South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut
A Review
By Jeremiah Rickert
Directed by: Trey Parker Starring: (voices of) Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Mary Kay Bergman, Isaac Hayes
This movie was doomed, or assisted by, depending on how you look at it, to be a political hot potato. Its release followed closely the Columbine shooting, and the alleged "crackdown" on childrens' access to R-rated movies by the Cinema industry. Ironically, Parker and Stone claim that the MPAA was more concerned about profanity than violence. Another humorous aside was a quote I heard from a parents' rights group that yearned for the "innocent" satire of Beavis and Butthead.
The basic plot of the film involves our heroes, Kenny, Kyle, Cartman, and Stan sneaking into the R-rated film starring Canadian TV stars Terrance and Phillip, and emerging with a whole new vocabulary of extremely profane phrases that they of course think are cool. This comes after the opening musical number that waxes poetic on the virtues of the small, quiet, virtuous, little mountain town. Their parents and teachers are shocked by their language and Kyle's mom, who is known for getting into just about every cause possible, starts a snowball of anti-Canadian sentiment that ends with Terrance and Phillips arrested and sentenced to death and the U.S. declaring war on Canada. The children also discover that Satan and his boytoy, Saddam Hussein will unleash the apocalypse if the blood of Terrance and Phillip is spilled. It's up to the boys to prevent the end of the world and save Terrance and Phillip from the anti-Canada crusade spearheaded by Kyle's mom.
I'll wager that the primary draw of South Park for most fans is merely the toilet humor, and yes, this film has a *lot* of toilet humor. The profanity is frequent and un-bleeped, unlike the television series. There is just about every kind of offensive phrase and image that you can pack into a film, however for some reason they didn't really directly insult any religious groups, which was a slight surprise to me. Underneath all of this nastiness, however, is a very good message, one that I wish was more of a part of all of the Columbine fallout: That parents need to parent their children. Rather than be outraged that such a film was produced, they need to tell their kids, hey, this is wrong. The parents in this film see nothing wrong with starting a war, but never actually talk to their kids about why they shouldn't have seen the R rated film in the first place.
The script does peter out a bit in the 2nd half. The first half had me laughing repeatedly and uncontrollably. The jokes have three levels. There's the 1st level that most people probably expect from south park, and that is the toilet humor. Secondly, there's a gift of parody that Parker and Stone possess that references a number of other films and aspects of pop culture. Third, there is the overall irony of people thinking that violence is less harmful to children than nasty language. The 2nd half, in my opinion, had too much Saddam Hussein. I think it's funny the way they portray him, but his antics got old very quickly. The thing I liked most about this film were the musical numbers. The music and lyrics were written mostly by Trey Parker and he truly has a gift for lyrical humor, and the music was top-notch. I believe that Trey Parker has the juice to actually write a sucessful musical-comedy on Broadway if he wished.
Overall the film is extremely funny, creative, and has a better moral message than most so-called serious films and television programs. I also think that the film had a better message that anything spewed forth by politicians on both sides of the aisle. It is not meant for children, and I would hope that very few parents allow their children to see it. Stone and Parker themselves have said that it's intended by adults, and it's up to parents to keep their children from watching it if they don't approve. Just as it was with Beavis and Butthead, people have knee-jerk reactions and are incapable of looking past the 1st level humor and appreciate grand satire.
Of the $4.75 I paid for the film, it was worth $8.00
(c) 1999 jeremiah rickert
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