Beavis and Butt-Head Do America Review

Messages: Being obliviously stupid, as Beavis and Butt-head are, doesn't exactly uplift them, but it seems to see the boys safely through life-or-death peril (dying in desert heat, Butt-head gets a chuckle out of watching two vultures mating).

Role models: Beavis and Butt-head are basically the worst MTV-age adolescent boys imaginable (the basis of the humor), and if they do anything "right" it's by mistake (filmmaker Mike Judge doesn't particularly reward the two for their anti-social antics, except that they find their lost TV). Characters apart from them tend to be one-note clods (the law-and-order FBI honcho obsessed with body-cavity searches) or ineffective, like a wimp-liberal teacher. An innocent old man (and war veteran), who seems to represent some notion of traditional American decency, gets repeatedly inconvenienced and persecuted.

Violence: The introductory dream sequence is a parody of giant-monster movies, with colossal-sized Butt-head and a fire-breathing Beavis stomping through a city and withstanding army artillery. A massive car pileup on the freeway is caused when B&B fall out of a trunk. An extra dies from a germ-warfare weapon. Guns are pulled on the heroes. Fantasy-drug hallucination with characters as rotting rock-and-roll skeletons.

Sex: Plenty of sex talk and innuendo, about "scoring," and "sluts" and masturbation. The only sexual activity actually shown is between a pair of buzzards, but women in skimpy clothing with big "hooters" appear from time to time. Butt-head chuckles over purient connotation of words like "hole," "wood," "unit" and "cockpit." The folk song "Lesbian Seagull" is performed, and Beavis and Butt-head misunderstand the hit-man jargon of being paid to "do" people, male or female.

Language: "Damn," "hell," the s-word, "Jumping Jesus!," "God-damned," "bastard," "slut," "schlong," and, of course, "butt-hole."

Consumerism: At the height of Beavis and Butt-head fever there were themed-video compilations ("Work Sucks," "Christmas Sucks"), and Beavis and Butt-head books, buttons, masks, a video game etc. Heavy-metal music gets promoted in the movie, with AC/DC and Metallica T-shirts as basic uniforms for the duo and Motley Crue reverantly mentioned.

Drinking, drugs and smoking: Beavis ingests an old woman's Xanax prescription and freaks out; he also experiences a "trip" by eating desert peyote cactus. Underage and grownup alcohol drinking (including while driving).