Why "Tropic Thunder" Remains a Masterclass in Satire 10 Years Later

Scene from Tropic Thunder

In the summer of 2008, amid strong competition, director and star Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder did the unthinkable: it was the first film to break the top spot of the box office following The Dark Knight's triumphant rise. But what exactly is it about the last great satire that spoke to audiences? For one, it was unapologetic in its shameless lampooning of Hollywood vanity, finding a way to make extended fart jokes stand alongside a character in blackface, and even panda murder. The film feels like it's too edgy to have been a major studio release, yet it was a film that perfectly skewered every major war movie of yesteryear from Platoon to Apocalypse Now and found the vapid nature of Hollywood trying to make "real" movies. Tropic Thunder wasn't just a film with one of the strongest comedy casts of the decade. It was a film that used every style of humor to full effect... and got away with it. 

It' hard to imagine a film like Tropic Thunder being made today, if just because of the shifting nature of comedy. For instance, there's a whole monologue that gained popularity in which an actor goes "full retard" in order to win an Oscar. The actual footage from the film (Simple Jack) is as comical as it comes, yet it's the kind of offensive humor that would make the real life versions of Simple Jack likely to get banned. So, why did the film get away with making jokes about capable actors playing handicapped characters? It's because the film had something underneath the jokes and occasional lowbrow approach. It was itself a commentary on the industry, of which Stiller had long been a part of and knew almost too well. Even the extended references to Platoon were no mistake. He really was an actor rejected from the film to the point that he has since made fun of Oliver Stone regularly. Everything about the film reflects the artifice of Hollywood in its most vulgar fashion: love.

The actors find themselves invulnerable, in large part because of their contracts and knowledge that a camera crew will save them from the Viet Kong jungles if anything goes terribly wrong. But what they don't know is that their vanity has to go. Their acceptance of hackneyed ideas like Simple Jack fade away as a group of drug smugglers kidnap them and force them to view the brutal reality of war torn countries. Stiller is thankfully shameless in this, managing to find the humor in ultra-method acting, such as Robert Downey Jr. performing entirely in blackface (Why? Because he wanted to get into character as "The dude playing the dude disguised as another dude. I'm the dude who don't know what dude he is."). Even the comedian trying to play something serious (Jack Black) falls back on crass fart jokes, knowing that The Fatties franchise will be there for him if this movie tanks. There's no stakes career-wise, and that's part of why the action-comedy of it all works so well.

Most people likely remember Tom Cruise in a fat suit, dancing to Ludacris' "Get Back," or Matthew McConaughey in a pre-McConaissance performance as Stiller's agent. The film is impeccably cast with actors that do incredible work in spite of what should be the film's weak points. The loving ode to Hollywood ends up being its own version of the Apocalypse Now documentary Hearts of Darkness, in which the filming is chaos and there's constant in-fighting. There's no control and at a certain point no script for the film, leaving the division between Hollywood and reality to eventually coalesce in memorable ways. Are the explosions and bullets real? Who's to say. Whatever the case may be, the actors will have to pull through, proving just how weak and ill-equipped they are to handle the real world, or in this case a Viet Kong jungle. 

It's probably telling that a lot of the jokes 10 years later are read as a bit jarring and disturbing. Some of it likely comes from dated stereotypes, but then again the film is full of every possible genre stereotype clashing against each other for the sake of a film that is better off falling apart. In a time where every actor is called out on their mistakes, having the comedy confront themes of playing the mentally handicapped, blackface, homophobia, fat jokes, and everything in between reflects the struggle to be decent humans and also make a lot of money through the revenue stream. Even the choice to constantly advertise an energy drink called Booty Sweat reflects the crass nature of film making and product placement. Stiller makes the jokes work not by being vulgar, but by having them in some way tie to how Hollywood sees itself. As much as the actors are entering the real world, the film is addressing how these films are harmful while also just allowing the debate to rage on screen. 

Another thing that is incredible to note is how the performances gel with meta commentary. While the spoof movies of the time reflected on funny references, Stiller chose to have the characters embody something akin to the actors' real lives. Jack Black played an actor known for fat humor. Stiller was a leading man, and thus was in ridiculous franchises that got increasingly lazy and dumb. Robert Downey Jr. was a method actor who got so deep into characters that it sometimes resulted in bizarre appearances (considering that this was the same year of Iron Man, it's fascinating to see the prestige side of him disappear shortly after this film's release), though lead to Oscar nominations. Everything about the film was just as self-deprecating about the actors on screen, and it resulted  in something unique. There were no sacred cows, and it made the film all the better for it. If you hated Black for playing bumbling fat characters, his ability to laugh at himself was rewarding. The same could be said about anyone, because in some ways Stiller was apologizing for his own career mistakes along with noting how stupid some of it was. 

At the end of the day, this is one of those rare films that could be held up as an example of why P.C. culture is ruining comedy. Tropic Thunder couldn't exist with a filter, in large part because this shocking behavior appears too often in the tabloids without script rewrites. Stiller knows this, and that's why it's his most self-aware magnum opus. He rebels against conventions by getting to the heart of film culture and history while staging elaborate shots of the iconic war films that are spoofed endlessly. It's smart about everything, eventually coming across more as an attack on those who do things like Simple Jack and blackface for petty awards attention (to the film's credit, while blackface is still offensive, it is telling that whitewashing in films such as 2017's The Ghost in the Shell still reveal the racial divide that the film addressed). 

Hollywood is nowhere near being more perfect than it was during the days of Tropic Thunder. While it works solely as a comedy, it should be given credit for managing to be smart about how it offends everyone. This isn't some shoddy production that resorts to racist and homophobic jokes. It's an equal opportunity offender that ties itself richly into Hollywood's history of vapid vanity and unawareness of how to live in the real world. Most of all, it does it so well that even the action sequences transcend into being great shot-for-shot remakes of their references as well as clever jokes. There's likely never to be a film like Tropic Thunder again, and that's a shame. Hollywood could use a good talking to every now and then, even if it's just seen as playful ribbing and Tom Cruise dancing in a fat suit.