Senator Andrew Bartlett
Monday, January 03, 2005
 
"Team America" backs Conservatism??
**LANGUAGE WARNING: IT JUST WASN’T POSSIBLE TO WRITE THIS PIECE WITHOUT USING RUDE WORDS, SO PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS POSTING CONTAINS LANGUAGE THAT YOU MAY FIND OFFENSIVE**

In an amazing coincidence in last Sundays newspapers, two columnists - Andrew Bolt( "See? I Was Right" ) and Miranda Devine ( "Revolutionaries whinge as the wheel turns full circle" ) - both wrote articles claiming that the puppet movie "Team America - World Police" is a validation and vindication of Conservative politics! This is the movie my staff and I went to see to celebrate the end of the year - (which I wrote about here on Dec 22). As I noted there, I very much enjoyed this movie. It pokes ferocious fun at just about everybody without taking itself very seriously and provides a vehicle for lots of swearing, toilet humour, vomit jokes, and sex.

Astonishingly, Miranda Devine also appears to suggest that the movies final scene is an indication that the world needs the USA to save us from terrorist assholes, even if they are reckless, arrogant, stupid dicks. For the benefit of those of you who haven’t seen the movie, this is because the rest of us who aren’t dicks, are pussies (or assholes). If you want to read the speech from this scene (which I alluded to in my posting of 22 Dec) it's at the top of the page if you click here. (WARNING: contains LOTS of rude words.)

I know it's the season to be jolly and all that, so I guess Bolt and Devine were both just having a bit of end of year fun with their columns, but I still think you must be a bit desperate if you're grabbing onto Team America (or any movie for that matter) so you can claim that youth counter-culture is now backing your argument!

I've always found the South Park guys (who wrote Team America) to be quite good at poking fun at all sides, whilst often being a bit understanding as well. I remember an episode on the subject of child molesting by Catholic priests that I thought actually managed to be simultaneously damning and sympathetic to priests - no small feat. They did something similar with Mormons and I think they've done it with Team America for both pinko, lefty peaceniks and for gun-totin', neo-Conservative meatheads.

What I find particularly amusing is that this is the same Andrew Bolt who wrote a column condemning the music on the Rock Against Howard CD, quoting various swear words in some of the lyrics to back his claim that the left is "festering in flesh-melting reason-rotting hate".

As Andrew Bolt is claiming Team America backs Conservatism, it’s worth looking at the lyrics of the movie theme song to see how it accords with the Conservative uncritically pro-American ideology (not to mention a conservative way of expressing it). It sure beats anything on Rock Against Howard for rude words (not that there’s anything wrong with that)

I hate pigeonholing people in ideological straightjackets more than most people, but I must say I never thought Id be seeing self-proclaimed Conservatives claiming a movie that tells you to "lick my butt and suck on my balls" as a Conservative standard bearer!

I read on the Web that the South Park Movie by the same people had 399 swear words. I don't know if anyone has counted the number of "F***s", "S***s", C***s and C***s in Team America, but I'd be pretty sure it would go way over the 400 mark. The theme song (which is used at least 3 times in the movie from memory) contains about 35 fucks on its own, so that’s over 100 just with part of the backing music.

PS: In another display of what I can only assume is Christmas humour (or overpowering chutzpah), Andrew Bolt also laments that it can get pretty lonely as a conservative columnist! It seems to me that the Conservative cheer squad amongst Australia’s newspaper columnists (let alone newspaper editors) is bigger than it's been for decades. Maybe he's the type of guy that feels lonely in a crowd.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Monday, January 03, 2005
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