PROTESTERS, led by Special Olympics chairman and CEO Timothy Shriver, marched outside the world premiere of the Hollywood satire “Tropic Thunder” on Monday night. Chanting and waving placards that read “Ban the movie, ban the word” and “Call me by my name, not my label,” several dozen people tried to get the message across that the word “retard” and making fun of the mentally challenged is not comedy material. In “Thunder,” Ben Stiller's character is an actor who previously attempted to go for Oscar gold by playing a character called “Simple Jack.” “Thunder” features the movie-within-a-movie's trailer, and Stiller is forced to re-enact scenes from the movie when he is captured by Asian drug lords. DreamWorks and Paramount were well-prepared for the protest at the Westwood movie theater: The normally open red carpet was shielded by walls of 10-foot-high shrubs, thus preventing the protesters from even being in the background of television shots. According to a New York Times overview, Shriver said that he had also begun to ask members of Congress for a resolution condemning what he called the movie's “hate speech” and calling for stronger federal support of the intellectually disabled. “The most disappointing thing, the most incredible thing, is that nobody caught it,” said Shriver, who, as a co-producer of the DreamWorks film “Amistad,” is no stranger to the studio. He spoke of what he described as the studio's and the filmmakers' blatant disregard for the disabled even as they stepped carefully around other potentially offensive references, notably in a story line that has Robert Downey Jr. playing a white actor who changes his skin color to play a black soldier. Chip Sullivan, a DreamWorks spokesman, said the movie was “an R-rated comedy that satirizes Hollywood and its excesses and makes its point by featuring inappropriate and over-the-top characters in ridiculous situations.” Sullivan, in the statement, added that the film was not meant to disparage or harm people with disabilities and that DreamWorks expected to work closely with disability groups in the future. But, he said, “No changes or cuts to the film will be made.” DreamWorks and Paramount have shown “Tropic Thunder” in more than 250 promotional screenings around the country since April, but significant complaints came only recently, when marketing materials for the movie caught the attention of advocates for the disabled. The tag line on one mock promotional poster on a Web site, since removed, read, “Once upon a time there was a retard.” Over the weekend an adhoc coalition of more than a dozen disabilities groups — including the Arc of the United States, the National Down Syndrome Congress, the American Association of People With Disabilities and others — laid the groundwork for public protests. The groups refrained from formally asking that viewers boycott the movie, pending informational screenings that were scheduled for their members at eight locations around the country on Monday morning. But representatives of the National Down Syndrome Congress saw the movie at one such screening on Friday and immediately advised fellow advocates to expect a film sufficiently offensive to justify mass action. “I came out feeling like I had been assaulted,” said David C. Tolleson, executive director of the Down syndrome group who saw the movie. Tolleson and Peter V. Berns, executive director of the Arc of the United States, said on Sunday that they could not recall a similar coalition of disabilities groups forming against a film. Mr. Berns noted that some people had objected to the use of the word “retarded” in “Napoleon Dynamite,” a comedy released by Fox Searchlight and Paramount's MTV Films unit in 2004. “But there's really been nothing near this magnitude,” Mr. Berns said. In earlier interviews with The New York Times, Stiller and Stacey Snider, chief executive of the DreamWorks unit, said the movie's humor was aimed not at the disabled but at the foolishness of actors who will go to any length in advancing their careers. After meetings and conference calls with Snider and others, the studio altered some television advertising, but declined to edit scenes from the movie. “Tropic Thunder” is likely to be the last movie released by DreamWorks before its top executives — Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Ms. Snider — formally announce their plans to become aligned with a new company to be financed by Reliance Big Entertainment of India. The three will continue to be involved with at least a dozen films at Paramount but are expected gradually to shift their energies to the new enterprise, which will probably distribute its movies through another studio.
