The movie "Tropic Thunder" hadn't even opened and already was in trouble for the use of one word.

Considering that one character has his skin surgically dyed to play a black man, you might expect that the word would be a racial term.

Instead, it's a word that has somehow devolved into a derogatory term as society becomes more politically correct: retard.

Protesters from the Special Olympics and the American Association of People with Disabilities are calling for a ban of the movie and the word.

As I mentioned a couple posts ago, if it's R-rated, then studios are giving up wider audiences in order to be offensive, but at least they're warning you ahead of time.

Should the movie be banned? No.

The word on the other hand, is a different issue.

The advocacy groups raise a good point about how hateful that word has become, but it's happened so gradually that some people might not have noticed.

If "Tropic Thunder" helps shed light on this issue, then something positive comes out of it.

The "r-word" is one of those terms that used to be used interchangably with other mean words like "stupid" (as an adjective) or "idiot" (as a noun).

Now that we are more enlightened, though, we know we're not supposed to be calling anyone names, but if we do, they better not be names that further perpetuate prejudice by demeaning an entire group of people.

This was actually a word my son and I talked about recently because last year's "Big Brother" winner used the "r-word" to describe the autistic children he worked with and lost his job after winning the reality show contest.

The only thing we were surprised by was that the guy really had worked with autistic children because he was so offensive that it seemed like he had to be lying about what he did for a living.

My son, at age 12, was fully aware that the word was offensive and while he doesn't understand a lot of derogatory terms, he knows what's wrong with this one.

Meanwhile, "Tropic Thunder" is being criticized for its hateful language.

Wrote Derrik J. Lang, The Associated Press' entertainment writer, the disparaging term was used to describe the mentally disabled by Ben Stiller, who plays a fame-hungry actor cast in a war movie:

"Andrew J. Imparato, president of the American Association of People with Disabilities, said he and other advocacy groups met with DreamWorks co-chair Stacey Snider and watched a private screening. ... Imparato called the movie 'tasteless' and said it was 'offensive start to finish,' adding 'I have a sense of humor. There were parts of the movie where I laughed, but it seems to me that the movie tried really hard to go too far and then pull back on everything that was offensive except the issue of people with intellectual disabilities.' "

Don't take young kids to see "Tropic Thunder," and use the hype over it to teach them some sensitivity instead.

When she's not being a reporter, Treena Shapiro is busy with her real job, raising a son and daughter. Check out her blog at www.HonoluluAdvertiser.com/Blogs.