So you’re sitting in Tropic Thunder staring at Tom Cruise shaking his ass badly to rap music in front of a giant blue Om. He’s in a bald cap, fake body hair, dripping with gold jewelry. He’s cussing up a storm, playing a stereotypical Hollywood Shylock as a jigger. You’re wondering what happened to the clean-cut tighty whitey dancer from Risky Business.

And that’s not the half of it. It’s remarkable how a $100M mainline release manages to put a white actor in blackface without totally fucking it up. Two things prevent Robert Downey Jr. from turning into Peter Sellers: better makeup and a black actor mocking him by his side. Costuming airbrushed on Downey’s blackface in shades and striations, looking far more natural than the shoe polish of the old days. His T-zone is suspiciously golden, but they put in some effort.

But the key, of course, is that blackface is explicitly part of the joke. Downey’s playing an Aussie (modeled on Russell Crowe) playing a black man in a bid for an Oscar. Not only is a younger black actor, Brandon Jackson, yelling into his ear to stop talking like a Southern-fried stereotype, the movie mocks political correctness:

Stiller: What is it with you people?

Downey: What do you mean, ‘you people’?

[Silence.]

Jackson: What do you mean, ‘you people’?

And there’s this hilarious exchange:

Jackson: Maybe I just knew I had to represent… because they had one good part in there for a black man, and they gave it to Crocodile Dundee!

Downey: [offended] Pump your brakes kid, that man’s a national treasure.

Jackson: I’m sorry a dingo ate your baby!

Downey: [Roaring] You about to cross some fuckin’ line!

Advocates for the mentally disabled are in an uproar over Ben Stiller playing a bucktoothed character called Simple Jack. In the movie, newsreader Maria Menounos mocks the stutter of the developmentally disabled. I agree with ‘em, to a point: this too is part of a joke. Downey instructs Stiller in the niceties of acting: ‘You never go full retard,’ ticking off Rain Man and Taxi Driver as flicks whose characters have redeeming powers.

The movie goes on in that vein, very meta and insider; casting Danny McBride and Steve Coogan qualifies as a comedy in-joke. Fake movie trailers like those from Grindhouse send up Crowe, Eddie Murphy, Sylvester Stallone and the trashiness of Hollywood. The rest hits Saving Private Ryan with grace notes of Apocalypse Now. It’s not entirely a pleasant ride, and the stretch in a drugrunner camp is downright silly. You go to see this movie for homage and sheer, gonzo spectacle, Om Shanti Om crossed with the jaw-dropping filth of The Aristocrats.

Downey’s attempting a white Chris Rock. He’s resurrecting Blazing Saddles. He’s gone kamikaze.

Here’s the trailer:

Comments from Racialicious:

… the blackface story has potential. I only wish there was a comedy about Angelina Jolie pretending she was Afro Cuban or that stupid Obama guy from SNL…

… has anyone seen the trailer for the new Mike Myers movie? That’s the one that offended me all over the place… [Link]

Related posts: Blackface on primetime, Selling race