Ben Stiller is demanding the White House remove footage from Tropic Thunder used in a promotional video glorifying military action - and the irony couldn't be thicker if you spread it on toast.
The 2008 satire, which Stiller directed and starred in, brutally mocked war movies and the Hollywood machine that profits from sanitized violence. Now, apparently, someone in the Trump administration thought it would be brilliant to use clips from that very satire to promote actual war.
"We never gave you permission," Stiller said in a statement reported by Variety. "War is not a movie." Which is exactly the point Tropic Thunder was making, and exactly what the White House appears to have missed entirely.
The video, released through official White House channels, features clips from Tropic Thunder alongside other Hollywood war films, framed as "justice the American way." It's the kind of propaganda that would be too on-the-nose for satire if it weren't actually real.
Beyond the profound misreading of the film's message, there's the minor issue of copyright law. You can't just grab footage from a major studio film for government propaganda without permission. Paramount Pictures, which owns Tropic Thunder, has not commented publicly, but one imagines their legal department is having a very busy week.
Tropic Thunder featured Stiller as an action star making a Vietnam War film who, along with his castmates (including Robert Downey Jr. and Jack Black), ends up in a real combat situation. The film skewered everything from method acting to war profiteering to Hollywood's shallow understanding of actual military service.
