South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut

The series has grown into one of the greatest critical satires and parodies of all aspects of modern life: from political to socio-political issues, as well as media and technology, usually using offensive humour and common sense to get their point across. Their first (and only) theatrically released feature film, South Park: Insert Phallic Joke Here, does all of this wonderfully while parodying and satirizing many things, including Return of the Jedi, Les Miserables, ER (including a cameo from George Clooney),Windows 98, War, USO shows, just to name a few things.

The movie’s plot centers around the four children (Stan Marsh, Kyle Brofloski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormick) seeing their first “R” rated film (starring their heroes: Canadian comedy duo, Terrance and Phillip) and the effects that the film has on them, as well as the society around them. When the boys start emulating the “potty language and toilet humour” that they hear in the film, their parents become outraged and start a campaign to ban the film and hold those responsible accountable. True to South Park fashion, the situation grows rapidly and immensely out of proportion: the PTA starts a literal war with another county, the result of which causes Satan to come forth to reign over the Earth. It’s up to the boys to save their heroes, as well as the world. See, when I say it like that, it already sounds more high-brow and boring than it is; imagine if that was the logline for an independent film: it’d probably be under-rated and have a small to medium cult following.

Whilst the main plot focuses on the four boys trying to save the world, it’s also worth noting that each one (except Cartman, who’s infamous for never learning anything) has a small story unique to themselves. As an added bonus, each boy gets a unique introduction, inherent to their arc, in the opening musical number

Stan, for starters, is trapped in your typical “coming of age” love story. He’s infatuated with a girl in his class named Wendy Testaberger, who seems to be becoming friendly with another kid, Gregory, who is more mature and respectable than Stan (actually, in the script, Wendy was his girlfriend and breaks up with him to try to be with Gregory). Throughout the film, Stan is searching for The Clitoris, (a character depicted in this film as fantastical and elusive pink creature than Stan just can’t seem to find) believing that it will help him get together with Wendy. True to form, Stan learns that he should be himself to be with Wendy and matures a little along the way. See, he’s introduced as a naïve child singing while walking to his mom’s work. His mom literally compares him to Jesus, calling him “tender and mild,” but also describes him as “open and pure,” meaning “innocent and young.” Essentially, Stan’s part in this story is all about his corruption and coming to grips with leaving childhood behind.

Kyle’s story, while still following a similar trajectory, is less about being corrupted and leaving childhood behind, but about rising to the difficult challenges of adulthood. Namely, facing the central antagonist: his mother, Sheila Brofloski, aka “The Biggest Bitch in the Whole Wide World.” See, right from the off, we understand that Sheila is just doing what she thinks is best for her son, but will always go about it the wrong way: “Those boys are fragile… the world is such a rotten place… that’s why I moved to this small town.” And we also understand that Kyle is afraid of her, given how fast he cowers before her in his first moments on screen. Because Sheila goes to such extremes to protect her children from the harsh realities of the world, she’s actually preventing them from learning about and preparing for those realities. Hence, Kyle must learn to confront her to show that he’s ready for the world.

Kenny’s story has a much milder arc, in that I didn’t really notice it until my most recent viewing, but again, it’s another “coming of age” thing. This time, Kenny is introduced to us arguing with his mother about going to church. She tells him “if you miss church, when you die, you’ll go to Hell and deal with Satan,” to which he flippantly says “okay” and runs off. A typical child reaction: not caring about the consequences and being recklessly impulsive (okay, there are adults that do that, too, but still…). Eventually, the prediction comes true and Kenny dies (imitating the film, thereby adding fuel to the fire for the PTA), goes to Hell and meets Satan… and his boyfriend Saddam Hussein. While there, Kenny watches Satan be abused by Saddam and learns that his insensitive actions may hurt those around him. By the end, he sacrifices himself so that things can go back to normal and gets admitted to heaven.

The humour has me laughing uproariously non-stop, the music is very catchy and easy to get sucked into, the characters are funny and interesting, as well as endearing (after all, they are just children dealing with all of the stuff happening in the film), and the story is very well put together. I see no point in talking about the quality of the animation, as it is <i>South Park</i> and it was purposely bad to focus more on telling jokes and writing stronger messages. The editing, as well as the effects, fall into this same idea.

So there’s probably a lot of reaching that I’m doing for this film thus far. After all, these boys are only 8 years old and they’re dealing with things like their world at war, while making as many sex and toilet jokes as possible, and swearing up so many words that they’re just shy of an NC-17 rating. No, really, this film has 399 swear words in it, and the cut-off is 400. You’ve got to respect the audacity that this film has to revealing the messed-up nature behind things. This movie has depictions of genitalia, breasts, blood, violence, torture, and is all used a satire on the hypocrisy of “Censorship.” Sheila says it best: “Just remember what the MPAA says: horrific, deplorable violence is okay, as long as people don’t say any naughty words.” This whole movie is just a giant middle finger to censorship.

And, honestly, that’s my favourite thing about this film. Not the humour, not the characters, but the theme. And I know that I’m going to come across as “heavy-handed” or “pretentious” for this part of the analysis, but this really is why this movie is among my favourites: it’s exercising, analysis, and satire of censorship and parental reactions to modern media.

See, it’s no accident that Terrance and Phillip are the subject of controversy in the South Park universe, and this movie in particular. When the show first came out, whilst it was praised for it’s humour, it was criticized as being lazy animation coupled with toilet (or offensive) humour and seen as asinine to produce a juvenile laugh. In response, Terrance and Phillip were created as a retort to those statements. The episode “Not Without My Anus,” which aired as South Park’s Season Two premiere showed anyone who’s seen it how bad the series could actually be. In universe, the parents of that show (Sheila in particular) often railed against the duo for exactly the reasons above. In the movie, this gets blown out of proportion to the nth degree, causing Sheila to start an actual war with Canada over the use of naughty language within the film. So South Park is literally saying that those that criticize South Park are blowing things out of proportion and focusing on the wrong things when there are bigger issues in the world.

As mentioned before, the movie also makes fun of censorship by stating how… meaningless and arbitrary it is. A movie that has a massive amount of gore, violence, and sexual content is okay, but saying exactly one more swear word would mean this movie was unsuitable for most audiences. Think about how many movies are out there that are PG because of one innocuous innuendo or one word that sounds striking similar to an obscenity, but the rest of the movie is pretty much just for kids.

And I love how Kyle, when confronting his mother, tells her that she was too quick to blame something else instead of talking to him about it. This is a complaint I see so many times when reading about shows like this (Family Guy, Rick and Morty, Futurama, and even The Simpsons), and especially about violence and video games: how it’s the program’s fault that America’s youth is becoming so insolent and violent. This film, as well as most of the shows I listed, takes time to address that concern and say “no, you’re the problem. Take time to explain the situation to your kids instead of trying to censor us.”

After all, South Park is merely doing it’s best to exercise it’s right to “free speech,” and I think that because of that, this film is growing more and more topical and IMPORTANT every year. Lately, we’ve been allowing many socio-political groups to target our freedom of speech, and as a writer, I will not stand for that, especially for comedy. Comedy is so important as an outlet for our pain, especially since the world has gone downhill in more ways than one, almost all at once. Comedy has always been about pushing the boundaries of freedom of speech and poking fun at the world. More and more, I just feel like... things are somehow going backwards. With the addition of the internet, people are becoming more about the group, but losing their individuality and succumbing to an idea of conformity. Everyone wants to feel special and is starting to become offended by everything. This film, for my money, is saying “there are bigger problems in the world than being offended.”

Personally, I am a proud Canadian. I love maple syrup, and poutine, and I can withstand colder temperatures, and I say “eh” and “sorry” like nobody’s business. And I love it when media makes fun of us, especially South Park. If I ever get to the point where I am famous enough to be parodied on South Park, I will be personally offended if they didn’t make me a flappy head Canadian on their show, because taking yourself too seriously is a recipe for depression; you’ve got to be able to laugh at yourself.

South Park has always been one of my favourite shows (if not my absolute favourite show) because it looks like the cheapest, laziest, most juvenile show out there that happens to have some of the best, most topical, and satirical writing of all time. This is a show that can take a simple idea, such as “we hate Family Guy” and turn it into an amazing two part episode about the value of “free speech” and I think that Kyle’s words on that subject are so important and topical that I’m going to end the review with them: “People can get hurt: that’s how terrorism works. But if you give into them, then you’re ALLOWING terrorism to work. If you censor one thing then, soon enough, you’ll have to censor out more and more. When you censor anything, then you’ve made the distinction between what is okay to poke fun at and what isn’t. Either it’s all okay, or none of it is. Do the right thing.”