<a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/a/2004/10/17/PKGAJ98TG11.DTL&type=movies" source="SF Gate">'Team' Spirit not for Everyone</a> is an interview with Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park and the movie "Team America: World Police". I haven't seen the movie (yet), and I've heard it's pretty funny. I'm a little confused by the interview here because they usually interview well. In this case, they did not. Let's get a few things straight. They're satirists and comedians, not political analysts. You can't hold them to a standard of proof or thought that you would Noam Chomsky. However ... when you spend a lot of money making fun of celebrities for how earnest they are and how they take themselves too seriously, you should probably watch your back a bit more than these two have. To the question <iq>...do you ever feel like you cover your asses too much by taking on targets on opposing sides?</iq>, they somehow manages to twist around enough to respond with an affirmative negative: <bq>I don't think so, because we do take somewhat of a stand at the end. I mean, ... Some people consider that point to be fairly right wing, and some people consider it to be fairly left wing.</bq> So, is that "yes, we cover our asses" or "no, we take a stand, but it's such a hazy one that it can be interpreted in two completely different ways"? Then, there's the fact that they didn't want to make a morality play because <iq>then we'd be no better than the f --- actors we hate</iq>. OK, that's cool, but then, <i>in the very next sentence</i> (perhaps even the same breath), he expands on the point, saying <iq>so, too, does America have this role in the world as a d --- . Cops are d --- , you f --- hate cops, but you need 'em.</iq> Which, to me, sounds like a half-assed endorsement for the US stomping the shit out of the world because it contains a --- ---- who need to be taught a lesson. That doesn't sound like "shutting up and being a celebrity" any more than any of the celebrities they make fun of in their movie. From this pretty lame and self-righteous (in a brainless, gung-ho kind of way) beginning, it gets even worse, as they expand on this philosophy: <bq>You have the Michael Moores of the world and all these people telling you, "These people are evil and America's going to be destroyed in a matter of five years!" And it's just, to us, not that dire. It's like, "You know what? Our lives are pretty f --- great. And a lot of the lives we see around us are pretty f --- great, and everything's gonna be OK." That's just our basic philosophy.</bq> Lovely. "I've got mine" is neither a new nor a very interesting philosophy. It's actually kind of an insult to call it a philosophy, because that implies you need to think to come to that conclusion. Thinking is not required, it's more a matter of preventing yourself from thinking that helps massively when applying this way of life. Watching these two interview at the intellectual level of Britney Spears was a little disappointing. The interviewer tries to inject a reality check into the interview with a meek <bq>What about the people who'd say, "Well, you've got to get out of your bubble and check out the world and see how f --- up things are for everyone else?</bq> The response to that is a confused melange of justifications for an optimistic worldview, regardless of reality, even if <iq>it's naive, and it's unfounded, and it's even wrong</iq> (which, methinks, puts them squarely in the Bush fantasy world). They explain that even a completely unjustified optimism is what <iq>keeps America looking forward and trying to make the world better</iq>. Keep in mind that, given the optimism, it neither has to be true that America is looking forward nor that it is making the world better ... it matters only that people think it is. I think. It's hard to navigate this kind of jingoistic stoner philosophy. True indignation sets in with people who are just downers (like Europeans, who <iq>are not optimistic about the future</iq>), because that makes it <iq>almost taboo to say, "My f --- life is awesome, and I have a great time, and I have a sweet house and a nice car.</iq> It's not taboo to say that. Go ahead and say it if it's true. It's just that nobody's going to really love you for it. Especially if their life sucks and they can pretty much trace it to the fact that your life is so f---- sweet. I mean, hell we've got MTV "Cribs", don't we? Where the hell have these guys been? It seems like it's actually the opposite in the US: you can crow all you like, showing off all you've got regardless of whether you've even earned 1% of it and people who work two jobs trying to get food on the table will eagerly tune in and watch you at every opportunity. But, if you point out that, while things are pretty great for you, there are a lot of people for whom things really suck and maybe we should do something about that, a couple of morons make a movie about you, calling you a whiner and god knows what else. All it takes to shatter this way of thinking is to meet people for whom it can never, ever, ever apply. The people that don't have it great and never will, who's kids will never have it great and who the system continues to chew on, so that you can have a <iq>great car</iq>. Then, poof, the guilt sets in. And I think it has for them, in a way. That's why they're so full-on about it being OK to think the way they do ... you get the feeling they're trying desperately to convince themselves more than anyone else. They wrap up by reiterating a point they made in a previous interview, about voting, that <iq>[i]f you have absolutely no idea, f --- it.</iq> I think they have a good point there. If you really have no opinion one way or another, you haven't been paying enough attention to exercise your democratic right. You still can, you just have no idea whether your vote is helping or hindering you. That's why, if they actually practice what they preach, I imagine they'll have their whole morning free on November 2nd.