Usually on this blog, I'll take a look at a movie that I've never seen before; it keeps things fresh and exposes me to a vast number of movies I may not have checked out otherwise. However, sometimes it's refreshing (funnily enough) to kick back with an old classic that I've seen a million times before. A film that I could probably recite from start to finish with close to 100% accuracy. A film that manages to be biting, hilarious, and perpetually relevant (in addition to being a strong contender for my personal favorite musical of all time). Ladies and gentlemen, South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut.
The plot of this film is about as meta as they come. After the boys attend a screening of the new Terrance and Phillip movie, South Park Elementary becomes a hotbed of profanity and Canadian toilet humor. Enraged that their sweet, impressionable children have been warped by this bawdy foreign smut, the mothers of South Park form an anti-Canadian activist organization looking to censor the film and ban anything deemed harmful to the innocent children of America. What starts as a simple protest erupts into an all-out war between the USA and their neighbor to the north; to make matters worse, the ruler of the underworld, Satan himself, is planning to ascend to the mortal plane and conquer Earth with the help of his lover, Saddam Hussein. It's as manic a plot as is to be expected from South Park, but to put it simply, as is stated multiple times in the movie, "it's about censorship".
Over the soon to be 20 years of South Park's existence, Trey Parker and Matt Stone have proven themselves to be master satirists, and BL&U is no exception. Despite the film very clearly taking place in 1999 (Bill Clinton is in the White House, Conan O'Brien is still hosting Late Night, and Windows 98 is a recent release), the overall message of the dangers of censorship and well-meaning intolerance ring true to this day. The film toes the line of being a bit too on-the-nose at times (the Academy Award-nominated "Blame Canada" ends with a gathering of parents proclaiming that "we must blame them and cause a fuss before someone thinks of blaming us"), but it is this refuge in audacity that makes the film such a brilliant joy to behold. In an era where parents are still ignorant enough to take their children to see Deadpool, only to complain to theater staff after witnessing the "Calendar Girl" sex montage, South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut is a film with a timeless tale to tell.
The film also targets the MPAA (and American society in general) for the odd double-standard of embracing depictions of violence while abhorring naughty language. The list of things deemed "offensive" is growing and changing with each day, and this movie seeks to put everything in perspective. This is a film made in 1999 in which Saddam Hussein is the primary antagonist; though it's mentioned in the beginning of the movie that he was killed by a pack of wild boars, the real-life Hussein was very much alive at the time of the film's release. In a brilliant move, South Park frames its detractors as the mothers in the film; people who, despite their good intentions, are altogether more concerned with potty language than the brutal dictator amassing his power. It's a film that forces anyone who's ever gotten up in arms about "offensive" media, humor, or language to take an objective look at what it is they're fighting for, consider all the other problems plaguing the world at that moment, and then decide if this is truly the hill they wish to die on.
Any discussion of this film would be utterly incomplete without mentioning the fantastic musical numbers. While Book of Mormon stunned the uninitiated, BL&U and Cannibal! acted as early proof that Parker and Stone could construct a musical that's as airtight and masterful as it is irreverent and profane. The songs in this film lampoon every classical musical trope under the sun, from the "it's morning in my little town" opening numbers of Beauty and the Beast and Oklahoma! ("Mountain Town"), to the "longing for something more" Disney ballads of Alan Menkin ("Up There"), to the elaborate, flashy production numbers of Busby Berkeley ("I'm Super"). The film is like a skewed crash-course in musical history. Juxtaposing the upbeat, campy trademarks of classical musical theater with the sardonic, raunchy, and often bloody subject matter makes for a movie that's effective as both satire and a legitimate musical in its own right.
Though it may sound out of place to say this about a cartoon with construction paper characters and fart jokes galore, I consider South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut to be a nearly perfect film. It's as smart as it is hilarious and manages to be one of the seldom few television-to-film adaptations that remains totally accessible to those who aren't familiar with the original show without suffering quality-wise in the slightest. The humor hits hard and often, the songs will remain in your head for days, and the commentary provided proves that a film doesn't have to be self-serious Oscar bait to have something intelligent and relevant to say. If you enjoy film as an art form, this is a movie you simply have to watch. Check it out, and Viva La Resistance.
