Ben Stiller Refuses To Apologize For His Most Controversial Movie
Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder may be a highly controversial movie, but the actor refuses to apologize for the film.
One of the things the internet does best is to serve as a vehicle for deep fakes and deeply fake news, especially when it comes to attributing things to celebrities that they didn’t actually say. This occurred to Ben Stiller recently, with a user on Twitter angrily responding to allegations that the There’s Something About Mary actor was apologetic for his controversial film Tropic Thunder. Ben Stiller actually responded to the person saying that he makes no apologies for the movie and that he’s “proud of it and the work everyone did on it.”
It may go without saying, but pretty much everyone in this exchange except for Ben Stiller seems very confused when discussing Tropic Thunder. For example, the original user and the person amplifying that user’s message are worried about how “cancel culture” might affect the creation and perception of controversial content. But not only is cancel culture not really a thing (for example, “canceled” comedians ranging from Louis CK to Dave Chappelle continue to sell out shows and get sweetheart media deals), but the users seem to put words in Ben Stiller’s mouth.
And while Ben Stiller was much more polite about the matter than the average Twitter user, he was very firm about the fact that he had never apologized for Tropic Thunder and never would, going so far as to tell the Twitter user “don’t know who told you that.” Of course, the answer is implicitly clear and explicitly embarrassing: in an internet version of the old game Telephone, these users keep swapping stories about what celebrities did or did not say. It serves as a powerful reminder of how fast fake news can spread on the internet.
Still, we have to admit that if Zoolander actor Ben Stiller were ever going to apologize for a movie potentially offending someone, Tropic Thunder would be that movie. It was made as a dark satire of Hollywood and Hollywood actors, with the most unforgettable gag being that Robert Downey Jr. wears blackface because he is a method actor getting ready to portray a Black man in a film. The movie contextualizes how stupid and shallow all of this is, but if someone simply sees a screenshot of Iron Man wearing blackface without actually watching the movie, then they might get very offended.
At any rate, many are happy that Ben Stiller makes no apology for the controversies of the hilarious Tropic Thunder. It’s a movie to be enjoyed on multiple levels: it’s both a straightforward comedy as well as an incisive satire where the more you know about Hollywood, the more you understand the biting humor. And if Stiller ever decides to make a sequel rather than play identical versions of himself, we can only imagine that the crazy online discourse surrounding it would finally be enough to break the internet once and for all.
