The True Colours of Success

[eumelia]

This has been traveling around the Internet for a couple of weeks now, but I feel compelled to add in my own two little cents.

Moviehole had an interview with Robert Downey Jr (RDJ) about his recent success with Iron Man and Tropic Thunder.
Most of the wank has been directed to this statement, quoted from the interview:

"My whole thing is that that I saw 'The Dark Knight'. I feel like I'm dumb because I feel like I don't get how many things that are so smart. It's like a Ferrari engine of storytelling and script writing and I'm like, 'That's not my idea of what I want to see in a movie.' I loved 'The Prestige' but didn't understand 'The Dark Knight'. Didn't get it, still can't tell you what happened in the movie, what happened to the character and in the end they need him to be a bad guy. I'm like, 'I get it. This is so high brow and so fucking smart, I clearly need a college education to understand this movie.' You know what? Fuck DC comics. That's all I have to say and that's where I'm really coming from."

Coming from a man who acted in Chaplin, Wonder Boys, Fur and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, I find this statement a tad, um, weird?

Because my thought were in regards to this was that The Dark Knight isn't really that complicated. It's a layered movie, much like Iron Man but in a different way. Iron Man focused a whole lot more on character development and cultivating ground for the next movie, while The Dark Knight was about the shifting of Batman's position from Hero to Anti-Hero, similar but not the same.
I mean how complicated is "Good vs Evil" and "Dark vs Light".
Duality is not that hard a concept.
I don't know Game Theory, and the lack of knowledge didn't take away from the enjoyment at all (multiple viewer, like hello!).

Also, could RDJ be more jealous?!

But something in the interview bothered me even more.

[When] Asked how much research he did in order to get these various ethnic stereotypes down pat [for Tropic Thunder], the actor says none, "because it was my goal for there to be nothing stereotypical except for when the story demands that he's momentarily specifically stereotypical - for which the actual black man puts him in his place. So the funny thing about this in retrospect - looking at how we did this and decisions that were made and all that - is that I remember that we had discussions and then the talk is over and you're out there shooting a fucking movie and so my idea was to try and be natural and entertaining."

I can't help but rage at the paternalism of this statement.
Yeah, they're poking fun and everyone is in on it, even the real Black guy was cool with it, how fucking enlightened right?
I haven't seen Tropic Thunder, though this sort of thing coming from one of the lead performers isn't giving it the best impression.
Man, you played a bastard who takes himself too seriously and put on blackface... RDJ, please don't become that same kind of bastard who takes himself too seriously.
I like him too much as a performer in order to dislike his public persona.

But fucking hell. Racism, anti-intellectualism and just your basic Hollywood elitism in one measly interview... fucking hell.

in the mean time Just Some Random Guy does it again:

DC indeed won the Summer.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_yggdrasil/]

Haven't seen Tropic Thunder for those reasons, and come to think of it, never saw Borat either. When the trailer alone makes my eyes roll right out of my head, I know I don't need to waste ten bucks. Score.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Borat was really good! Hilarious even, and I was very iffy about it.
I guess it was all the antisemitism humour that got me... and he was speaking Hebrew in lieu of Kazah... which was funny for all Hebrew speakers everywhere.

It's true what they say

[morin.livejournal.com]

Drugs burn your brain. RDJ is sort of a proof.

Re: It's true what they say

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, those statements really do seem kind of fried, don't they.