Fuckin’ awful. Misguided, unfunny, overlong. Let’s count the ways in which this movie blew:
1. There aren’t any jokes. Well, maybe one genuine joke every fifteen minutes. The rest of the “hilarity” is supposed to come from a) knowing winks about genre conventions (ie, the “montage” montage ) But just pointing out that you know about conventions doesn’t make it funny yet. b) cursing. Big fucking whoop. c) juxtaposing puppets with violence and sex. None of this is actually funny. I snickered when they blew up the pyramids, and the “AIDS” musical number was slightly humorous, but that was about it.
2. It’s offensive right-wing crap. Yeah, I know Parker/Stone’s bread and butter is “being offensive.” They probably think it’s “extreme satire.” But it’s not satire unless you actually have a point. If I understood this movie correctly (we fastforwarded the second half) then the real villians are actors (F.A.G.s, get it?) and the likes of Michael Moore because they’re pussies and it takes balls to deal with terrorist assholes. Well, isn’t that what the President has been saying all along? So either Parker/Stone are a bunch of neocon dickweeds who are happily making Rove’s propaganda for him (Moore as suicide bomber…?), or they’re just profoundly misguided. Either way, they should stay the hell away from political satire.
I found the way the real-life actors were treated and dispatched especially offensive. It’s admirable, in fact, that Sean Penn went to Iraq–so where’s the joke in having him repeat that? Janine Garofalo is a courageous citizen, actress or not, and to blow the top of her head off for laughs is simply vicious.
If I’d paid any money whatsoever for this movie, I’d be genuinely upset… but I suppose Parker/Stone would count that as a victory because they “pushed my buttons.” Yeah whatever. The sad truth is that if it weren’t for the button-pushing, they wouldn’t know how to make anything that’s not utterly, devastatingly boring.
And now I’m deleting whatever South Park I had left on the DVR.
Team America: World Police. Trey Parker, 2004. *Â
There is a camp of conservatives that loves Parker/Stone, and has co-opted them so to speak (the hate crime episode is a favorite). But I don’t think they ever choose sides. They are equal opportunity offendors. On the one hand, the actors are an extremely privileged group who haven’t done enough. I mean what is this Mr. and Mrs. Smith B.S? It’s a gun orgy that makes high powered automatic weapons sexy. And Jolie and Pitt are supposed to be among the most liberal of the bunch. They care about the genocide in Chad and shit like that. Give me a fucking break.
I didn’t like Team America either, but more because it’s never really very funny. I tried not to let it offend me but I also got a little ticked at how the actors were made into easy targets, as was the UN. I don’t care if they make fun of actors, but when it becomes MOSTLY what Parker/Stone do for laughs, that’s when it feels a bit much. I wasn’t offended by the blowjob but it was certainly put in the film to offend. I also wasn’t offended by the depiction of Kim Jung Il, though it was downright racist. So it’s the kind of stupid movie that resists critique and you’re better off if you don’t care.
But like Andrew Dice Clay, who once made a living offending people, the reaction is what’s interesting. Dice Clay was one of the most popular comic acts of all time. He sold out stadiums. And young boys all around the country were repeating lines about Little Miss Muffet and the punch line was always something unfunny that depended on a mysoginistic pose.
Team America is rated somewhere around 4 1/2 stars on Netflix. No one is saying it’s a load of crap. I don’t doubt that there are plenty of young kids who think it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever seen and liberals are all a bunch of pussies.
I can also see why the sex scene was going to get it an NC-17 rating and had to be cut. It’s over the top but Parker/Stone were extremely defensive about it. They are used to being able to do whatever they want. I have to say that some of the best South Park episodes are also the most offensive. At times they are able to pull off stuff that is both creative and absolutely disgusting at the same time. But they also whip shit up really quickly, as evidenced by the fact that they often have a South Park episode that responds to something in the pop culture that only happened a few days before. I get that feeling with Team America too. Despite the elaborate sets, I doubt they spent too much time thinking about that movie.
So you can’t win. You really want to just ignore it and say it ain’t important but you can’t. Both you and I went on way to long about a bunch of sophomoric potty jokes and that makes us uptight blowhards. It does it’s damage but it’s just plain stupid and it makes you look stupid when you take it seriously. You can’t win.
That’s pretty much exactly what AO Scott said:
Of course Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone are joking — what else is new? — but like most good jokers, they also mean exactly what they say. Clever comedians that they are, they have also rigged “Team America” with an ingenious anti-critic device, which I find myself unable to defuse. Much as it may pretend otherwise, the movie has an argument, but if you try to argue back, the joke’s on you.
Not sure I quite understand that, though. I’m not talking about the bodily function humor, I’m talking about how it’s supposed to be funny when gov’t agents kill people who disagree with them. So what if it’s done with ridiculous puppets–it’s still fascist.
I think you’re precisely right that they try to offend everybody, but that’s because it appears to be the one reflex they have. It’s the only thing they know how to do. Fair enough… but like AO Scott says, there weren’t any Bush, Cheney, or Condi Rice puppets, and I didn’t see Ann Coulter or Bill O’Reilly, either.
This was a movie about how America still kicks ass, even though a bunch of sissy liberals are whining about it. But they’re secretly in cahoots with the terrorists anyway and they deserve to be chopped, gutted, shot, and splattered. I don’t see how doing this under the guise of “satire” makes it any more palpable, or “critic-proof.”
Crap is crap.
Don’t say I didn’t warn ya!
I agree that this isn’t funny (again, except for the AIDS song. . .and the puking) but don’t negate South Park. The 30 minute format is where they shine and they sock it to the right on South Park plenty. Queue up the episode that took place in Afghanistan as Bush tried to get all of America’s children to send $1 over there.
I think you might be reaciting a little too sensitively to the right wing aspect in Team America. I believe it was certainly the intention to make BOTH sides look like fools. You may just be too in the arguement to accept any criticism of your (correct) side — especially when the criticism is on the order of “pacifists are gay.” (NB — you hear W. today calling Amnesty International “absurd”? That’s all he could say, absurd, absurd, absurd.)
Anyway, don’t lose sight that Team America, a movie I did not like, I’d like to again point out, did have a number of moments pointing out the Yahoo-ism, Top Gun BS of the American military. To someone on the right, the “America, Fuck Yeah!” song, or the nonchelant way the Louvre is destroyed is as offensive as Janeane Garofalo’s head being blown up to you.
. . . .well, I take that back about the Louvre. Those idiots probably think the nudes in there are Satanic porn.
Well yeah, I’m sensitive (isn’t that a prerequisite for a critic?), but where does Team America point out Yahooism? It shows jingoists, sure, but that’s not the same as endorsing their execution. They’re the heroes,after all, and showing stuff isn’t satire. “America, Fuck Yeah!” is over the top, but I get the feeling that they mean it–I don’t see any indication otherwise. And like you say, the Louvre doesn’t count; that’s played for laughs.
I don’t think they’re making the right look like fools. Yes, “pacifists are gay” isn’t exactly salient critcism, but people opposing the war on terra are the villains, and they’re all killed for laughs. The heroes are good ol’ American shitkickers, and I don’t see them being ridiculed, at least not beyond “they’re kinda corny.” In the end, Paker/Stone side with the patriots, even if they sometimes go overboard and blow up world monuments.
My vote is still for “not just bad but reprehensible.” It’s propaganda, no matter how hip the packaging. Worst movie since Passion of the Christ.