Maybe we shouldn't have registered all those young people to vote ...

"Team America" premieres and the NYT is disturbed to discover that the "South Park" guys are ... gasp! ... conservative! Reviewer A.O. Scott writes:

The obscene patriotic ditty that is the Team America theme song might be hyperbolic (and impossible to stop singing), but it is not sarcastic. Nor is a speech, delivered twice in the course of the action, most powerfully at the climactic moment, that is meant as an answer both to the Hollywood peaceniks and to the wishy-washy world community, whose representatives have gathered in North Korea for a peace conference.

Because of its graphic (though metaphorical) discussion of human anatomy, I can't quote any of the speech here, but it is one of the more cogent — and, dare I say it, more nuanced — defenses of American military power that I have heard recently.

Scott begins his review by saying we're in "a golden age of satire" (replete with the Times's obligatory praise for Jon Stewart), but he ends the review expressing frustration that he can't find a way to argue against it. But he does try. He says that as a big "South Park" fan he expected "a wholesale demolition of everything pious, hypocritical and dumb in American culture and society," but "Maybe I expected too much." Yes, that's the way I feel every time I watch "The Daily Show." I keep expecting them to satirize both sides. I even expect NYT articles that refer to "The Daily Show"--and there are so many--to admit it falls short because it doesn't attack "everything pious, hypocritical and dumb" in American politics. But maybe I expect too much.

UPDATE: This is interesting, from Entertainment Weekly (subscription needed):

After Parker and Stone received a letter from the Oscar winner [Sean Penn]— in which he condemned them for recent comments in Rolling Stone urging uninformed voters to stay away from the ballot booths — the duo had a laugh at the actor's expense. ''It was like he missed the point,'' says Stone. Adds Parker: ''It's obvious what he's really pissed off about is that we made him into a puppet and had him eaten by a panther [in the movie].... It's hysterical, because nothing could make us happier. It's like, Spicoli's pissed at you. What does he think, we're going to be like, 'Dude, Sean Penn's pissed at us! What should we do?''' One thing they briefly considered doing was taking Penn up on his offer to escort them around Iraq: ''We were going to take him over there and kick his ass,'' laughs Stone.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Llama Butchers laughs at the wishful thinking of the WaPo movie critic, whose cluelessness can be read in the review's subtitle, "'South Park' Creators' Left Jab at Jingoism May Backfire."