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I remember seeing Lars Von Trier's "Idioterne" (The Idiots) a few years ago, and the strange feeling of conflict it creates within the viewer on the subject of tardsploitation, and how marvellously it lays bare your feelings about the handicapped.
Both "Idioterne" and "How's Your News?" offer an unflinchingly honest opportunity to enjoy and explore the dynamics of interaction between the handicapped and the supposed "normal" world, but perhaps your greatest entertainment value lies in stacking these films up against the glut of feel-good Hollywood handi-crap that truly earn the tardsploitation moniker.

I'm talking about films like "Radio" and "I Am Sam", where we're offered up stories of courage and triumph over adversity. Ostensibly, the purpose of these films is to educate the public and illuminate the plight of the handicapped, but the reality is that these films are manufactured to make "normal" people feel better about their own lives. They're tearjerkers, dropping emotional atomic bombs without ever really addressing the harsh realities of these situations. Even in those instances in which some measure of reality is injected into the script, these roles are invariably played by established Hollywood actors, not actual handicapped people. In the audience's mind, there's never a need to confront any true feelings concerning the handicapped because there's this mental safety net in place- Joe Public thinks to himself: "Thank God Sean Penn is not really retarted." or "Dustin Hoffman is doing a really good job of acting like he has autism." It's all a sham, and when no-talent fuckwads like Cuba Gooding Jr. get recognized for their "sensitive portrayal" of the sweetly handicapped I just want to throw up all over myself.