Oscar bait Reader" (2008). In the film "Tropic Thunder" (2008), characters Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller) and Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.) discuss the concept regarding Speedman's former role in the fictional film "Simple Jack", in which Lazarus notes that "you never go full retard", contrasting the Oscar successes of Dustin Hoffman ("Rain Man", 1988) and Tom Hanks ("Forrest Gump", 1994) with Sean Penn's failure to win an award for his role in "I Am Sam" (2001). "Tropic Thunder" received protests from disability rights organisations due to its constant use of the word "retard"; Stiller defended the scene as being intended to lampoon
Forrest Gump screenplay from the novel, had "...transferred all of Gump's flaws and most of the excesses committed by Americans in the 1960s and 1970s to her [Jenny]." Other commentators believe the film forecast the 1994 Republican Revolution and used the image of Forrest Gump to promote movement leader Newt Gingrich's traditional, conservative values. Jennifer Hyland Wang observes that the film idealizes the 1950s, as made evident by the lack of "whites only" signs in Gump's Southern childhood, and "revisions" ["sic"] the 1960s as a period of social conflict and confusion. She argues that this sharp contrast between the decades criticizes the