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August 15, 2008

Please Stop Picketing Tropic Thunder And Start Picketing Claire Danes's House

thumbnail icon: Please Stop Picketing Tropic Thunder And Start Picketing Claire Danes's House

With all the media attention focused on Tropic Thunder's movie-within-a-movie-within-a-movie send-up of Oscar-baiting actors portraying the mentally handicapped, Simple Jack, the fact of the matter is actual actors are doing this in the real world right now and it's miserable. I understand that the word "retard" can be offensive to some people and that its use for comedic effect is questionable, but surely it's not that much worse than Claire Danes pretending she is autistic. From the Hollywood Reporter:

HBO's long-gestating Temple Grandin project is moving forward, with Claire Danes in negotiations to star and Mick Jackson set to direct the biopic.

Grandin, one of the leading speakers on autism, overcame the limitations imposed by the disorder to become one of the top scientists in humane livestock handling.

I'm sure that Temple Grandin's story is an uplifting one, full of bravery and the overcoming of adversity, but this sounds like a real disaster. Claire Danes isn't even that good at acting like a mentally average person. Or is that why they chose her? I Am Zing.

High school was especially harsh for Grandin, who was called "tape recorder" by other kids because she repeated things over and over. She also was hypersensitive to all sorts of sensory stimulation. She eventually graduated with degrees from several universities, going on to write influential essays on animal welfare and designing humane slaughterhouses. Grandin appears regularly on the news talk show circuit and was the subject of a BBC documentary titled "The Woman Who Thinks Like a Cow" and Errol Morris' "First Person: Stairway to Heaven."

Danes will play Grandin from her high school years to her post-academic period.

NOPE. People know that acting is pretending, right? It's not, like, an actual skill. I mean, it is a skill, like the way lying is a skill. But it's just the fanciest kind of pretending. Claire Danes is going to get paid upwards of $5,000 to do the thing that everyone was taught was impolite back in kindergarten. Enough.

Posted by Gabe at 3:15 PM in ,
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12 Comments

mmmikey

humane slaughterhouses.

What?
Really?

Posted by: mmmikey profile link at 08/15/08 4:00 PM | Reply
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At least the title of this movie (hopefully) is not also "The Woman Who Thinks Like a Cow". Good lord - here I thought VH1 had bad taste all sewn up...

Posted by: Chadams at 08/15/08 4:11 PM | Reply
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hi mmmikey

Posted by: quentin at 08/15/08 4:42 PM | Reply
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Errol Morris did an episode of his short-lived but awesome series First Person about Temple Grandin. It's on DVD, so I imagine it could be Netflixed. The whole series is great. I think there was a This American Life about her too.

Sincerely,
The Temple Grandin Fan Club

Also, Claire Danes is a big dumb dummy.

Posted by: mtobey profile link at 08/15/08 4:53 PM | Reply
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I just realized I repeated something that's in the body of the post. I'm worse than Claire Danes.

Posted by: mtobey profile link in reply to mtobey's comment at 08/15/08 5:44 PM | Reply
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Actually, Temple Grandin doesn't sound like your "stereotypical" autistic person...

Posted by: X at 08/15/08 5:27 PM | Reply
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Friday Fight: Tom Cruise
Lindsay: So Tropic Thunder Will Totally Revive Tom Cruise's Career And He Will Finally Win An Oscar Gabe: you're retarded.

HOW CAN I GO ON WATCHING FUCKING TRAMPOLINE ACCIDENTS WHEN THESE PEOPLE ARE SO F-ING IGNORANT! I'M TYPING SO HARD I COULD BREAK MY F-ING MACBOOK AIR!

Posted by: eric at 08/15/08 5:46 PM | Reply
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Gabe

I was simply saying that I knew the word offended some people. I didn't claim not to use it myself. I'm like the Ben Stiller of blogs (i.e. I am the OK-but-not-that-great of blogs.)

Posted by: Gabe profile link in reply to eric's comment at 08/15/08 5:59 PM | Reply
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i just wanted to seem clever.
me -1000 points

Posted by: eric in reply to Gabe's comment at 08/17/08 10:15 PM | Reply
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Tape recorder? Man, that's a crummy insult. I wish that was all I got called, and I'm not autistic.

Posted by: dafs at 08/16/08 9:46 AM | Reply
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Temple Grandin's story is a totally fascinating fascinating one. Temple Grandin as a person (at least in interviews I've seen or heard) is frustrating, distant, and, frankly, unpleasant. And on top of it, she's a truly unattractive person to look at. I see this movie as nothing more than Nell, set in a slaughterhouse. At least Claire Danes is nice to look at.

Posted by: WJPurdy at 08/16/08 10:51 AM | Reply
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tropic thunder was awesomeee

Posted by: sam at 08/17/08 2:18 AM | Reply
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