

His brother Ricky comes to visit after being released from jail and convinces him to commit a robbery of gold dust from a laboratory. ( April 2018) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)īen Garvey, a reformed criminal, loses his job because of his criminal background. You can provide one by editing this article. However, due to the ongoing prevalence of cancel culture and heightened sensitivity, Foxx has opted to keep the project shelved for now until " people go back to laughing again." The outcome of Robert Downey Jr.'s casting as a Mexican man is up in the air, then, but his shockingly non-controversial part in Tropic Thunder remains a topic of debate to this day.This article needs an improved plot summary. Much like the Ben Stiller movie, the goal of All-Star Weekend was to generate outrageous comedy that would also poke fun at Hollywood's and society's norms. “I said, ‘Shit, you played the Black dude and you killed that shit.’ We got to be able to do characters.” (via IndieWire) “I called Robert, I said, ‘I need you to play a Mexican,'” Foxx recalled. Jamie Foxx reached out to RDJ after Tropic Thunder about playing a Mexican man in his directorial project, All-Star Weekend.
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To some, Robert Downey Jr.'s turn as a method actor willing to don blackface for a movie was not only acceptable but an outright hit. However, Stiller isn't universally agreed with in Hollywood on this. Tropic Thunder was ahead of its time here, since terms like "whitewashing" only reached prominence in the last decade, even though the practice has been around since the earliest days of Hollywood and continues to be controversial.įor his part, Ben Stiller doesn't regret Tropic Thunder to this day, and continues to vocally defend the movie - including the RDJ Blackface. By leaning into how ridiculous it is, and making the subject of the joke whitewashing and Hollywood as a whole rather than Black people, the RDJ Tropic Thunder blackface was able to avoid causing any real controversy.
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If Tropic Thunder does one thing well, it makes audiences laugh, but its other goal was to provide some social commentary on the dark underbelly of Hollywood.

It's a hilarious and rather succinct way to also mock the sometimes inexplicable things method actors do, and viewers can't help but laugh at how off-putting it becomes to hear an Australian accent come out of Robert Downey Jr.'s face. In an attempt to help Tugg as himself rather than as his character, Kirk finally sheds his mask. After Tugg is kidnapped by the heroin-producing Flaming Dragon gang and tortured and forced to perform his problematic film Simple Jack every night, Tugg has a crisis of identity that Kirk recognizes, having experienced it himself. Kirk's method-acting ends up playing a pivotal role in Tropic Thunder's movie climax. He doesn't let Kirk off the hook, and even claims that he's making the movie to offer some "real representation." Jackson in the role of Alpa Chino, a rapper attempting to break into acting. The RDJ Tropic Thunder blackface is no different, as it is shown as part of the same ridiculousness of Hollywood, nor does it go unaddressed in the story. Tropic Thunder mocks everything "wrong" with Hollywood: product placement, drug use and addiction, problematic productions, megalomaniacal producers that are more interested in making money than telling stories, and the ludicrousness of Hollywood using serious subjects as money-making fodder. This includes holding up a mirror to the lengths some actors will go to land that career-defining role - and the ethical considerations some will readily put to the side in taking it. The brilliance of Tropic Thunder is that nothing is sacred. was even nominated for an Oscar for the role and has continued to defend it since, and the lack of controversy is due to the movie's satirical approach.

However, it's clear on viewing that Tropic Thunder is making a firm statement against how Black characters are both portrayed and overlooked in mainstream action movies of the era.
