There are no retards!

We don't normally use this blog to post "soapbox" rhetoric but have decided to do so on this occasion to highlight the crass insensitivity and shallow existence of Hollywood's activities. It is bad enough that the States, and increasing many Western countries, are overwhelmingly dominated by the goings on of Angelina and Brad or the latest American Idol to the apparent complete ignorance of real life. But to start to poke fun and use maliciousness towards others as a way of supposed entertainment (but really to justify box office) is going just too far.

I'm referring to the latest Ben Stiller movie Tropic Thunder and specifically to the viral promotion website of a fake movie called Simple Jack; a supposed drama in which Stiller’s character plays a mentally challenged child. Although complaints about the fake movie’s tagline “Once Upon a Time… There Was a Retard” forced Dreamworks to pull the site off the internet, much damage has already been done and there is still reference to the character in the main movie.

The use of derogatory words to portray people with intellectual disabilities and worse to poke fun at them is disgraceful and Stiller, Dreamworks, etc. should be ashamed of themselves. We are not particularly standing up for rights for the intellectually challenged, but more the way Hollywood chooses to abuse the rights of all minorities in pursuit of the box office "holy grail." These media outlets are especially influential throughout today's social stratas and they need to be careful how they use and abuse that influence.

Anyway there are many other similar abuses out there but this one was brought to our attention by Melody at Slurping Life (the Mother of 3 challenged boys) and so we thought, in a small way, we would give our support. So if we ever see a kid with a tee shirt on with "go full retard" on it - then "there will be blood!"