Film Review by Andrew Jackson

Team America: World Police

Produced by the creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone

I have a confession, I've done something politically unsound. 
Perhaps I'm a victim of peer pressure, perhaps it was a momentary 
lapse of judgement. Or perhaps I'm the product of a generation 
that was brought up fed on TV sex and violence and toilet 
humour.

Whatever the reason.

I went into a cinema, handed over $14, and sat through Team 
America: World Police.

(Actually, the real reason I went is because I loved the movie 
South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, went to see it three 
times, and to this day sing the catchy ditties to myself as I do 
the housework.)

But I'm more politically astute now, and I should have known 
better.

Rob Gowland has warned us time and again in Worth Watching: South 
Park is "An annoying mixture of right-and left-wing 
attitudes, the series presumably reflects the typically confused 
politics of the young anarchists who make it, and their belief 
that bad taste is "radical".

Actually, I think Rob was too kind.

If Left Wing Communism is an "Infantile Disorder", then 
middle-class American anarchism is the political equivalent of a 
baby in a soiled nappy.

South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone like to 
think of themselves above politics and to prove the point they 
take aim and ridicule at not only the "American way", George W 
Bush, and the American Defence Forces which violate and plunder 
the earth (which is all great), but also the American liberal 
celebrities who worked tirelessly during the recent US election 
campaign to get rid of George W and stop the rape and plunder 
from happening. Helen Hunt, Sean Penn, Samuel L Jackson, Alec 
Baldwin, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon and the arch-nemesis of 
right-wing corporate America — Michael Moore — are all 
ridiculed for their activism and branded as pro-terrorism.

The reason these celebrities were targeted was because they dared 
stand up during the election campaign and proclaim the slogan: 
"Get educated on the issues, form an opinion, then go out and 
vote".

They did not want, nor expect, the youth of America to blindly go 
out and vote for Kerry — in a country where voting is optional 
they know that you would never get people into the polling booths 
that way.

Instead Michael Moore trod the path of a foot-soldier of the 
revolution, from city to city, called mass-meetings in basketball 
stadiums and through a mixture of humour, drama and hyperbole 
educated the amassed youth.

He provided them with all the information they were denied in the 
mainstream press. There were big video screens to provide moving 
pictures for the semi-literate, there were pamphlets and 
literature for those who could read but who have been 
deliberately intellectually retarded by the US education system.

He did not tell them to vote, he made them want to vote.

Team America is the antithesis of this.

During the recent election campaign Trey Parker and Matt Stone 
put forward the slogan: "If you don't have an opinion, don't 
vote".

This kind of "anarchism" encourages selfish, petty-bourgeois 
individualism of the worst kind. The result? Another generation 
of self-absorbed, apathetic American youth, pumped up on 
caffeine, glued to the TV eating microwave pizza, with a "F*** 
you" attitude to the outside world.

And this is exactly what the ruling class wants — Bush and his 
spinmeisters couldn't have come up with a better campaign 
themselves!

And movies like Team America: Wold Police fit very nicely 
into their masterplan.

Don't see this film. Don't let your children see this film (lock 
them up if necessary!).

Get off the couch, throw out the junk food, spend your $14 on 
Mike Moore's latest book and join the fight against fascism.

Really, it's so much more satisfying.