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So we're starting to pay attention to the blog again.

This week we had Karoline Hatch from SF Liberation Radio

and a review of Team America.

The text of the review follows. Audio will be here soon.

Team America review .. read on KALX Sunday night 10/17/04.

Last night I had the pleasure of attending the new movie by South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker with a couple of friends of mine who happened to be 13 and 14 years old. The movie “Team America” help a lot of promise in my mind, but failed miserably in delivering.

Before the movie started my 13 year old friend Gary leaned over with a devlish grin and reminded me to make sure my cell phone was turned off. I pulled the cell phone out of my pocket and found that not only had I left my phone on, but I had just received a text message. It wasn’t long until I had opened the phone and read Gary’s message to me. One word … “F-a-r-t-o-p-I-a”  Fartopia. The keynote for the evening was set.

As funny as it might have been just then to hear me describe that moment, let’s put it into context. For the last few months… whenever Gary gets a notion to, he sends me a one word text message. Choice messages read “boogers” , “crap”, “craptacular”, “poop”, and “fart”. Fartopia was definitely expanding on an established theme, but I wouldn’t have called it insightful or even really all that amusing .. at the time.

“Team America” does not even reach the level of innovation and inventiveness that Gary did when he thought to use the word Fartopia instead of the shorter and more succinct “fart”.

In fact, I debated with myself as to whether I wanted to bother addressing my experience of the movie. In the course of the 2 hours that we sat in the movie I felt myself begin to doze off no less than twice ……

That hasn’t happened to me in a theater since I was in college and had to sit through 5 hour avant garde epics after any number of over -indulgences the night before.

The problem with “Team America: World Police” Is that it never seems to have much of a point of view….. and when it does have a point of view, it’s offensive. Not offensive in a way that would inspire me to call for a boycott, though. “Team America” is offensive in a boring and predictable way that makes me want to take a nap instead of watching the movie.

In their previous effort “South Park : Bigger. Longer, Uncut”, Stone and Parker had moments of insightful commentary: like the portrayal of the all black unit in the Army deployed to undertake “Operation: Human Shield”, or shooting Bill Gates in the head multiple times for his expressions of technological colonialism. These brief moments took a point of view that was crucial to being able to appreciate these movies.

In “Team America” the few places where a point of view is clear are in it’s homophobia. It’s mockery of the musical “Rent” and AIDS politics in general would lack humor even if it were more deserving subject matter. The fascination that Parker and Stone have for referring to all Actors and actresses that come out against the war as FAGs (an abbreviation for Film Actor’s Guild) leaves one to wonder what Trey Parker and Matt Stone might be trying to hide about their own close collaboration.

Beyond these attacks, everything else is quite surface. Team America is clumsy when it destroys the Eifel Tower and the Arc d’Triumph hunting down terrorists in France, but in the end it just one of those things, because the real vitriol is saved for those who would block Team America in it’s attempts at World policing. The UN is ineffectual because they aren’t violent enough. Michael Moore is mocked more for being overweight and against the war than because of any of his arguments against the war. In fact, the directors have him blow himself up as a suicide bomber before there would be any chance of developing a suitable parody of his ideas. These guys seem to have missed the nature of Michael Moore’s primary conceit. That he is much too convinced of his own importance to ever consider sacrificing himself for the greater good. 

Thinking about it now, the movie might have been funnier if Parker and Stone had chosen to make Michael Moore the evil villain for their movie instead of the caricature of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il that they did eventually use.  Using Kim Jong Il, their criticism leans heavily on jokes around asian accents, an incredibly easy target, like Michael Moore’s weight. 

And that is why Michael Moore could never be the evil villain here, because this movie was clearly about the most shallow observations that could be made, largely in defense of, U.S. Imperialism. Giving Michael Moore enough screen time to be the villain would have required “Team America” s directors to be a little more direct about their right wing leanings than it seems they are prepared to do. Stone and Parker would have had to listen enough to Moore’s arguments to be able to parody them and then they would have had to give an ideological response.  However funny that could still be, they’re either not quite ready to give up completely on their liberal demographic or not quite smart enough to counter even Michael Moore’s arguments. Instead, they just call Moore and all his Hollywood friends fags and flesh out the remaining hour and 45 minutes with fart jokes.

My 13 year old friend Gary still doesn't seem to understand why I didn't like it.

Posted by lee at October 17, 2004 06:37 PM
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