Puppet Government

The creators of South Park put in their $1.05 for freedom

Brian Doherty | October 12, 2004

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Still, given its overall tone and plot, the movie could well be imagined as insidious propaganda softening up Americans for a pre-emptive strike on North Korea. (In a strange move whose meaning for the movie I'm not entirely sure of, neither George W. Bush, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Al Queda, nor the current situations in Iraq or Afghanistan are ever referred to specifically—random Arabs and North Koreans are the villains.) Just as Casablanca could be seen as a war-waging America's excuse to itself for the isolationism that preceded it—you knew all along that crusty ol' Bogie would eventually stick his neck out for others—so might this one be seen as explaining to ourselves that, no matter how much we destroy along the way, the world needs our unbridled might.

But, you know, probably not. To say that there is anything important or inspirational or educational about all this high silliness would be to its creators perhaps as faux-insulting as calling Bogie a big softie—he'd tell you to go to hell, you're nuts. But deep down inside, you'd think you knew where he was really coming from. The movie certainly doesn't make figuring that out easy for you, if authorial intent even matters here. Though the creators might want us to think hard about the fact that, as one of their songs goes, "freedom isn't free/there's a hefty fucking fee," it's hard to take it seriously when the song informs you grimly that that fee is an absurdly specific "buck o-five." Maybe the creators did just want to indulge in the purely destructive comic joy of forcing puppets into oral sex and reconstructive surgery and showing Tim Robbins being burned alive.

Still, when their conflicted Team America newcomer wants to quit, declaring that "I don't want the fucking power, guilt, shame, responsibility" that comes with being part of Team America, I'd like to think that a significant number of Americans will be cheering along with "America! Fuck Yeah!" But as a whole the movie pisses merrily on all sides of the debate, designed to foil any didact's wishes. Every detail, no matter what "side" it seems to be supporting in the foreign policy debate, makes that side seem ultimately absurd, which may be the biggest truth about geopolitics a filmmaker can tell.