‘Tropic Thunder’ Premiere Boycotted

Ben Stiller’s most recent creation, Tropic Thunder, is not getting thunderous applause from some disability groups. In fact, there’s quite a number of them boycotting the movie. The film, which is about a bunch of actors who go into the jungles to shoot a film and end up getting lost (it does sound kind of funny), is being criticized for using the word “retard” too much when referring to one of the character’s character. The coalition of 22 groups, including the Special Olympics, the Arc of the United States and the National Down Syndrome Congress, launched a nationwide boycott of the film -which opens for wide release Wednesday. Last night at the film’s premiere, many folks picketed outside the Mann Bruin in Westwood, right along where many of the movie’s stars walked the red carpet. Ben, of course, defends his film: “It’s sort of edgy territory, but we felt that as long as the focus was on the actors who were trying to do something to be taken seriously that’s going too far or wrong, that was where the humor would come from,” he told MTV News. We’ll just have to see if the boycott worked after the weekend box office results.