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I killed Kenny
We just came back from seeing the South Park movie. For what it's worth, Nonelvis liked it tremendously. Myself ... I'm not sure what I just saw. I only laughed aloud in a few places, but I can't dispute that it was funny; I found some of it very hard to sit through, but I can't dispute that it did what Parker and Stone were setting out to do. Assuming, of course, that I can figure out what that is. So far the only clear signal I can sort out is that they think the MPAA is stupid.
Well, of course the MPAA (that's the US film ratings board, for non-Americans) is stupid, but Parker and Stone may not be the correct messengers for that little piece of data, since they mostly seem to want the freedom to use profanity as they please.
I happen to think that profanity is seldom justified; usually when you want to say something nasty, not using profanity hurts more. Profanity is a dull knife, a tool used by rote and therefore deprived of any real meaning - which is exactly why some people use four-letter words so often. They're harmless filler.
Hearing the characters in this movie combine strings of expletives in completely meaningless ways, often setting them to music, helped boost this notion. They might as well have been saying "googoogoojoob," like the Walrus, for all the shock value it had. The shocking moments in the movie were mostly situational, seldom verbal. The only spoken dialogue I remember hearing the audience actually exclaim at was when a teacher explained why he was rude about women: "I don't trust anything that can bleed for five days and live."
I am interested in fighting the real battle against the MPAA - that they condone violence yet censor sex, when it should be the other way 'round. But that is given only lip service here.
I also cannot forget (or forgive) the fact that Comedy Central shows South Park, easily the most profane thing on television, yet cuts and bleeps to shreds movies which are both more innocent and a lot funnier - like Blazing Saddles. Would someone please explain to me why South Park can do the things it does, but Madeline Kahn isn't allowed to say, "Oh, it's twue, it's twue!" in a dark room?
Ultimately, I might have been more inclined to forgive the movie all these sins if had I found it more amusing. But my ideas of parody - and this film had better be a parody, or it has no excuse to exist - are, I'm afraid, slightly subtler.
Mind you, I don't consider my tastes subtle; I like Tom Lehrer and Weird Al, for example, and they're about as subtle as a brick. But the bar for subtlety has been lowered so far that it can no longer be seen. Weird Al is a sophisticate when placed next to Parker and Stone.
The bar for humor has fallen too. I didn't think the Marx Bros. were subtle until I met the Farrelly Bros. If this is what the world thinks is funny, then we're all in big trouble.
I hate to sound like Jette, but where is Billy Wilder in our hour of need?
© Columbine
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