Team America: World Police as Right-Wing Satire

When we began watching Team America: World Police in class, I assumed that it would be a liberal attack on post-9/11 America, like most of the other material we have looked at this semester. As the film progressed, though, I observed that many of the jokes were made at the expense of American liberals. For example, the film portrayed Hollywood and the "Film Actors Guild" negatively by claiming that they simply repeated whatever "anti-patriotic" messages were found in mainstream newspapers and therefore that they were undermining America's attempt to save the world from terrorism. This is a clear attack on the left, and could be considered an example of right-wing satire. I do not think that the movie is entirely conservative satire, though, as it does not depict America's counterterrorism efforts in an especially flattering light. Team America's solution to any threat is to use military force rather than diplomacy, and this excessive force results in massive destruction all around the world, including the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and the Sphinx. The intelligence computer that Team America relies on is also a criticism of the current administration and the intelligence failures that it has experienced.

Team America does not discriminate in the targets of its attacks. Both the right and the left are mocked. I can understand that because the film is less pro-liberal than most of today's political satire, some might consider it right-wing. In my opinion, though, the film is a satire of American society as a whole, from the extreme right to the extreme left, and everyone in between.