AF… Even funnier now with cancel culture the way it is. It’s a MOVIE. Ya’ll [sic] can just get over it. I was DYING laughing when I first saw it back in the day and so was everyone else.”
Along with the caption, the user posted a screenshot of another tweet from his account, discussing how “liberals are trying to ‘cancel culture’” the film and circulating another claim that Stiller had apologized for it.
“When the Wayans Brothers made ‘White Chicks…. nobody said a dang thing!!!! STOP APOLOGIZING FOR THIS STUFF!!!!” one quote from the image read.
The confusion appears to have originated over a resurfaced 2018 tweet in which Stiller in fact did apologize for Tropic Thunder, though his apology at the time seemed to address the blowback over the movie’s other movie-within-a-movie “Simple Jack,” in which his character played a mentally handicapped man in an Oscar bait performance.
Watch below:
More than 20 groups including the Special Olympics and National Down Syndrome Congress organized a nationwide boycott of the film upon its release.
Robert Downey, Jr. received an Oscar nomination (in real life) for his Tropic Thunder performance with little to no controversy at the time.
Speaking to Joe Rogan in 2020, Downey Jr. recalled, “And 90 percent of my black friends were like, ‘Dude, that was great.’”
Downey told Rogan the role allowed him to “hold up to nature the insane self-hypocrisy of artists and what they think they’re allowed to do on occasion.”
“It was impossible to not have it be an offensive nightmare of a movie,” Downey added during the interview.
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