According to some reports, the trailer for Brett Ratner’s film, Tower Heist, allegedly contained “jokes.” One such “joke” involved Eddie Murphy’s character being reunited with an old schoolmate played by Ben Stiller, saying, “Oh I remember you! You the little seizure boy! Used to have them seizures all the time!”
Actor Greg Grunberg (best known for his portrayal of Who and Never Heard of Him in The Wankening), who has an epileptic son, apparently saw the trailer and took offense. Or at least, did whatever it’s called where you ignore context to advance your own agenda. Grunberg tweeted:
“TERRIBLY OFFENSIVE TRAILER for #TowerHeist – Making fun @ people w/ seizures is NOT FUNNY & WRONG! “Seizure Boy!” REALLY? #Boycott RT.”
And clearly, this gentleman is an authority on what’s funny. OBVIOUSLY the subtext of the “joke” was “HAHA, AREN’T EPILEPTIC KIDS ASSHOLES?”, and not “Look what an insensitive prick this character is.” Luckily, Brett Ratner is a slovenly, crumb-covered bastion of integrity, and he stood behind the line one hundred per– wait, what’s that? He immediately issued an apology and offered to pull the line from the commercials?
TalkAboutIt.org, an organization that Grunberg founded which is devoted to raising awareness about epilepsy, said in a post on its website over the weekend that Ratner had issued an apology to the actor.
“I am so sorry you are offended. … I sincerely feel bad,” Ratner wrote to Grunberg.
The organization added that Ratner has asked Universal Studios to change the movie’s marketing campaign by removing the offensive jokes from planned television spots.
After receiving the apology from Ratner, Grunberg tweeted the news with a message to the director.
“THANKS @BrettRatner for ur SINCERE APOLOGY to the Epilepsy Community! I’m lifting my personal boycott of ur hilarious film #TowerHeist RT,” he wrote. [THR]
While my blood pressure rises, let’s see if I can recap: Greg Grunberg says a joke he misunderstood is “NOT FUNNY & WRONG” and calls for a boycott. Brett Ratner says “I’m so sorry! Let’s pretend the joke isn’t in my movie even though it totally still is! Will that help?” And then Greg Grunberg is all like, “PERFECT. A token PR movie is exactly what I was after! Have I mentioned you’re hilarious?”
And people say Hollywood is full of phonies.