"To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing,
if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"
-- Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 1803

Sunday, October 17, 2004

I just got back from seeing Team America, and I definitely want to blog on it.  However, I don’t wait to spoil the movie for anyone who hasn’t seen it, so I’m going to try to keep any references to the content of the movie to a minimum.  And I’m going to do something a little different than my usual movie reviews: I’m going to review it in the context of fisking Roger Ebert’s ridiculous review of the film.  Ebert gave it 1 out of 4 stars.  By way of comparison he geve Fahrenheit 9/11 3 1/2 stars.  Ebert is a rabid leftie, and in addition to his regular film reviews he also writes columns giving his opinion on the issues of the day.  You need to keep this in mind, because it’s essential to understanding Ebert’s mindset when critically analyzing his review.

Opposing Team America is the Film Actors’ Guild, or F.A.G., ho, ho, with puppets representing Alec Baldwin, Tim Robbins, Matt Damon, Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn (who has written an angry letter to Parker and Stone about their comments, in Rolling Stone, that there is “no shame” in not voting). No real point is made about the actors’ activism; they exist in the movie essentially to be ridiculed for existing at all, I guess. Hans Blix, the U.N. chief weapons inspector, also turns up, and has a fruitless encounter with the North Korean dictator. . . . If I were asked to extract a political position from the movie, I’d be baffled. It is neither for nor against the war on terrorism, just dedicated to ridiculing those who wage it and those who oppose it. The White House gets a free pass, since the movie seems to think Team America makes its own policies without political direction.

Is there any doubt that if this were a two-hour Bush bashing fest Ebert would have found it a brilliant piece of political satire?  Ebert, who is usually pretty astute when it comes to these sort of things, is so blinded by his political opinions that he missed the entire point of the film.  Team America represents America itself, Roger.  This point is so blatantly obvious that only Ebert’s willful ignorance can explain his inability to see it. 

During the end scene in North Korea, when Gary is doing the dick/pussy/asshole speech, he is obviously talking about America.  The point of the speech, and of the film itself, is that America is a giant, blustery, idealistic 800lb gorilla.  Often times we do things and we fuck them up horribly, but as it stands right now we’re the only country able to do them.  In one priceless scene, Hans Blix confronts Kim Jong Il, ordering Kim (under authority of the United Nations) to give him unlimited access to his compound to check for WMD.  “Or what?” Kim asks.  Blix then replies sternly, “We’ll get really, really mad.  And we’ll send you an angry letter!” The point here is one that I have made many, many times on this blog.  You can only threaten action so many times before you get called on your bluff.  The UN, without american power, is utterly impotent to deal with threats.  And while America might not be the most diplomatic nation sometimes, we’re the only ones who can get the job done.

And now to the celebrity-bashing.  At the end of his review Ebert writes:

I wasn’t offended by the movie’s content so much as by its nihilism. At a time when the world is in crisis and the country faces an important election, the response of Parker, Stone and company is to sneer at both sides—indeed, at anyone who takes the current world situation seriously.

No, Roger, that isn’t it at all.  The reason Ebert views this as nihilism is because he is exacxtly the type of self-righteous, opinionated dickwad that Parker and Stone spend the whole movie making fun of.

Look, I’m a blogger.  The reason I write this website is because, frankly, I too am an opinionated dickwad, and I think that my opinion matters more than yours does.  All bloggers do.  We write because we have opinions on things, and we hope that other people will read them and tell us how brilliant we are.  It’s a huge ego boost.  There’s nothing I love more than getting an email from someone telling me how much they love my site, and how I speak the truth and need to keep up the good work.  (Getting hate mail from left wing asshats would run a close second.) The difference between me and Ebert/Garofalo/Moore/Robbins/Baldwin/ad nauseum is that I open myself to criticism, while they live in insulated worlds of ideological homogeny.

Look at it this way.  When I write a post I leave myself fully open to getting torn a new asshole.  People can immediately leave comments telling me what I clueless douchebag I am, and occasionally they’re right.  These celebrity morons, however, are never, ever challenged on their bullshit.  Sean Penn goes to Iraq and returns to be treated like an expert on the subject.  (You know, I went to the zoo once, but that doesn’t mean I can speak authoritatively on elephants or giraffes.)

The reason Ebert doesn’t like seeing pampered, self-righteous, egotistical celebrity morons being made fun of is that he himself is a pampered, self-righteous, egotistical celebrity moron.  He only sees nihilism in this film is because he cannot imagine a world in which his opinion is not important, and by tearing down people who have the same opinions as him you are, by proxy, destroying the very reason he exists: to tell other people what he thinks.  The difference, of course, is that in the area of film Ebert speaks with authority.  In the area of social commentary he’s just as much a bloviating, self-righteous dick as I am.  But when you’re used to people kissing your ass telling you how brilliant you are, being cut down to size can be a bitter pill to swallow.

Go see the movie as soon as you can.  Trust me.