America, 'F' Yeah

Did my patriotic duty this weekend by watching a pirated video version of 'Team America, World Police' (fuck yeah indeed).

I don't know if it's just because I expect good things from Trey Parker and Matt Stone or what, but I thought it was just OK. Sure, it had a couple of funny bits (the montage about montages was good.) and the puppet sex scene does not 'disappoint'.

Overall, however, it was just a fairly well executed set of pretty predictable jokes aimed at action movies, patriotic rednecks and 'the Film Actor's Guild' or F.A.G. (insert Beavis and Butthead laugh here). I'm still not sure if in 3 years, I'll even be able to remember if I saw this movie or not.

But back to the Film Actor's Guild part of the movie. This is the section I was 'warned' about because as I was told by some douchebag conservative young republican, "liberals probably won't like this movie because it makes fun of actors and Michael Moore.". Having now seen it, I can confirm that that particular douchebag was also a complete idiot. Why is it that republicans have such a hard time wrapping their tiny little minds around the concept of satire? Make fun of Jesus Christ or Bill O'Reilly and they get angry and protest, but make fun of Sean Penn and Michael Moore and not only is it hilarious, but they believe that those stupid humorless liberals will probably be offended by it. When has the reverse not been true? No matter how many 'South Park Republicans' there are, the GOP will continue to be the party that doesn't get a joke unless it involves someone falling down or someone crushing a watermelon with a mallet.

The only people who honestly believe that liberals will be offended by Team America must first make the unbelievable leap to believe that liberals think that celebrities and political activists are as sacred to them as Jesus is to the right. How dare they say Michael Moore would actually strap dynamite to himself to blow up Americans! How dare they say Alec Baldwin and Tim Robbins would fire machine guns on American citizens to ensure Kim Jong Il's safety! Why, next they'll imply that Hillary Clinton uses witchcraft to turn children into lesbians and Howard Dean burns down churches. I can't possibly react rationally to these jokes because I worship these people as infallible gods. It says a lot more about the right's jingoistic, unquestioning belief of everything Rush Limbaugh shoves down their throat than it does about their sense of humor.

I'd love to give Parker and Stone a lot of credit for making a movie that reaches across the aisle to offend everyone, but it doesn't. Unfortunately Team America only succeeds in emboldening pea-brained shit-heads who don't see anything wrong with the other 80% of the movie when the Team is jingoistically destroying the rest of the world while singing 'America, fuck yeah!'.

I wouldn't strap dynamite to yourself and walk into Blockbuster to see Team America, but if a bootleg copy falls into your lap, check it out.