Chewing the Scenery

I’ll Be You, You Be Me!

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This is a guest post written by Regan Payne. Mr. Payne is president of Omnipresent Productions, a fully functioning production house in Vancouver, BC I began hearing the cries and caterwauls several years ago. It’s a familiar sound to most, a high-pitched rhythm, lined with the sardonic shades of a half-conceived argument. Otherwise known as […]

Acting Against Type

When Not Going ‘Full Retard’ Paid Off: Ten Critically Acclaimed Depictions of Mentally Challenged Characters

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The 2008 comedy Tropic Thunder highlights an inconvenient Hollywood truth: Oscar loves mental disabilities. In the film, Ben Stiller’s action hero character, Tugg Speedman, wishing to expand beyond his stereotype, attempts to court Oscar sympathies by playing a mentally challenged farmhand. It ends up being a critical failure. This is because, as Tugg’s co-star Robert […]