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South Park The Movie
"South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut" is sometimes savagely, inventively funny, and, therefore, for better or worse, will be mistaken for a comedy by many of the adults and journalists sure to take the bait and be outraged by it.
It isn't really a comedy, though. Trey Parker and Matt Stone, geeks through and through, have made the most political movie in quite a while, perhaps the most biting film ever about the hypocritical, irrational piety raging in America over the mostly false issue of wholesomeness, popular culture and children.
This movie really takes the wood to America's Morality Industry, the William Bennett - Bill Clinton - Tipper Gore- Joe Lieberman -led campaign so prevalent in journalism and politics. In this country, epidemic and graphic violence and abuse is tolerated, on-screen and off.
But when smutty language or pictures appear, Congress and our many other moral guardians go into meltdown. Kids are caught in the middle between their culture and the nuthouse atmosphere created by many of the people running their lives.
This defiantly subversive movie might send the legions of virtuous right over the edge. Any film that has the U.S. declaring war on Canada is off to a great start. The trouble begins when the South Park heroes finagle their way into a Canadian movie where they hear dirty words.
When they subsequently call their teacher a "butt-fucker" and worse, all hell literally breaks loose, including - here the movie is at its bitterest and most satirical - the insertion of an experimental "V-Chip" into Cartman's brain which causes an electric shock whenever he curses.
Thus a concerned nation - off-screen, our President argues with a straight face that V-Chips are an answer to high school massacres -- sets out to save its children's moral souls at any cost.
This movie flips the bird at pompous adult society in every imaginable graphic tasteless way possible. It's hard sometimes to know whether to laugh or cheeer as the movie goes after an array of irresistible targets - Disney, "Les Miz" Bill Gates, Brooke Shields, Winona Ryder, the Baldwins, Satan and God, teachers, parents who want everyone but themselves to take responsibility for the moral environments of their kids.
In a way "South Park" is too relevant and angry to be uniformly hilarious, and the eerie shadow of Columbine hovers over the movie.
But it is frequently a stitch, and its lever lets up in its savage pounding of the way so-called grown-ups and leaders posture and lie while invoking morality.
The film?s very existence totally exposes the insanity of Hollywood?s ratings system (this movie got an "R" rather than an "NC-17"? It violated every taboo imaginable, from ethic and religious stereotyping, to vile language and a score of references to anal, oral and bestial sex.) In scenes that could easily come from the movie itself, movie theaters all over the country have adopted stringent security procedures to keep the under-17 crowd out of "South Park." This includes the posting of extra ushers at the door to card moviegoers, as if any exposure to graphic language and scatological humor will damage the fragile young.
At the theater where I saw it, adolescents waiting outside easily got older kids and adults to go in with then, and others slipped in the door while the bored usher was yawning. By the weekend, of course, the movie will be all over the Net.
Which, of course, is exactly the point this Parker and Stone are trying to make.
"South Park" was always an idea that geeky people loved more than something many people watched or flocked to see. The series was a hit early on, but has flagged the last year or so.
But this movie is a crowning achievement for its makers. They really show up their mostly gutless, cowering counterparts in the entertainment industry. South Park goes out in a blaze of glory, not only because it?s funny and bizarre, but because it?s out at precisely the right moment, making the right point.
and, yes, I am even dismayed by this CAP group because they are flagrantly using a biased, weighted standard deviation to skew the numbers! Anyone with a slide rule and a lick of sense can calculate that the blasphemy quotient of this movie is 7.53, a full TWO POINTS lower than the minimum requirement for being instantly sucked into hell. I wish these groups would check their math before launching ad-hominum attacks.
Up front, I apologize for being a semi-conservative 33-year-"old" guy. With that out of the way...
Just out of curiosity, I wonder if any of these glowing reviews are from anyone over 30. Does anyone past their teens and twenties actually like South Park? Yeah, yeah, social commentary, generational issues, blah, blah. I see the serious content, I just dislike the distasteful delivery. Vulgar language and crude behavior just doesn't crack me up any more like it did when I was a 25 year old kid and I'm just a little too conservative to enjoy crass rhetoric and confrontationalism for its own sake.
Am I really getting to be an old fart just because I don't think this stuff is that funny?
Every person the same age has the same amount of experience, regardless of intellect.
That is to say, that unless they are brain-damaged or suffer from mental illness, a 22yaer-old CEO has the same amount of practical, real-world survival experience as a 22-year old drummer in a garage band. They may excel at different disciplines, but overall they are on the same level.
If you really believe that, you've had an easy life. Congratulations; not everyone is so lucky. Whether you are willing to believe it or not, there are many 16 year olds out there who have far more 'life experience' than you do; many of them even have time to see the occasional movie. I don't think that's the point though.
While South Park is definitely full of what you might call 'low-brow' humor, it's also shot through with fairly biting social commentary. The two are frequently inseparable. Many will see the violence that befalls Kenny (for instance) and revel in their self-righteous indignation at the playing of violence against children for laughs. Others will look a little deeper and realize that it's no accident that the 'poor kid' dies in every episode. This type of thing will go right over the head of most pre-adolescent children. It will go over the head of far too many adults. It will go over the head of many teenagers; but not all. So who should decide? As you pointed out, it should be their parents, who one would hope knows them best.
I agree with your comments on the need for parents to take responsibility for their children. However, I would hope that by the time a child is 16 that the process of transferring that responsibility to him or her is well under way. If not, the extra two years on the way to 18 aren't going to help much.
It was either the funniest piece of self-reference I've seen in a while or (more likely, unfortunately) proof positive that the reviewer (and probably most of his audience) needs a serious thwack with the clue stick.
Well, I'm in the minority here, but I really don't like South Park all that much. At times the show is funny, they have some talented people working on it. At the same time though, the shock value isn't terribly appealing to me. When I've watched it in the past with some other friends, I think to myself sometimes why people find it so funny, and like it so much. It seems to be a way to rebel against the establishment in a way, both through the right to make choices, but also because it goes against what many of those in power claim to represent. (I think most are being hypocritical anyway, and really don't care.) It seems that this is mostly brought out with emotion though, and that bothers me, because emotions can easily be controlled. Paramount released the movie to make money, and because it's what people, specifically, teenagers want. Any kind of political message is there because it's agreeable to the crowd that would be interested in watching the movie for the shock value and cynicism. Indulgance, wether in power, hate, sex, or rebellion seems to me to be a scary thing.
I refuse to believe that any sane person in their right mind would allow a child to see this.
Before you break out the naphtha, read on.
As an adult, i enjoyed the movie very much. it goes right to the heart of something that has bugged the hell out of me for many years: the lack of responsibility that parents take, or refuse to take, for their children.
Now, I'm by no means 'old' (I'm 29, to be exact) but the one thing I refused to get caught up in is the whole society/movie/tv/radio/Canada Blame Game.
Modern society has, I'm sorry to say, shifted its focus FAR, FAR away from the *proper* upbringing of our children. And the *worse* group is *not* the Moralists...oh no. It is the group that wants to throw out the baby with the bathwater, that wants to remove sane limits because 'limits' in and of themselves are 'bad'.
Are they? There are reasons why *children* should not be exposed to certain things, and they aren't that complicated: Children have limited experience. As adults it is *supposed to be* our job to allow them to grow long enough to have the *experience* to make good judgements.
It has *nothing* to do with intellect, rebellion or any other romantic notion. It has to do with a cold, hard truth that often escapes the average mind, but geek culture especially:
Every person the same age has the same amount of experience, regardless of intellect.
That is to say, that unless they are brain-damaged or suffer from mental illness, a 22yaer-old CEO has the same amount of practical, real-world survival experience as a 22-year old drummer in a garage band. They may excel at different disciplines, but overall they are on the same level.
Now, put a 12 year-old in a typical situation of a 22-year-old. No matter how *smart* they are, they lack the saavy that comes with the additional 10 years of life experience.
We are all smart here, and if we put our respective flag-wavings aside, you can see that there is merit to this.
*I* know that South Pak is a compelling look into the evils of society *as a whole* refusing to accept the responsibily laid upon them...especially today's career and goal oriented Dads and Moms, who feel it is perfectly OK to leave your 10 year-old unattended for 18 hours a day. If they tun out bad, the blame is easily shifted away from irresponsibe parents. If I had my way, the *parents* of those murderous Littleton boys would be dropping trou and grabbin' ankles...they are just as guilty, if not moreso. The kind of parents and their enabling society who feel that it is not *their* job to monitor the crap their kids watch on TV, the garbage they listen to, who the hell they hang out with and where they get things from that they as parents did not buy, or give them money to buy.
That's the messae behind the movie, cursing, killing, pandering and taboo-blasting aside.
I'm 29...I understand this. If I were 12-16, my understanding, or more to the point, what I did with that understanding, is another point entirely, and would most likely be to my detriment, and the detriment of others around me...simply because I just wouldn't know any better.
The South Park movie contains strong statements about the way parents in our country and society *should be* and I for one agree with the message 100%
That's why my kids, and any other person's kids I know who's parents will listen won't be getting anywhere near that movie.
Responsibility is a bitch. Parental responsibility is something I feel a lot of you here haven't faced yet, but when you do, and you know that the long-term existance of another life rests squarely on your shoulders, then you too will know just how much of a bitch responsibility is.
Go see South Park. Leave your little cousin at home.
-K
One day, you'll learn to watch what you post...
... of the attitudes of the people behind this site:
.......INCREDIBLY dangerous."
(Note: I haven't seen the movie yet)
"*South Park* is an *incredibly dangerous* movie for those who do not understand or are developing an understanding of the Gospel
How can a movie be "dangerous"?
I can see "offensive"; I can see "disgusting"; I can see "perverse"; but "dangerous"?
Because it makes you think? Because it might make you question your trust in hyper-sensitive, self-appointed "guardians of morality"? Because it shows that you can't expect the whole world to raise your children for you, and you might have to put some time in for yourself?
The only "danger" is to the agendas of certain self-righteous, repressive factions of our society...
Jay (=
went something like this. (Laser hologram sputters, goes out.) [Army General] "Damn, it's Windows 98!" (Drags Bill Gates in). [AG] "I thought you said Windows 98 was a faster easier way to the internet... (etc)" [Bill Gates] "But Windows 98 IS a faster and" !!BLAM!! (Bill falls to the floor dead.)
All in all a great movie. They really made it feel like a Disney movie. I didn't expect all the disney musical stuff, but I enjoyed it anyways.
If you've seen the movie, it's really kind of ironic to hear people complaining about the gratuitous vulgarity in the movie!
Great Flick!
Photos of bits of the past hiding in the present: afiler.com
To make such a movie really takes guts. Southpark takes all real things that are so taboo and brings them out into the spotlight. Just as sex, and swearing, are right there with going to church. I appriciate someone acutally doing this as a slap to the Americian culture. I honestly think the most of the people who have power are increadibly over-conservative. Sex is a fact of life. Swearing is pretty damn stupid. Come on. Someone made up this word, somewhere in the past, and it came to some negative connotation. Who the hell cares? Listen to what we call profanity. Say shit 20 times in your head, considering the sound of the word and the meaning. That becomes pretty silly.
I hope soon America, and the world's culture at large, reaches a point of acceptance of whats there is there. Dont try to hide people from it. Ween them into knowing these kind of things. If we say NO DRINIKING, NO SEX, NO SWEARING UNTILL YOU ARE 18, most people (especially the kind that were trying to protect against this sort of thing) are going to DRINK till they pass out, have SEX with everyone around, and EVERYTHING will be FUCK this FUCK that.
Ok.. I'm done ranting (and i forget what i started this all about, oh yeah Southpark)
More power to Matt and Tre.
--Sean
I'll be the first to admit, the first time I saw "South Park" on Comedy Central, I laughed out loud. The juxtaposition of kindergarten construction-paper aesthetics with graphic sexual content was pretty damn funny for the first couple shows. Hilarious, even.
But Jon Katz's übermorality schtick is really grating on me, here.
I'm always disgusted when ideologues use the protection of children as an excuse to rape the rights and privileges of adults. (2nd Amendment rights come to mind as a primary example, here.)
I am *equally* disgusted, however, when ideologues (like Jon Katz) promote children as some bizarre sort of breed of "adults from the future"; as beings who exist on a higher intellectual plane than their parents, and should therefore be immune to the backward rules that we primitives would foist upon them.
Both attitudes come from exactly the same mentality; the ultra-glorification of childhood. Both sets of ideologues believe in their shriveled bleeding hearts that adolescents are so perfect and precious that their well-being supersedes that of the adult society they exist in.
But what always is neglected in these conversations is that these adolescents *become* the adult society at some point. You don't protect children by denying adults certain rational rights -- such as gun ownership -- because the damage you do to their future society outweighs the damage you protect them from.
Conversely, adolescents are not miniature adults. Childhood, adolescence, and even teenage years are still primarily formative ones. Jon Katz practically guffaws at the the idea that children are different in any fundamental ways than adults: "...as if any exposure to graphic language and scatological humor will damage the fragile young," he says. The-Geeks-vs.-The-Moralists. Well, hell! Why not shoot some smack in front of your kids, then? As if any exposure to illicit narcotic usage will damage the fragile young. Why not invite them to an orgy? They know what sex is, don't they? While were at it, let's add some shiny, happy incest, too! There's no reason it should be wrong for a father to fuck his 10-year-old daughter, right, Jon? As if it could damage her! Ha! How truly ludicrous! Those goddamned moralists. Always telling you and me what to do.
My point is that we *all* have some morality, and we all foist it upon others. It's perfectly reasonable to see the "South Park" movie as a vehicle of another morality. It's actually unreasonable not to.
And I wonder how much those of us who have children now, or plan to someday, would like to teach the morality of "South Park" to our kids. Hey, if you want your kid to call you "motherfucker" at every opportunity, be my guest. But I doubt that most of us do. We may not base our morality in Exodus, like the Christians do; we may feel that we reason out our morals instead of having them handed to us from on high. But in any case, I wouldn't let my hypothetical 14-year-old go see the "South Park" movie, the same way I wouldn't go buy a bottle of vodka for him. When he's older, he can make his own choices, and I'll respect his right to do so. He can choose to defy me, and sneak in, and I'll find out, and we'll have to talk about it, and he'll have to take some punishment for it. That's the way values are transmitted, it seems to me, through conflict and resolution of it.
Are the moralists hypocrites? Sure they are. We all are. Unless you're one of those whose only virtue is in claiming that you have no human virtue at all.
The problem with humanity is simply this: The hypocrites are the only ones trying.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
His attitude is a typical media-elite mocking dismissal of the numbing-down of what's socially acceptable. GnrcMan's comments about the Childhood Action Project's review also smack of politically correct "what's the big deal?" posturing. And replies to GnrcMan's comments reinforce the "what a funny, harmless movie" lock-step opinion. But words and images have consequences. A tragic example of that is the story on the Reuters wire yesterday about a 7-year-old boy killing his 3-year-old brother by copying a move he saw in televised pro wrestling.
I have no desire to see the movie. I can't even sit through the TV show. I never made it through an episode of Beavis & Butthead, either. Heh, heh, heh. Click. I seem to be one of the rare Slashdotters who sympathizes with Childhood Action Project (CAP), though, ( I'm a Christian raising two sons with my stay-at-home wife) so into the fray I go...
CAP is trying to quantify their analysis of the film. They offer their reviews as a tool for parents like me so I can decide which movies we'd like to take our family to see. (I'm not alone, BTW. Financial analysis shows that R-rated movies make less money than G, PG, or PG-13. Nowadays, Hollywood has to make R- and NC-17-rated movies to puff themselves up and say they've created "art." Of course, occasionally those ratings merely serve to attempt to make up for bad writing with less-than-mass-appeal shock value, too.) CAP makes subjective measures of Wanton Violence/Crime, Impudence/Hate, Sex/Homosexuality, Drugs/Alcohol, Offense to God, and Murder/Suicide. Sure, such metrics look like foolishness to the so-called "modern" worldview. In Katz' world, Wanton Violence/Crime and Murder/Suicide are harmless unless they happen in RL; Impudence/Hate is lauded as long as it's targeted at people of faith or anyone with conventional authority; Sex/Homosexuality and Drugs/Alcohol -- the more the better; and Offense to God -- well, he's dead, so he's an easy target.
Am I a repressed fanatic because I do my best to keep my kids innocent and to teach them what I know to be the truth? Hardly. It's my job as a parent to raise them with the values that I believe will serve them best. Do I teach my kids the value of free speech? Certainly, but freedom comes with responsibility.
Those values, BTW, do include tolerance. Intolerant Christians need to be confronted with Jesus' own central teachings -- he freely associated with the outcasts of society while he sharply condemned religious self-righteousness and hypocrisy. But Jesus taught tolerance in the context of having a personal, obedient relationship with God, denying our self-centered nature, and loving -- that's agape (look up the meaning of the Greek) -- one another. Such ideals can hardly be understood by a culture that doesn't even believe in God, celebrates selfishness and self-absorption, and lusts after one another without ever knowing what the word agape means.
My kids will have plenty of opportunities as teenagers to rebel against my values and choose for themselves. But it's still my job as a parent to show them where I stand on moral issues and to teach them responsibility.
Katz declares that, instead of being a comedy, South Park is actually a sharp, political film that exposes the self-righteousness and hypocrisy of the so-called "Morality Industry." It's a sad, sad thing that people fall short of perfection. The only perfect man got nailed to a cross for his trouble. But careless critics confuse the Perfect Message with imperfect followers. Let anyone hold up a standard for (conventional) morality, and today he or she is denounced as an intolerant, self-righteous hypocrite.
As I once heard Ravi Zacharias say, "Before you tear down fences, be careful that you know why they were put up in the first place." Ethics and morals -- whether they are based on examples set by Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Buddha, old, dead Greek philosophers, or Bill Clinton -- exist to draw boundaries for social behavior. South Park, it seems, wants to show what it's like without bondaries. And ... Parker and Stone want to show me this because ...?
The Apostle Paul sums it up: "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things." ( Philipians 4:8)
As has also been said, "If you swim in the sewer, you're bound to get dirty."
One final comment -- if you think hackers can't be Christians, what is to be done with Larry Wall?
i too mentioned the pro-wrestling imitation death in my comment above, though i do not believe this is evidence that south park is something that should not exist or should not be seen by anyone under 17.
yes, images and words have consequences. people can and will be influenced by them. otherwise, what's the point? but who exactly is influenced? you obviously would not let your children watch the south park movie, because you think it would have a "bad" influence on them. it would make them say curse words and try to light their farts on fire. this is quite possible. but would the movie have the same "bad" influence on you? would you, an ADULT, after watching the south park movie, increase the number of curse words you say and do dangerous things?
i would presume that you must say no to this question. you may not _like_ south park, as you said, but since you "know what is the truth" (read: "i know what i believe", as i pressume you are not christ and don't know perfect truth as you insist), your behavior certainly wouldn't CHANGE because of this movie? your beliefs of how to act and what to say would remain the same?
this is because you are a thinking, rational human being. you can make decisions. you can say "i like this" and "i don't like this." children have the same ability, except their ability to do this is very primitive and selfish. yes, many children might say after watching south park "saying fuck is cool! i like to say fuck!" but you are wiser and older and realize the reasons you shouldn't say curses all the time (i.e., people won't listen to what you have to say if you're vulgar all the time). or perhaps you just don't say "fuck" because jesus says you shouldn't. i'm not sure. but either way, there is a REASON you act the way you do and you have control of it. i believe that if someone asked you if anyone could change your beliefs against your will, you would say no. i do not know how old your children are, i would hope they could say the same thing once they are about 14 or 15, maybe younger. south park is not for children who can not clearly make decisions for themselves, however it is not harmful the person viewing it has a stable system of beliefs, like you do.
let me throw a christian proverb at you. "give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime." keeping all children away from everything that is not "innocent" is much like giving a man a fish. the child is hidden from bad things for the day, but he still needs you to protect him when south park part II comes out. rather, you should teach him how to judge for himself what is good and what is bad. this is not done by simply "showing where i stand on moral issues." your children will no doubt have many opportunities to rebel against your beliefs and perhaps may take these opportunities. but if you shield them from all evil things in our culture, as they become older and less attached to you, they may be too naive to make rational choices. let them see the evil and discuss it WITH them. tell them WHY it is wrong, not that it IS wrong.
hearing a curse word is not the same as saying a curse word. seeing a person murdered is not the same as murdering someone. if you understand why killing is bad (and to primitive creatures such as children, there is no reason why they should think it is bad) for society, then you can see 1000 murders and still will not kill. but the real point is this: south park is not real. it is not supposed to be a substitute for reality. it is funny. it is supposed to be funny. if your children are too young to understand that something seen on a movie screen meant to be funny is not something that should be imitated, then they should not see south park. but if they do understand this, there is no reason why they shouldn't see it (though there may be no reason why they SHOULD, but that's beside the point.) seven year olds shouldn't watch wrestling, but 23 year olds should be able to. the difference is in the content of the viewer's brain, not the content of television screen. parents should concentrate on shaping their children's thinking ability instead worrying about what their eyes might see. it is really much more effective.
south park is a world without fences, yes. if we keep the fences up all of the time, we will forget what is hiding behind them. and that it is when it will come to haunt us. south park is a hilarious reminder why we try to be civilized.
Thank you, CAP, for showing the rest of the world how much of a bad influence The Phantom Menace really is! Even though they admit that "the ignominy in the movie should clearly be fantasy to the young and impressionable and should thus be easily redirected", methinks these people need some serious help.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
I dug up this review from the Childhood Action Project (A Christian group devoted to saving the children.) Needless to say, this review is almost as funny as the movie itself was.
Here's a choice quote from the review: "WARNING! This analysis is blunt. *South Park* is another movie straight from the smoking pits of Hell."
In the "CapAlert" review, here's one of the things
that makes it a bad movie:
> blaming parents for character of children
Oh no, not that. It's much easier to blame SP!