Team America: No One is Safe

I would not agree with the assertion that Team America: World Police is a product of right-wing ideology. Watching the film, there is evidence that the writers freely satirize both sides of the political spectrum. One can see the resemblances between Team America and many of the episodes of South Park; no one is safe from the criticism of these writers. The Bush administration is ridiculed for its overeliance on "intelligence" through the computer system featured in the film named "I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.E.N.C.E." By personifying intelligence as a single human-like entity, the writers are poking fun at Bush's references to "intelligence" as if it was one specific person or thing that automatically knows all. In addition, the original songs featured in the film are making fun of the plethora of post-911 country songs (associated with conservatives) that were deemed so inspirational, but whose lyrics were often vengeful, violent, and just plain immature. On the other hand, the Film Actors Guild as well as many specific actors are also called out. The writers really sum up their view on the credibility of actors' role in politics with a line from the Alec Baldwin character: "As actors, it's our responsibility to say what we read in newspapers and then repeat it on tv like its our own opinion."

Although the story line of the film is clearly political in nature, I would argue that Trey Parker and Matt Stone do not criticize one political group in order to benefit the other; they make fun of liberals and conservatives alike to show the ridiculousness of both extremes. If I had to guess, I think that these writers' main beef with politics is the polarization of the the two parties. They look at both Hollywood actors' liberalism for the sake of liberalism as well as war hawks' jingoist propaganda with equal disgust. It seems that, like Bill Maher, they would like a political environment with a little more common sense and a lot less bullshit.