MOVIES: Team America: World Police

Team America: World Police wasn't nearly as funny as Trey Parker & Matt Stone's last film, South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut, and, in my eyes, nowhere near as offensive, but a lot more people seem to be taking offense to this one. I imagine it's because Team America targets liberals more explicitly than Parker & Stone usually do, making liberals think that the two of them are revealing themselves to be conservative Bush supporters. Which, #1, I doubt is true, and #2, even if it is, this movie can hardly be used to prove it. So they make Michael Moore, Alec Baldwin, and a host of other outspoken liberal actors out to be idiots, dupes, even traitors. Keep in mind that it's within a movie whose entire premise is an attack on the conservative cowboy mentality that has America invading countries on a whim and a lie. Parker & Stone and this film aren't too conservative -- they're even-handed in their satire, which apparently pisses a lot of folks off.

Roger Ebert, in his one-star review of the film, claims it is too even-handed, and cites his inability to pin down the film's political POV as a reason to dislike the film.

If I were asked to extract a political position from the movie, I'd be baffled. It is neither for nor against the war on terrorism, just dedicated to ridiculing those who wage it and those who oppose it.... I wasn't offended by the movie's content so much as by its nihilism. At a time when the world is in crisis and the country faces an important election, the response of Parker, Stone and company is to sneer at both sides -- indeed, at anyone who takes the current world situation seriously.

Now, I like Ebert, and I'm a liberal. But: what a load of liberal horseshit. He's mad the movie didn't make its politics more clear? Yeah, right. Do you think he would've liked it better if it had been more clearly pro-Bush? Not in a million years. No, he simply hates the movie because it doesn't only attack the conservatives, but offers equal criticism of the flaws on both sides.

And I'm all right with that, even if Ebert is not. Because, above and beyond the politics, this movie is funny. I said it wasn't as funny as South Park, but it certainly had a great number of huge laughs. From the ridiculous Arab "disguise" new Team America recruit Gary dons, to the hilarious songs (like "Pearl Harbor Sucked and I Miss You" or Kim Jong Il's "I'm So Ronery" or the Team's oft-repeated theme song, "America -- Fuck, Yeah!"), to the absurdly ultra-violent demises of Tim Robbins, Janeane Garofalo, Samuel L. Jackson and friends, to Gary's endless drunken vomiting, to, yes, the infamous puppet sex scene (prefaced by this great exchange between Lisa, whose fiancee was killed by terrorists, and Gary: "If you could promise me you'll never die, I would make love to you right now." "I promise I will never die"), I was laughing almost constantly.

Regarding that sex scene: the ratings board are morons. This scene had to be resubmitted, what, twelve times before they would lower the rating from NC-17? I can't imagine what was cut, but what's in the movie is no more graphic than bumping a naked Ken doll and Barbie doll together. It's hilarious to see the different crazy positions they take -- but NC-17 level offensive? Not even close. They don't even have any naughty bits. (Maybe that's what got cut.)

And of course, there's the end soliloquy by Gary, in which he puts the world into three categories: pussies, dicks, and assholes, with assholes being the terrorists, dicks being the Team America cowboys, and pussies being those who think we can all just talk our differences out. I think this is what has offended the most people, and I can see why. It's a foolish over-simplification, and it seems to suggest all diplomatic efforts are worthless, and all war is justified. Seems to suggest, I say, because, call me crazy, but I'm not willing to take a strictly literalist view of a marionette comedy (even if Parker & Stone have parroted the same over-simplification in interviews). And, again, even if Parker & Stone believe every syllable of it, it doesn't really faze me, because it's still funny in the way it's phrased, and the movie as a whole is still funny.

I didn't go to Team America: World Police to be told how to vote, to bolster my political views, or to change my way of thinking. I went to laugh, and I did. Mission accomplished!