Al Qaeda Killed Kenny!

Wonderful column in NRO on South Park and the scathing utility of comedy in addressing a dangerous world:

But to date the piece de resistance of axis-of-evil mockery is their side-splitting latest film, Team America: World Police. An all-marionette musical, the film satirizes everybody within reach and is, well, gross (both characteristics are constants in Parker’s and Stone’s work). For example, the three-man two-woman American team of terror fighters is composed of good-hearted and brave but naïve and corny bumblers equipped with the highest technology, which they tend to misuse — accidentally destroying, say, Paris. They lapse into psychobabble with one another while discussing their relationships (“I have feelings for you, too”). All authority figures are fair game for these two. And an edited version of the film is available for those of tender sensibilities who might want to give a pass to the most scatological marionette sex scene in the history of film.

In the film, Team America battles Kim Jong Il, a wonderfully nasty, pompous, tyrant who wears his heart on his sleeve and is the mastermind behind the world’s terrorists. (Many of the latter are from Durkadurkastan and say “Durka Durka” a lot.) Kim’s principal sidekicks — Lenin would have called them useful idiots — are a bevy of remarkably life-like marionettes of Hollywood liberals, headed by Alec Baldwin. Parker and Stone give Kim a unique accent that combines Elmer Fudd’s (“wicked wabbit”) with some confusion between “l’s” and “r’s” so his angry song about the Hollywood stars’ failure to live up to his expectations comes out, “Ooo are worfwess, Arec Bardwin.”

Truer words were never spoken! Ooo ARE worfwess, Arec Bardwin! And so's ooo're flend, Gorge Crooney!