Did Team America Mark the Moment Quentin Tarantino Became an Auteur?

When Trey Parker and Matt Stone's Team America came out, I felt like it was a cultural explosion. It was all everyone was talking about in my school, and the lasting impact of the movie is pretty large.

It's even a topic that came up on the Reel Blend Podcast, when Quentin Tarantino was visiting, over twenty years after the movie came out.

Tarantino has nothing to do with the movie, except that in the big hype scene for the team, they play the music from Kill Bill, which Tarantino called "a compliment."

He said that the movie "skewered everybody" in the entertainment industry, so he felt safe after it.

So, why am I citing it as the moment Tarantino became an auteur filmmaker?

Let's dive in.

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Can Someone Else's Movie Make You an Auteur?

Filmmakers become auteurs by making a lot of original movies and putting their voice into them. They add so much of themselves into the movie that you can identify who directed the work by watching just a few scenes.

Then, some day during their cultural rise, scholars get together and announce this person is an auteur, and suddenly we respect and care about them.

But what if a scholar didn't announce someone was an auteur? What if a comedy movie made by someone else did?

In the case study above, I would say that Team America anointed Tarantino an auteur. Looking back, it was obvious he was one, but it sort of announced his coming-out party as an important voice in cinema.

Tarantino had already made four movies at that point, but the inclusion of his music asa parody moment in Team America let the whole world in on the fact that this was a guy who was a definitive part of culture, so much so that a few notes from a song in his most recent film would make you feel the way he made you feel.

It's something that also spoke to the ubiquitous nature of how big of a movie director he had become. His movies were so popular that in a large comedy movie, they could just play the music from one of his films to connect with the audience.

While Tarantino didn't address that fact, to me, this is a big deal in his career. It was the audience heralding him and even his peers telling him he had done a very big thing.

It's always fascinating to get a peek behind the curtain and see how creators react to being parodied or referenced in others' work.

Tarantino's good humor about his Team America moment is a testament to his own unique place in Hollywood and perhaps a reminder that if your peers parody you like this, it might also tell you they respect you and think you're an auteur.

Let me know what you think in the comments.