Team America:

Saving the World

Explosions, Kung Fu fights, car chases – and everything is acted out by wooden puppets. Action that could be the work of Producer Jerry Bruckheimer ("Armageddon", "Pearl Harbor", etc.) – except you can see the puppets' strings in almost every scene.

That is "Team America", the newest film by the South Park guys Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

Terrorists want to destroy the Free World (TM) with Weapons of Mass Destruction and only the incredibly well armed yet innocent boys and girls of "Team America" can stop them! This "World Police" (Logo: an American eagle with the globe in its beak) dashes around the world killing anyone who wears a turban.

The viewer is transported into the head of George W. Bush. One sees the world through imperialist eyes: every muslim hates freedom and speaks like this: "Dirka Dirka Mohammed Jihad." Every actor who criticizes the government is working under direct orders from North Korean dictator Kim Sung Il to destroy america with atom bombs.

Thus war is presented the way that George is familiar with: no famines, no mass graves, no mutilated children. No, war is just smiling puppets with neato technology, like in a children's TV show from the 60s. War is fun!

As in all Parker-Stone epics, the goal is to offend Christian-dominated public opinion as brutally as possible: a four-minute puppet sex scene (perhaps we should mention that the puppets don't have genitals!) was cut down to 30 seconds by the censor.

Of course there are endless cheap jokes: the movie star association is called "F.A.G." and Matt Damon doesn't say anything but "Matt Daaaaaamon."

But like in South Park THe Movie, behind the jokes is a genius' criticism of society. The first scene: after Team America, on the hunt for terrorists in Paris, reduces the city to burning rubble, they say: "Bonjour everyone. It's OK! We stopped the terrorists." The bloody French people – like the Afghans or Iraqis in real life – are too shocked by this naivete to call back "Go fuck yourselves!"

//by Huey from Berlin-Kreuzberg
//German original in REVOLUTION #9
//more stuff in English from REVOLUTION Germany