August 14, 2004
POP CULTURE/POLITICS: Axis of Puppets
This movie, from the creators of “South Park”, looks like it may potentially be very funny:
[T]he idea of "Team America: World Police" was born, a film which follows an international police force dedicated to maintaining global stability. The story follows Gary Johnston, a rising Broadway star who's reluctantly recruited by "Team America" to go undercover and expose the power hungry North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il who's brokering a deal to sell weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. Along the way they must fight enemies on all sides (including a group of Hollywood liberals such as Alec Baldwin, Liv Tyler, Matt Damon, George Clooney and more) to stop the bad guys, and traverse the globe across Paris, Cairo, Panama, South Dakota and Korea to do battle.
I also love the part about how this film went forward only after Stone and Parker’s lawyers vetoed an idea for a “scene-by-scene movie based on this Summer's environmental disaster action epic ‘The Day After Tomorrow’.”
This article has more:
Team America is being criticized as yet another broadside against U.S. President George W. Bush from Hollywood liberals. But a key conceit of the Paramount Pictures movie, which is essentially an action film made with sophisticated marionettes visiting exotic locations, is that it depicts left-leaning show business élites as selfish and superficial.
Among the many prominent activists who may be shown in a less-than-flattering Team America light are Ben Affleck and Fahrenheit 9/11 filmmaker Michael Moore. Says Parker: "We only went after people who at least invited it."
Partisans on either side should generally avoid falling into the trap of condemning movies that haven’t either opened or even been seriously reviewed, especially ones like this which haven’t obviously tipped their hand as to their message. Again, it is worth remembering that the politics of “South Park” are unpredictable and not easily categorized.