The Predator: 18 WTF Moments

8. The Tourettes Pussy Joke And The Aardvark

Already mentioned, The Predator is not the most progressive or sensitive movie when it comes to mental health issues and autism. Even more unfortunately, most of the worst things the film does on those fronts is in the interest of getting cheap laughs out of the audience.

Quite what possessed Fox and Shane Black to include Thomas Jane's Tourettes Syndrome sufferer Baxley as the butt of the joke really boggles the mind. It's 2018 and they use his genuine condition as if we're watching a carnival freakshow - the jokes all treat him with the same sort of dehumanising, morbid fascination.

That comes out in two ways, either "look at him he's ridiculous, let's laugh" - as is the case when his tic makes him say "f*ck me in the face with an aardvark" - or the gag is that he's said something disgusting to someone he shouldn't. At one point he unwittingly tells Casey that he would "eat her pussy," which she takes offence to. He tries to cover his tracks, as does the rest of his team, but all it does is reduces his condition to a punchline and makes Casey look ridiculous for not being aware of Tourettes Syndrome.