Team America: World Police

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Template:Infobox Film Team America: World Police is a 2004 film by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of the Comedy Central television program South Park. The movie uses marionettes, rather than animation or live action, by employing a variation of the Supermarionation technique developed by Gerry Anderson in the 1960s (although Stone has jokingly called it "supercrappymation"). This film was produced by Paramount Pictures.

1 Concept
2 Plot synopsis
3 Targets of satire
4 Critical reaction
5 Box office performance
6 Film Cameos
7 References
8 External links

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Concept

The inspiration for Team America came from the 1960's British television series Thunderbirds, which Parker and Stone came across by accident. Speaking to Variety, Stone said, "Trey and I loved that Thunderbirds series because of the artistry of the marionettes." Their original idea was to create parodies of movies like The Day After Tomorrow and Armageddon with puppets. A second idea was to create an R-rated version of Thunderbirds. Legal problems with both ideas led to them writing their own original script.

The movie uses some fairly advanced marionettes, that make use of servo motors to move the puppets' faces in sync with dialogue and other actions. It also uses clever prop design in animal scenes by replacing panthers with house cats and man-eating sharks with nurse sharks. In addition, while the strings easily could have been digitally edited out of the film, the producers chose to keep them visible for the humorous effect.

The producers reportedly had to tone down a scene of simulated oral sex between two of the marionettes, and eliminate an "explicit" sex scene between two others in order to get an R rating. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) was prepared to give the movie an NC-17 rating until it saw at least nine progressively modified versions of the scene, eventually rating it R for "graphic, crude and sexual humor, violent images and strong language; all involving puppets." Parker said he was surprised that the MPAA was not very concerned about violent content in the movie. The film was released on DVD in two different versions: the R-rated version that was shown in theaters, and an unrated version with the sex scenes intact.

The movie theme song was "America, Fuck Yeah".

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Plot synopsis

The film tells the story of an overzealous gang of anti-terrorist "global peace" enforcers known as Team America. Much of the film is a parody of the Bush Administration's War on Terror. Most of the heroes and villains represent extreme caricatures of both conservative and liberal attitudes towards the war, and American foreign policy in general. The film also heavily parodies the clichés of other action movies (including a song about having a montage, although the song originally aired in modified form on South Park).

Despite the teaser trailer's boast that George W. Bush and John Kerry (along with a whole slew of celebrities) are going to be really, really mad when they see Team America: World Police, neither Bush nor Kerry are actually seen or mentioned, although puppets that look similar to them (and their wives) can be seen in the audience of Lease, a parody of Rent. While the protagonists are fictitious, the real names of several Hollywood celebrities and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Il, are used. None of them approved the use, nor were asked for their approval, of their names and likenesses in this movie, for obvious reasons. (It should be noted however, that since they are Public Figures, their permission need not be sought.)

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The story starts with an attempted terrorist bombing in Paris which is foiled by Team America, although the team manage to lay ruin to Paris in the fight, destroying a number of French landmarks such as the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower (in the movie all of the major Paris landmarks are located in one small plaza). Sarah destroys the Louvre to foil the terrorist's plan. As Carson, one of the team members, proposes to colleague Lisa, a terrorist—left for dead—rises up and shoots Carson, killing him.

In New York City, Team leader Spottswoode tries to recruit Broadway actor Gary Johnston to join the team. After some confusion, Gary joins Spottswoode in a limo, which turns into an airplane and takes them to the Team America Headquarters inside Mount Rushmore. There, Gary is introduced to the other team members: Sarah, an empath who senses the obvious, seems to be from San Francisco, California; Chris, the best martial artist from Detroit, Michigan; Joe, an all-American quarterback from the University of Nebraska; the computer I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.E.N.C.E. (voiced by radio personality Phil Hendrie); and the aforementioned Lisa, to whom Gary is attracted. After some soul searching in Washington D.C. (with a satire of country music playing the background), Gary is convinced to join.

Gary's first mission involves going undercover in a tavern in Cairo, Egypt, in an attempt to discover the terrorists' plans. Just as he is about to discover the plans his teammates are spotted and the terrorists run, taking Gary with them. Team America chases after them, almost killing Gary and destroying Egyptian landmarks like the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid along the way. During the firefight, the female team members discuss their love lives.

After rescuing Gary they return to their headquarters and celebrate, convinced that they have foiled the terrorist plan when it was actually an almost complete fiasco that only eliminated a few low level terrorists while the primary targets were alerted and unmolested. This leads to an extended graphic love scene between Gary and Lisa.

Peter Jennings reports that Alec Baldwin is head of the Film Actors Guild (the news screen showing "Alec Baldwin - F.A.G."). Alec Baldwin, Tim Robbins and Sean Penn are interviewed. Hollywood celebrities show themselves. (In a deleted scene shown on the DVD, a news-report states that France and Egypt hate Team America and will probably kill them when they come again).

But the real terrorist plan is masterminded by Kim Jong-il. Hans Blix shows up at his palace asking for an inspection and threatens to write him an angry letter, but Kim Jong-il feeds him to his sharks.

Meanwhile terrorists, angry about what happened in Cairo, bomb the Panama Canal in retribution, killing thousands. The Film Actors Guild, led by Alec Baldwin, blames Team America for the Panama bombing. Gary, who admires Baldwin, concludes that his acting has once again caused death and quits Team America. Team America goes on a mission but is shot down over the ocean and captured by Kim Jong-il.

F.A.G. protests in front of the Team America headquarters. Michael Moore commits a suicide bomb attack against the headquarters, and Spottswoode is believed dead.

Gary decides he must re-join Team America. Spottswoode survived the attack, and Gary "sucks his cock" to prove his loyalty. After that Spottswoode takes Gary through an intensive one-day crash course (wherein the song "Montage" is played) in combat skills.

Gary goes to North Korea to rescue the rest of the team, fight F.A.G. and foil Kim Jong-Il's plan. He succeeds and Kim Jong-Il is pushed off a balcony to his apparent death. A cockroach-like alien, however, escapes from the mouth of Kim Jong-Il, with the implication that the dictator's body was merely a robot or puppet, controlled by the insect. The roach, taunting Team America in Kim's voice, escapes in a small spaceship. The song played at the end of the closing credits, "You Are Worthless, Alec Baldwin," explains roach-Kim's motivation. He is from the planet Gyron and his species, the Zypods, are at war with the bee-like Barmacks. Earth, after its human population had been eliminated through war, was intended as a new home for the Zypods. Since that mission has failed, roach-Kim anticipates condemnation to the "pit of Cryrock".

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Targets of satire

Team America itself satirizes the perceived jingoism that leads American administrations to take unilateral foreign policy action that critics deride as "policing the world." The Film Actors Guild (FAG) is intended to satirize perceived leftism of Hollywood and the media of the United States.

The "Film Actors Guild" is an obvious reference to the Screen Actors Guild, and the acronym of the fictional organization, FAG, is an allusion to the word "fag", a slur for gay people.

While the film deliberately does not name any American politicians (to avoid being pigeon-holed as simply a movie about the 2004 election, according to Parker and Stone), it does name many Hollywood actors by their real names. Sean Penn is portrayed making an outlandish claim about Iraq. ("Before Team America showed up, it was a happy place. They had flowery meadows, and rainbow skies, and rivers made of chocolate where the children danced and laughed and played with gumdrop smiles.") Janeane Garafalo's character (Janeane Garafalo) states, "Our job as actors is to read the newspapers, and repeat what we've read on TV, like it is our own opinion." In the film, Alec Baldwin is portrayed as the leader of FAG and proclaimed on two different occasions to be "the greatest actor ever."

Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore is portrayed as a suicide bomber. Stone explained the reason for this portrayal in an MSNBC interview:

"We have a very specific beef with Michael Moore... I did an interview, and he didn't mischaracterize me or anything I said in [Bowling for Columbine]. But what he did do was put this cartoon [titled A Brief History of the United States of America, written by Moore, animated and directed by Harold Moss and the Idealabs studio] right after me that made it look like we did that cartoon." [1]

Bowling for Columbine includes a brief interview with South Park co-creator Matt Stone, who suggests that South Park was largely inspired by Stone's childhood experiences in Littleton, Colorado. Stone presents a vision of Littleton as painfully normal, and highly intolerant of non-conformist behavior. In a segment that immediately followed the interview in the first release, an uncredited cartoon in a style strongly reminiscent of South Park is featured, depicting the NRA and KKK as interchangable evil organizations. However, this sequence was not the work of Matt Stone, nor that of Trey Parker. It became a point of contention between the two and Moore, as they believed Moore meant to imply they had contributed to his film beyond the interview. [2] For many, the assumption was that this animation was the work of Stone and/or Parker. The animation was in fact made by FlickerLab. Subsequent releases attempted to distance this assumption by delaying the animation until ten minutes later in the film, and correctly crediting the animation.

Aside from Kim Jong-il and Hans Blix, real life politicians are spared satire. Team America acts without any guidance from the White House or the Department of Defense. On the other hand, others see Team America's incompetent and needlessly destructive operations as a jab at current American counter-terrorism policies. The titular team's reliance on an actor who is inexperienced in politics, foreign policy or military operations possibly satirizes incompetence in foreign policy matters, or in the government in general. Political and social commentor Andrew Sullivan considers the film brilliant in its skewering of both the left and right's approach on terrorism. Sullivan (a fan of Stone and Parker's other work too) coined the term South Park Republicans to describe himself and other like-minded fiscal conservatives/social libertarians. Parker is a registered Libertarian.

The film also plays on the assumed ethnocentrism of its largely American audience. When a new location is shown, the caption will give the place's name and then an approximate distance from the United States in miles. All landmarks in Paris and Cairo are closely located. Also, other languages are simplified to the point of ridicule. French is reduced to stock phrases such as "sacre dieu" (presumably a combination of the common French phrases "sacre bleu" and "mon Dieu"), the only Spanish line is "no me gusta", repeated several times, and Arabic is given as a guttural combination of the words "derka", "jihad", sherpa, bakala, "Mohammed", and "Allah". The Korean language was also simplified for the movie. While no real Korean words were actually used in speech, the real verb endings of "~~ㅂ니까 (~~mnikka)?" (sentence ending in a question) and "~~ㅂ니다 (~~mnida)" (sentence ending in a statement) were used after nonsensical words to give the dialogue a Korean-like sound. Despite not using real Korean words in speech, real and sensical Korean written characters are used in all Korean writing in the movie. The stereotypical Asian pronunciation of English Rs instead of Ls (known as "Engrish") is used heavily by Kim Jong-il. For example, he greets people with "Herro" and calls Hans Blix "Hans Brix." When Koreans write their names or introduce themselves, they always use their family name first: Kim (family name) Jong-il (given name). Western culture is the opposite. So, when Hans Blix meets Kim Jong-il in Kim Jong-il's palace, Blix addresses Mr. Kim as "Mr. Il".

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Critical reaction

Film critics had a mixed view of the film. Some praised the film's sense of humor and spirited musical numbers, while others derided it for being a comedy without enough laughs.

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times:

"An equal opportunity offender, and waves of unease will flow over first one segment of their audience, and then another. Like a cocky teenager who's had a couple of drinks before the party, they don't have a plan for who they want to offend, only an intention to be as offensive as possible."

"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."

Jeff Meyers, Metro Times:

"Where the film stumbles is with its characters. The Team America squad is a pretty boring bunch with little to no personality. Only super villain Kim Jong-il is fully realized, and he's little more than a Korean version of Cartman from South Park. Still, the shtick works and Kim's plaintive musical solo, "I'm Ronery," is one of the film's highlights."

A.O. Scott, The New York Times:

"Without question the finest R-rated puppet action-musical of the past decade...there are plenty of profane, catchy songs and giddily offensive jokes to keep you amused. But like any good satire, this film has a distinct moral point of view. The members of Team America, the square-jawed action heroes who take on Kim and his supporting cast of left-wing Hollywood stooges, may blow up a lot of stuff, but they do it by accident, not by design. And while the movie is happy to mock American bluster, it also expresses a blunt, uncynical patriotism."

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Box office performance

Team America made $12.1 million in its opening U.S. weekend; since then the film has made a profit internationally, but domestically only just made back its production costs ($30 million) after over 2 months in release. [3]Worldwide it made over $50.2 million at the box office. [4] With DVD sales factored in, it can be considered a fair success.

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