(Editor's Note: Content of reviewed film is not necessarily the opinion of ASFAR)Sue's Review
South Park - Bigger, Longer & Uncut
Like Mike Males' book Scapegoat Generation (reviewed
in the last issue of
Youth Truth), the animated film South Park - Bigger,
Longer & Uncut addresses
the issue of scapegoating and placing blame in response
to the perceived
misbehavior of youth. But in South Park, the choice of
a scapegoat seems
arbitrary and ridiculous, and the consequences of scapegoating
are
carried to absurd extremes.
In the movie, four elementary school kids contrive to
see an R-rated Canadian
movie full of four-letter words, after which they proceed
to use those words
at every available opportunity. Their distraught parents
turn to various
methods to attack the "source" of the problem, including
placing their
children in a rehabilitation program, installing a device
in one child's
brain which administers an electric shock whenever a
swear word is uttered,
placing the actors in the offending movie under "citizen's
arrest", and
finally declaring war on Canada. The only remedy
the parents never seem to
consider is discussing the swearing with their children
and asking them to stop.
If you have never seen the South Park TV series,
you will be struck by the
minimalist quality of the animation, mainly consisting
of what appear to be
cutouts of construction paper and photographs.
And even if you have seen the
series, you will be struck, if not shocked, by the unending
profanity in the
film, as well as jabs at religion, women, blacks and
gays from characters in
the film (although the film as a whole, while thoroughly
irreverent,
hardly seems bigoted itself).
South Park - Bigger, Longer & Uncut is a movie about
itself, as it was surely
designed to be. The release of this film in July 1999
was probably largely
responsible for new standards of enforcement in preventing
underage
viewing of NC-17 and R-rated movies. And, to be
sure, the language in the movie,
as well as its crude "potty" humor and a few sexual situations,
may make many
viewers uncomfortable. But the offensiveness of
the film only serves to
strengthen its message: that "indecency" alone does not
deprive art of its
merit. For South Park - Bigger, Longer & Uncut
does have merit as a work of art.
First, it is a delightful musical. The music is not entirely
original, with
styles and melodies borrowed from Broadway standards
such as Oklahoma, as
well as recent musicals such as Les Miserables.
But the impeccable
orchestration and performances of the songs, as well
as the cleverness of
the lyrics, make their recognizability all the
more enjoyable.
Second, it is funny. I am not a fan of four-letter words,
and I've often been
turned off by many movies and TV shows which resort to
toilet humor. But here
the subtext of the movie pointing at itself and ridiculing
itself is
omnipresent, giving the crudest jokes a new meaning.
In the beginning, when
the children are denied tickets to the forbidden movie,
they console
themselves that "it probably isn't all that good anyway
... the animation's
all crappy" -- the criticism so often aimed at the South
Park TV series.
And once they manage to see the movie, the extent
to which the kids imitate
it is so exaggerated as to be laughable itself. Since
the plot involves
swearing and offensiveness in movies, the film's own
vulgarity is not gratuitous,
but rather a demonstration of its own thesis. But crude
and offensive or not,
there is scarcely a joke that falls flat. The humor throughout
is
incisive, sometimes disconcerting, sometimes bizarre,
and sometimes simply
hilarious.
Third, it is a movie with a message, not only about censorship
and
freedom of expression, but also about our desire to place
blame and punish someone,
rather than find ways to solve problems constructively.
The parents in the
film, although they say that they will "stop at nothing"
to protect their
children, and that their children are "precious", have
little interaction
with their children except to yell at them and tell them
that they are
grounded. They are fearful of their own responsibility
as parents, and,
when deciding on which villain to blame for their children's
swearing, sing
"We must blame them and make a fuss, before somebody
thinks of blaming us."
South Park - Bigger, Longer & Uncut was released
on video in December.
According to Roger Ebert's review, "thoughtful and concerned
people
should see it." I concur.