Melissa Wiley

>it missed the point that "retard" is an insult thrown around promiscuously, so much so that the term "mentally retarded" is no longer used to describe those individuals who actually have mental disabilities

Actually, the term is still very much in use, in the U.S. at least, as I learned to my surprise when my 4 yr old son was diagnosed with mental retardation in July. The diagnosis didn't surprise me, but the terminology did. I hadn't realized it was still in use. Not that I have a problem with it--in fact I find it much preferable to the jargony "intellectually disabled" label now preferred by the former American Assoc. on Mental Retardation (which renamed itself in 2006 and now promotes the use of the term mentioned above).

The medical establishment and school systems--at least here in southern California--still use mental retardation as an official diagnostic term.

A British friend tells me teachers in the UK would be fired for using "mentally retarded"--the preferred term there is "learning disabled"--which of course means something entirely different over here.

When reading up on MR after my son's diagnosis, I was fascinated by how much of the discussion centers around the terminology. Even the Wikipedia page starts with a long exploration of the various terms the condition has been described by over the centuries. You have to scroll down for quite a while to get to any discussion of the dx criteria, description of the condition, etc.

And it was there that I realized that while I've always avoided the hurtful slur "retard," my frequent use of "idiot" and "moron" (particularly aimed at other drivers, LOL) falls into the same category of insult. "Moron" was invented by doctors to replace "idiot" and "imbecile" when they became slurs in common usage. "Mentally retarded" was later coined to replace the similarly fallen "moron." I suppose if "retard" keeps up the momentum it has been gaining as an insult for the past, what, 30 years?, we'll be stuck with jargon like "intellectually disabled" or "mentally challenged." Ugh.

But for now, at least, "mental retardation" is what's printed all over the medical forms that pour into this house.

I haven't seen Tropic Thunder yet so am not qualified to make a judgment on its satirical usage of retard one way or the other!

Posted : Sep 01, 2008 04:13

Doug

>Any way you look at it, name-calling is hurtful. And even if it is steeped in satire (e.g., the Oscar-grabber), that satire is lost on young audiences in favor of the humor of hearing the word "retard" come out of an adult's mouth on the big screen. Not appropriate, any more than the use of the n-word (African American) or the f-word (homosexual).

And I might add...

Marcia was practically never purposely mean to Jan. Jan had all sorts of insecurities and self-esteem issues, which were connected to Marcia in more than one episode-- but Marcia was a Brady, and not inherently mean. The big-screen adaptation skewed their relationship and portrayed Marcia as a beeyatch.

Posted : Aug 27, 2008 03:58

Roger Sutton

>There's certainly a problem in that Stiller seems to have been more worried about offending one group of people than another. A number of commentators have also criticized the movie's depiction of Jews, as personified in Tom Cruise's movie producer character. Manohla Dargis of the NYT wrote, "What’s most notable about the film’s use of blackface is how much softer it is compared with the rather more vulgar and far less loving exploitation of what you might call Jewface."

Posted : Aug 25, 2008 04:24

Anonymous

>You're right that it was a screening, not a consultant. Thank you for the correction. And, yes, I imagine money and the fear of "a stink" was what led to that choice, but clearly it was understood that one way to avoid a stink is to give people input into the images of themselves (parodied or not) that you are putting out for public consumption. It's not the first time people have behaved more decently because there was a financial incentive to do so. If there were a fair number of movies, books, or, hell, anything at all, that included three-dimensional portrayals of disabled people by disabled people, this might not be an issue. There aren't, so it continues to be an issue to no small number of disability rights groups.

Posted : Aug 25, 2008 04:16

Roger Sutton

>It's true that Ben Stiller screened it for the NAACP to make sure they wouldn't raise a stink, but I think that says more about Hollywood's fear of black people (and their wallets) than it does respect for their input. But, yes--if you feel the need to run it by one group, run it by them all.

Posted : Aug 25, 2008 02:36

Fran Hodgkins

>Roger,

Thanks for the link to The Retarded Policeman and his brother. I think that says it all.

Posted : Aug 25, 2008 02:27

Anonymous

>There's quite a difference between "controlling what other people find funny about us" and expecting to have a voice in how the group "we" belong to is portrayed. Seemingly, this concept was understood, or a consultant would not have been brought in to look over the bits where a character was playing a character wearing black face to achieve the same kind of parody. Nondisabled people should not be the sole decisionmakers about images of disability, but they are, time and time again.

Posted : Aug 25, 2008 01:25

Roger Sutton

>I don't think it is all that basic, Anon. "Simple Jack" is not a portrayal of a disabled person, it's a jab at all the Hollywood notions that mentally diabled people are nicer, more sensitive and more (unconsciously) linguistically picturesque than the rest of us. The movie makes that exceedingly--even repetitively--clear.

I also don't think we can control what other people find funny about us, either as individuals or as members of a group. We can attempt to persuade others to come around to our point of view, which is one thing, or, as Timothy Shriver has done, we can bloviate about getting Congress to step in to regulate what movies are allowed to show, which is another.

Posted : Aug 25, 2008 11:38

Anonymous

>Are you aware of any of these people who a) have disabilities and b) disagree? The point for many people with disabilities, myself included, is that it is inappropriate for nondisabled people to decide what it is about our lives that is game for humor. Seems pretty basic to me.

Posted : Aug 25, 2008 02:04

Roger Sutton

>Peter Sieruta (now of the excellent Collecting Children's Book blog) wrote a really funny piece for us called "Dear Clueless: The Rejection Letters of Edna Albertson," which was kind of a takeoff on Leonard Marcus's collection of Ursula Nordstrom's letters, Dear Genius. Some children's literature textbook reprinted a portion of Peter's article, which had ol' Edna rejecting everything from Charlotte's Web to Goosebumps, as an example of how different editors have different tastes. They thought she was real. Retards.

Posted : Aug 25, 2008 12:57

Elizabeth

>You know, I find this all rather comforting. I've seen the movie, and I think anyone who comes away from it thinking "retard" is an ok word to use will also think it's inoffensive to put shoepolish on your face and do a minstrel show,to offer sexually explicit favors for drugs,to kill pandas and wear their skins, to name an asian child "Little Half Squat" and to worship Tivo like a god--oh wait, I do the last one already.

But my point is, people have been complaining that children and teens will pick up the wrong messages and vocabulary from books and movies as long as I have been paying attention, and let's face it, we're most sensitive to the names that touch us personally. By the way, I've never seen a parody that someone didn't mistake for the real thing. Didn't someone quote a parody review that you wrote, Roger, in a serious book of criticism? It's kind of a relief to know that in the age of ebooks and blogs and text messages, plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

Posted : Aug 25, 2008 12:07

Anonymous

>I'd like to quibble on the worst-titled children's book ever. A book we were sent for Newbery consideration during my year: WHEN MOMMY HAD A MASTECTOMY. No kidding!

Jonathan

Posted : Aug 24, 2008 07:44