Jamie Foxx Coaxed Robert Downey Jr. Into Another Controversial But Unseen Role After Tropic Thunder

Comedians are having to reinvent themselves in the modern era of social awareness. Comedy has long been a device to promote social discourse, used as a space for comedians to bring awareness to social issues and get people talking about them. Think Norman Lear sitcoms like "All in the Family" or George Carlin's controversial takes on religion and media.

But with social media and a changing barometer of what's socially appropriate, the business of comedy is changing. For some, the threat of being canceled means taking past punch lines off the setlist. But not everyone is listening.

For example, in a time when transgender rights are being stripped, Ricky Gervais and Dave Chapelle still recently released Netflix specials that included transphobic jokes. It caused a fair amount of backlash, though neither has suffered any real consequence, short of one Chapelle show cancellation in Minneapolis.

Before we went all-in on cancel culture, "Tropic Thunder" pushed the boundary of what was acceptable in comedy. The film starring Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., and Jack Black is a bold Hollywood satire that understandably didn't sit well with many audiences, and the film faced immediate backlash. Even after "Tropic Thunder," Jamie Foxx was able to convince Robert Downey Jr. to play a controversial character in his directorial debut in 2016. But our changing social climate led to the comedy canceling itself before it ever saw the light of day.

The complex nature of 'Tropic Thunder'

"Tropic Thunder" was made in 2008, and it would likely not get past a script treatment today. One of the issues with the film is that Robert Downey Jr. dons blackface to play Australian method actor Kirk Lazarus. In the film, the white Lazarus undergoes pigment augmentation surgery for the role of an African American soldier.

The Simple Jack character is also deeply problematic. He is a mentally challenged fictional character from the movie played by Ben Stiller's character, Tug Speedman. Stiller co-wrote and directed the film, which satirizes the acting profession and Hollywood in general. Speedman is an actor portraying a mentally challenged person hoping for a cheap Oscar nomination. The dig was at actors like Dustin Hoffmann winning the Best Actor Oscar for "Rain Man."

Still, the movie has merit. In 2019, Variety pointed out that one-third of Academy Award lead actor winners were portraying a character with a disability. Yet until last year's groundbreaking sweep by "CODA" at the Oscars, only two actors with disabilities had won any hardware: Marlee Matlin in 1986 and Harold Russell in 1946. Still, the sight of Stiller playing a mentally challenged person and Downey Jr. in blackface likely make even the most callous comedy fan wince.

Today's more delicate social climate isn't going to stop comedians from pushing the envelope, even if it means shelving the entire project.

'I'm nervous to play the Mexican'

Jamie Foxx (who won an Oscar playing a blind Ray Charles in "Ray"), believes the shift in social awareness has been somewhat damaging to comedy. He co-wrote and directed "All-Star Weekend" in 2016, but it has yet to be released due to its sensitive content. If you listen to Foxx, it makes sense why "All-Star Weekend" hasn't been released. And to some degree, it's surprising he ever got it produced at all. IMDB innocuously describes the plot of the movie as, "Two buddies form a rivalry over their favorite American basketball player."

"All-Sar Weekend," now shelved for seven years, stars Gerard Butler, Robert Downey Jr., Benicio Del Toro, Jessica Szohr, and Foxx. For Downey Jr., it took some convincing from Foxx to play another character that might be construed as socially unaware.

When Foxx divulged more of the film's plot on The Joe Rogan Experience, we learned that Foxx plays a racist white cop and Robert Downey Jr. plays a Mexican man. After the "Tropic Thunder" backlash years earlier, it took some convincing to bring Downey Jr. on board. In 2017 Foxx said:

"I called Robert [Downey Jr.] and I said, 'Listen, I need you to play a Mexican.' He said, 'Dude, here's the deal. Sure. F**k it. Sure. Why not? F**k it. Sure. Of course. Mexican. Whatever.' But then he texted back and said, 'I'm nervous to play the Mexican.' I said, 'S**t, you played the Black dude [in 'Tropic Thunder'] and you killed that s**t.'"

So will we ever see "All-Star Weekend?" Not likely in this social climate. Foxx recently told Cinemablend, "It's been tough with the lay of the land when it comes to comedy. We're trying to break open those sensitive corners where people go back to laughing again."