One of my favorite sight gags ever, which ought to give you an idea of just how elevated and refined my sense of humor is. From Parker and Stone’s Team America: World Police (2004), which My Lovely Wife had never seen, and we watched the other evening. Not only is it still pretty damn funny, but it clearly rendered the existence of Big Hollywood entirely redundant several years before that website was even conceived, which is quite a feat.
Kim Jong-Il by the way is a huge film buff and in fact wrote a book of film theory early on his life. He famously kidnapped a top South Korean film director and his actress wife and insisted on the two to make North Korean movies.
The war is out there, man, OUT THERE!
I never really found this film that funny, despite loving much of South Park. I’ve always thought that Parker and Stone’s feel for genre parody is a little too well-developed – they tend to ape what they’re mocking *so* well that all the flaws of their target are carried over intact. Their genre parodies often just consist of regurgitating the worst aspects of a genre in a slightly off-kilter way. Here, the action movie parody is too much of an easy target, and the humor is kind of inert as a result. That said, the “panthers” reveal was hilarious and the best part of the movie by far.
Much of this film is indeed funny – “Whut wuldjew dew for fuhraydom?” – and the panther/cats gag is definitely the funniest of the bunch, seconded, naturally, by the marvelous (and first-ever?) instance of super-marionation-ed porn.
But. Maybe I’m letting my pinko streak get the best of me, but the moral equivalence the lads try to achieve between “America, fuck yeah!” jingoism and Michael Moore/Alec Baldwin Hollywood liberalism seemed forced at best, wholly inaccurate at worst, especially during the run up to Bush’s second term when the film came out. This kind of dubious long-view, “pox on both your houses” Jibjab-esque parody arrives mostly, unfunnily defanged and generally tends to let the hegemon off the hook – Swift would’ve told us that satirizing from a strongly-held position is always most effective and isn’t it interesting how right-wing attempts at it always tend to fall flat. It’s hardly as though the left/social justice movements couldn’t stand to have their noses rubbed in their own standards/practices, and I’d have certainly welcomed more cutting lines like “We’ve got some quilting to do”…
Based on subsequent interviews – including one at, >gulp!, The AV Club, if I recall correctly… – it seems as though we won’t get many more Stone/Parker flicks soon, given how insufferable they found the process of making big-budget Hollywood films to be. Whatevs. If they keep making brilliantly shocking episodes of South Park like the recent “Oh, no, it’s the Japanese!” dolphincide one, I’ll be more than satisfied.
@James -
“It’s hardly as though the left/social justice movements couldn’t stand to have their noses rubbed in their own standards/practices”
Maybe you would have been cool with it, but I think you’re broadly incorrect to say that the majority of the left were cool with it. I’ve come across more than a few reactions from your side of the aisle that positively bristled at finding themselves the target of satire.
“isn’t it interesting how right-wing attempts at it always tend to fall flat.”
No more interesting than the fact that left-wing attempts fall just as flat. Political humor, as it’s practiced these days, is the lowest form of comedy. Easy, unsurprising, smug. Though I do love TEAM AMERICA (not incidentally, many of the best jokes in the film – the panthers, the gorilla story, the marionette-ness of it all – have nothing to do with politics) I tend to avoid political humor as much as I can, because the vast majority of it just ain’t funny.
I’m going to leave that moral equivelance line alone because…yeesh!
It’s interesting how this stuff works sometimes: my wife and I both adore Matt Damon, but still laughed our asses off at the completely gratuitous Damon running gag in the film. Funny is funny.
Bill – Oh, come on, don’t leave it at “yeesh”! We can can have an uncivil discourse online about our disagreements, can’t we? :} I don’t even understand what argument you’re trying to establish with such yeesh”-ing. I also don’t recall broadly (or narrowly) suggesting the left would have been cool, or otherwise, with anything. Just me, Jamie the Broad-Minded Bolshevik.
All I’ll say in re: right-wing parody is – where’s their funny? P.J. O’Rourke I esteem highly, though mostly for his so-long-ago-now NatLamp work as opposed to calling starving African refugee children “cute” (uh…ha? Ha?). Beyond him, what’ve ya got? I mean, did you actually watch that abysmal Joel Surnow-produced sub-Daily Show exercise in pathos masquerading as satire? It couldn’t even last on Fox News!
Meantime, regardless of however much you might disagree with their political slant (and Jon can regularly skew right, as when he laid into Jeremy Scahill about his Blackwater reportage, and subsequently/embarrassedly backpedalled months later), Stewart + Colbert regularly bat it out of the park week after week. When I hear something like Colbert’s blistering Kermit=Hitler nose-rubbing of the Big Hollywood blogger bloviating about “the Left attempting to undermine my authority” in re: “Pox News” on Sesame Street (“Nothing says ‘parental authority’ like propping your kids in front of the TV so you can blog about how TV is undermining your authority”) coming from the right, you can be sure I’ll laugh at it. I’ll be waiting, and not holding my breath…
& Glenn – Not to deny anyone a good harelip (much less Matt Damon) gag, but I truly never got that one. When has MD ever sounded like that?
Okay. The “yeesh” was because A) the “America F*** Yeah!” stuff, paired with the anti left-stuff has nothing whatsoever to do with moral equivelancy – they’re simply making fun of two different things in one movie. Odd, I know. B) I’m so used to the Left blowing a gasket about the “moral equivelancy” line being used against them that I was taken aback by someone such as yourself trying to deal that card yourself. You didn’t make it work, which might explain why that particular argument has been such a sticking point with you guys.
And perhaps you misunderstood me, but I never said that right-wing comedy was anything to get excited about. I said political comedy these days, full stop, is an empty hole these days. If you take “political comedy these days” to mean “Liberal comedy”, well, you probably have a point, but that’s not what I meant.
So I actually have no contemporary right-wing comedians/satirists to recommend to you. If you want to go back a few years, try Kingsley Amis. Few writers funnier than him have ever walked the earth.
Oh, by the way – if you think Jon Stewart regularly “skews right”, then you don’ define “right” the same way I do (well, obviously). And both Stewart and Colbert epitomize for me what sucks so bad about modern political comedy.
I certainly think Team America was miles above An American Carol, and I agree that their funniest gags were not political ones.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the film, but what did irk me about the bashing of actors-who-get-political is that it seemed to be chastizing people for, um, being politically-active. Hans Blix and the UN being inneffectual? Hilarious. That? Not so much.
But, again, I haven’t seen the film since it came out, and the election results of 2004 might have coloured the way I remember it.
@Mr. Keepnews: If I recall correctly, the creators said that when they made the puppet, it kept coming out “retarded-looking”. And so, they decided to make him sound “retarded” as well.
Bill – Fair enough, shake hands, good game. But, leaving aside your low opinion of Stewart/Colbert, look how far back in time we’re going to find funny righties. I mean, Kingsley fils is occasionally amusing, why, even when he daringly looks up from his drink to notice what a terible scourge Leninism was over a decade after its twilight and thereupon getting all j’accuse‑y wit it, to say nothing of his moral superiority over all us, what?, Saddam-coddlers? It’s funny, all right, albeit unintentionally.
I’m not personally that big on Colbert, but I think Stewart can be very funny and biting—- at media criticism. Not so much “political” humour, but at calling other channels to task for lax reporting. And I wish there was more of that and less correspondents making fun of people.
Aside from politics—I’m sort of unnerved at the visible similarity of the Team America still, the Powell-Pressburger still, and the Fantastic Mr Fox still, three movies I never would’ve put together before now. It seems to be Revel In Hypercolored Artificiality Week here at SCR.
Ed-
I agree with you that the story adheres almost too closely with that of what it parodies–except that the sight of marionettes playing the beats of a dumb action movie IS the comedy. No real jokes required.
Others-
As for the politics, I do remember certain irony-impaired critics, because of its Parker/Stone’s libertarian views, believing TA to be more a vicious parody of anti-war movie stars than of “fuck yeah” jingoism. This was during that magical period when some on the left thought that movie stars were the only hope in the PR campaign against war, and some on the right throught that aforementioned movie stars were the only “reasonable” anti-war voices being offered by the left. For a guy like myself, someone more inclined to the left, I felt that the mockery was spread pretty evenly. Also: why would a libertarian automatically favor the Irag War? That presumption, implied by several critics (not all named Edelstein), never made any sense.
Joel – Well, the “dicks fuck assholes” speech is sort of hard to misinterpret. Besides that, Stone and Parker have said something to the effect that “We hate concservatives, but we REALLY hate liberals.”
My argument re: “Team America“ ‘s politics is that they’re not really satirizing the left or right: they’re satirizing the EXCESSES of the left and the right. Once that snaps into place, I’ve found people on both sides of the aisle can enjoy it, because they realize it’s about the people on both sides who irritate them.
Political comedy is hard in the first place and rarely funny, either from the left or the right (and it’s interesting how many comedians, both lefty and righty, prefer to avoid the topic entirely). Look up jokes about any President and notice they’re about the President’s influence, or lack thereof, on current events, but they’re usually curiously apolitical. An example:
Three doctors are drinking at a bar. The first doctor, a Frenchman, says: “I transplanted a new liver, and the patient was looking for work in three months.”
The second doctor, an Englishman, says: “That’s nothing. I transplanted a new heart, and the patient was looking for work in three weeks!”
The third doctor, an American says: “I’ve got you all beat, fellas. We transplanted an asshole from Hollywood to the White House, and half the nation was looking for work the next day!”
See what I mean? It’s a Reagan joke but that punchline could just as easily be “Texas to the White House” or “Illinois to the White House” and it’d still work.
Personally, I think Stewart and Colbert are two of the funniest guys on TV right now. It certainly helps that I’m a leftie of sorts (I’m among those generally dismayed at the simplicity of the infotainment left/right dichotomy, and expect I’m in good company here…)
As far as Parker/Stone go – Team America was diverting for the most part, although I’ve never been a huge fan of their TV or their movies. Politically, they’re practitioners of the “libertarianism as cynical political opportunism” school, which is too bad, since they seem like smart guys.
So I wasn’t bugged by the pot-shots at leftist movie stars, although I don’t think said stars are nearly as dangerous or excessive as the “America Fuck Yeah” ethos.
I think TA has brilliant moments and stupid moments, but its flaws for me have less to do with whatever its politics might be than with the fac that Parker and Stone seem made for the 22-minute (or so) format. South Park works because the shorter running time lets their visual jokes and one-liners bounce off each other without concern for how it’s going to sustain and develop. In TA, the attack on/rescue of Paris, the “montage” scene, the puppet sex is all really funny, but there are some real dry stretches in-between, at least for me.
For me, the dicks vs assholes speech summarized what so often goes wrong with Parker & Stone. They can be (and have) a lot of fun as sneering satirists, but every so often they throw in an earnest, lay-everything-out speech, which usually reveals that their politics are commonsensical, which is to say shallow and dumb. I still remember getting to the end of the Goobacks episode of South Park, which they seem to have considered as posing a brilliant, insoluble dilemma, and thinking “Well, yeah guys, that’s why everyone who isn’t a libertarian thinks there should be a minimum wage and unions.”
Worse than the actual politics expressed is the sudden swerve into Carpa-esque preachiness, which retrospectively renders a drag all that came before. The dicks and assholes speech is full of naughtiness, but it’s still a Big Speech that tells you in no uncertain terms What The World Is Like, which is to say it’s the kind of thing that should have been cut several drafts ago.
This horrifically marred most mid-period South Park as well (when Stan’s “I learned something today…” monologues suddenly stopped being jokes), and was especially bad during the years when Reason magazine was inviting them to speak at every conference and generally treating them like the Isiah Berlins of fratboy libertarianism.
Fuzzy, have you ever seen an action movie? Do you even remember how that speech was set up by the movie in the first place? While I have no doubt the basic idea behind the speech is at least somewhat reflective of their beliefs, its primary function is decidedly as a joke.
Fuzzy B – “Isiah Berlins of fratboy libertarianism”! Well typed, sir. It’s funny, ’cause it’s true…and, maybe, also, because they sort of are. The way Ron Paul, I don’t know, Penn Jillete aren’t.
@ James—I concur with your assessment of Fuzzy B.‘s coinage. Say what you will of their politics, Parker and Stone were definitely more fun back in the late ’90s, when they’d do things like sponsor porn-themed parties at Sundance and hang around the AVN Awards dropping acid with Xplor media moguls Farrell and Moffett Timlake. (The latter being an observational detail that didn’t make the final cut of David Foster Wallace’s “Big Red Son,” FWIW.)
@ Dan: Yeah, I understand that structurally, the speech functions as a joke, just like Stan’s speeches did. The problem was that at a certain point, the text of the speeches became heartfelt. Instead of satirizing the conventions of action movies (or, in South Park’s case, sitcoms), they succumbed to them, and in the worst, most preachy way. Basically, what Ed Howard said way upthread—they lost the courage of their nihilistic convictions and started wanting to tell us How It Is.
My favourite joke in the movie is a line which comes right at the end of the fade-out in the ‘Montage’ song:
“Seems like more time has passed if you fade out a montage … ”
I think SOUTH PARK is funnier when they stick to character stuff– I think Butters and Cartman are two creatures for the ages, ones who will be remembered years after the show has gone off the air. And I think their first film, CANNIBAL: THE MUSICAL, is something special and it’s certainly worth seeking out if you haven’t seen it already. (And, hey, Stan Brakhage is in it.)
Dan’s point that a lot of political humour is weirdly apolitical rings true with me, though I think whether or not someone finds it “funny” depends precisely on which President or whatever is the butt of the joke. I was raised as a Republican and conservative– and not the polite, intelligent kind of conservative such as Bill, but rather the Moral Majority/Religious Right gay-bashing kind that was convinced Bill Clinton was running drugs through Arkansas and murdering his enemies. And, at that time, jokes about Clinton and welfare recipients were hilarious and jokes about Republicans were not.
To make a long story short, I converted in my early twenties and am now what the South Park boys would call “a liberal hippie douche”. Now, jokes about Republicans are funny and jokes about Democrats are not. Well, okay– there are jokes about Democrats that are funny, many of them cracked on, well, the Daily Show.
My point, and I think I do have one, is that it’s often hard to laugh when you think you and yours are the butt of the joke. Unless you’re Polish; we seem to have a sense of humour about the whole “change a lightbulb” thing.
Wait, Tom, you guys have learned how to change lightbulbs now? Damn, times DO change.
Stone and Parker are never as funny or clever as they think they are. Then again, I feel that way about Stewart and Colbert, whose shtick is unbearably one note now, Andy Borowitz reverse irony.
The “Matt Damon!!” gag gets me every time. Brilliant.
@Fuzzy
So, basically you’ve just admitted that you understand it’s a joke, but you read into it that it’s sincere. In short, it’s not important what they actually intended (a joke), but rather what you yourself read into it (a political polemic).
Wouldn’t it just have been simpler to say: “I don’t agree with the politics behind the joke, so I don’t find it funny?”