SOUTH PARK HYPOCRISY

So it's out now. I'm referring, of course, to that miracle of modern taste: "South Park," which promises "Bigger, Longer and Uncut."

In the interest of full disclosure, let me tell you: I haven't seen "South Park" (the movie), and I don't plan to. Not even for you, Gentle Reader, will I endure two full hours of R-rated toddler humor.

But these cultural debates over movies fall into general patterns, and this time the filmmakers actually wrote the cultural script into the movie, which features young children sneaking into an R-rated film to learn even more interesting ways to swear, and the adult "hysteria" that follows. In the end, the grown-ups learn they were wrong to 1) be upset, 2) declare war on Canada, and 3) engage in the one single behavior Hollywood finds intolerably morally offensive: censorship.

According to the New York Post's perceptive chief movie critic, Rod Dreher, by the end of the movie, we all learn a Valuable Lesson about the evils of censorship. As one young man exiting the theater remarked without irony to his friend, "Wow, that was funny, and it had a good message, too."

Meanwhile, in The New York Times, "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone were in fine form, carrying on their two-man, extremely lucrative battle with that demon, Hypocrisy. According to the Times, "the rudest, crudest and most outrageous studio movie in years" narrowly missed earning an NC-17 rating, which would have kept it out of your local shopping mall.

I'm not sure exactly what the ratings board objected to. Maybe it was the anal sex scene between Saddam Hussein and the devil -- I dunno.

But Parker and Stone are publicly denouncing the "hypocrisy" of the rating system. "The ratings board only cared about the dirty words; they're so confused and arbitrary," said Parker. "They had a problem with words, not bullets," agreed Stone.

I have no doubt that the ratings board is confused and arbitrary. For some time, we have lacked a consistent and coherent community standard about where to draw the line. But somehow I doubt Parker and Stone are really interested in promoting a more consistent and coherent public standard. The Times obtained copies of internal memos. "One rater listed words describing oral and anal intercourse and bestiality ... as well as disrespectful references to God." (BTW, what got the TV "South Park" banned in my household was the gratuitous blasphemy, utterly unique in prime-time television, and apparently not noticed by many.) Gee, how could anybody object to that?

The studio executives' response is telling. "Let me ask you, did anybody laugh?" he asked the rater. "Oh, yes," the rater replied. Bestiality, schmestiality -- in Hollywood it's boring that's the really deadly sin.

The film's producers made enough cuts to keep the market-killing NC-17 rating at bay. Apparently the board performs this modest service for us on a number of films each year. Last year, said Jack Valenti, the motion picture association president, 174 films were given provisional NC-17 ratings for violence, and 154 for sex.

I appreciate the effort. I wish they were less timid, or to use Parker's word, less "hypocritical," in their judgments. Moviemakers should be free to film what they want. And we should be free to label trash for what it is, and keep it out of family venues.

Besides, for people like Parker and Stone to lament "hypocrisy" is, well, more than a little hypocritical. Parker and Stone are literally in the business of selling rebellion to pre-teens and adolescents. The more outraged parents become, the better they like it.

So please, decent parents of America, play your part. Ban "South Park" (the TV show and the movie) from your family home and budget. And make a filmmaker happy today.

(Readers may reach Maggie Gallagher at GallagherIAV@Yahoo.com.)