Reagan's Daughter Criticizes Will Ferrell Over Planned Alzheimer's Comedy

Free Speech...Artistic License...Funny Ferrell...I get all that...Love Will Ferrell as a comedian...but is this new movie going too far?
Is 'Fun With Alzheimers' a bad idea? PattI Davis, Ronald Reagan's daughter is offended. She feels the movie is exploiting her father's illness for money and laughs. I have to side with her.

I have an in-law with Altzheimers and my late father had dementia...nobody ever found it funny.

Is it okay to do this movie because it's Ronald Reagan? Is it okay to start making movies mocking people with other horrible illness? Would this movie be made if Reagan wasn't a Republican?

I call liberal Hollywood insensitivity and extreme poor taste on this one...and don't plan to see it.

Patti Davis, Ronald Reagan's daughter, criticized Will Ferrell for planning to play her father in an upcoming comedy that apparently deals with the former president's Alzheimer's condition. "Perhaps you have managed to retain some ignorance about Alzheimer's and other versions of dementia. Perhaps if you knew more, you would not find the subject humorous," Davis wrote on her books blog in an open letter to Ferrell.

Reagan's daughter insisted she saw no humor as her father endured dementia before his death. "I watched as fear invaded my father's eyes -; this man who was never afraid of anything. I heard his voice tremble as he stood in the living room and said, 'I don't know where I am," she wrote. "I watched helplessly as he reached for memories, for words, that were suddenly out of reach and moving farther away," Davis added.

Ferrell, who has already portrayed President George W. Bush in skits and onstage, is attached to star in and produce Reagan, a Black List script by Mike Rosolio. Ferrell will produce via his production banner Gary Sanchez Productions. The logline, via the Black List, describes the story as: "When Ronald Reagan falls into dementia at the start of his second term, an ambitious intern is tasked with convincing the Commander-In-Chief that he is an actor playing the President in a movie."

Davis ventured Ferrell may visit a dementia facility to research his upcoming role. "I have -; I didn't find anything comedic there, and my hope would be that if you're a decent human being, you wouldn't either," she wrote. Davis added she runs a support group, Beyond Alzheimer's, for caregivers and family members of those with Alzheimer's and dementia.

"I look into haunted eyes that remind me of my own when my father was ill... The only certainty with Alzheimer's is that more will be lost and the disease will always win in the end," she wrote.

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a reply to: IAMTAT

Is it okay to do this movie because it's Ronald Reagan?

I doubt anyone will own up to it, but the answer to your question is a resounding "yes."

Edit to Add: Substitute Alzheimers with AIDS and see what the reaction would be.

Remember the outrage when Limbaugh got into it over Michael J. Fox and his Parkinson's?

Maybe someone should do a comedy about Ted Kennedy and his brain tumor. It would be in equally poor taste as a Reagan Alzhiemer's comedy I think.

a reply to: IAMTAT
I think it is in very bad taste to do a movie like that.

Imagine a remake of the movie 'Philadelphia' ( link ) as a comedy.... making fun of homosexuals dying from AIDS.

How would that go over?

a reply to: IAMTAT

Nothing is ever off limits in comedy, at least to me. Humor helps make light of otherwise depressing situations.

Whether it's funny or not remains to be seen.

We can't even say somebody is retarded but making fun of alzhiemers is fine.

originally posted by: butcherguy
a reply to: IAMTAT
I think it is in very bad taste to do a movie like that.

Imagine a remake of the movie 'Philadelphia' ( link ) as a comedy.... making fun of homosexuals dying from AIDS.

How would that go over?

Great example. Liberal Hollywood would shame that production out of existence.

Maybe some laughs could be had from FDR's polio. Wheel chairs are hilarious.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
We can't even say somebody is retarded but making fun of alzhiemers is fine.

A line in a film is one thing. I whole movie dedicated to laughing at someone with Alzheimers is something beyondbad taste...it's cruel and insensitive...UNLESS the subject of mockery is a popular Republican President.

Weird.... we make fun of Foreign leaders in films on a casua and regular basis, i can even say its a genre in its own.


this is not typical of America, normally we can take as much as we dish it /pffftt sarc

a reply to: IAMTAT


Totally agree.

a reply to: butcherguy

originally posted by: IAMTAT
Maybe some laughs could be had from FDR's polio. Wheel chairs are hilarious.

I want to direct, we can call it My Leftist Foot.

a reply to: IAMTAT

Kennedy had Addison's disease. I'm sure someone could get some laughs out of that, and of course, what's not funny about having your brains spilled out all over a car by a bullet?

I'm sure there's a comedy in there too.

I wonder if Ferrell had a mom or dad suffering from Altzheimers...if he'd make this movie.

a reply to: rockintitz

A few one-liners is a bit different from a theme of an entire movie. Just sayin'....

originally posted by: odzeandennz
Weird.... we make fun of Foreign leaders in films on a casua and regular basis, i can even say its a genre in its own.


this is not typical of America, normally we can take as much as we dish it /pffftt sarc

Nobody has an issue about making fun of politicians. Foreign or domestic.
It's almost a national sport.
Clinton and his interns.
Bush and his babbling.
But making fun of a handicap is pushing good taste.

Pc police alert, oh my gawd the libetals cant do that, oh my gawd think of the children.

More salty tears plz

Its comedy, its our gawd givin right to laughter.

originally posted by: odzeandennz
Weird.... we make fun of Foreign leaders in films on a casua and regular basis, i can even say its a genre in its own.


this is not typical of America, normally we can take as much as we dish it /pffftt sarc

Oh, I've seen Reagan made fun of, but when you start making a comedy about a tragic illness that no one can control and just about everyone knows someone who has had?

Seriously, my own grandmother had it and she got violent with it and attacked my grandfather. She had to put in a home, and it killed her. She died not long afterward. She knew just enough to know she wasn't in her own home, not enough to know why, and it angered and frustrated her, but because she was violent, she couldn't be sent home.

It was devastating to my grandfather and family.

But of course, because Reagan is such a polarizing and hated figure to liberals, I guess they figure they can make fun of things like like this.

originally posted by: dukeofjive696969
Pc police alert, oh my gawd the libetals cant do that, oh my gawd think of the children.

More salty tears plz

Its comedy, its our gawd givin right to laughter.

Plenty of stuff to poke fun at with Reagan without making fun of an Alzheimer's patient.

Stick to Bonzo.

Hey...y'know what would be funny? How 'bout a film making fun of Joe Biden's son's death from Brain Cancer?
Get it?...BRAIN Cancer....
Think of the fun that could be had with that!