This morning BBCnews.com posted an article entitled ‘The Path from Cinema to the Playground,’ which poses the following question to its readers: “A new film [Tropic Thunder] repeatedly uses the word “retard”. Can it be acceptable to use satirically or is it intrinsically offensive and a quick route to playground and workplace insults?”

Read the details of the use of this word in the film, here.

Reporter Finlo Rohrer writes:

For the opponents of Tropic Thunder, the path between film and television and “hate speech” is clear.

The UK provides an interesting crucible. While the word “retard” is extremely common in the US and crops up regularly in films, in the UK other epithets are more common. But it still has an immense power to offend, topping a poll by the BBC’s Ouch website for the most offensive disability-related words.

The sociologist weighs in…

If there are more school-children using the word “retard” in playgrounds this week, some might take that as an indicator of the malign power of the film.

“The media is very powerful, whether it’s films or comedy,” says sociologist Prof Colin Barnes, who studies the relationship between the media and disability. “Subliminal messages are distributed. ‘Spaz’ was popularised by Rik Mayall in the Young Ones. That really took off in the 1980s in schools.”

Read the full story at BBCnews.com.