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I suspect the majority of people here don't like this show. However, from the first season to the eighteenth I have mostly loved it for its ability to reinvent itself, the unique production schedule and impressively high ratio of success in its humour and satire. I only agree with them about 70% of the time, though, and there have been some bumpy patches, as well as some truly heinous moments (it shocked me when, after what seemed to me a pretty sensitive and right-headed treatment of trans issues in S18, I re-watched the early seasons and saw that awful 'well maybe I identify as a dolphin, then' shit).

 

It's finally started to lose its lustre for me, though. I've just caught up on season 20 and started 21. After the powerhouse of 18, I was hugely let down by 19 (mostly a rant against SJWs, and a confused and unfunny season plot which was heavily serialised) and 20 (mostly telling people to stop being so sensitive when Nazis are doxxing them, total serialisation which goes nowhere, and they somehow managed to fuck up Cartman as a character). The S21 premiere was muddled and not particularly funny, plus it seemed to have the message 'you ultra-racists make us far-right-wingers look bad, don't be so overt'.

 

Episode 2 wasn't much stronger, but Tweak's despair at the president's reckless tweeting was great and kept me going until the amazing final song. If they can rescue Cartman and deliver a truly strong episode or two, I'll probably be back on board for a while. But it feels like the show may have finally fully flipped to two old men getting progressively right-wing, despairing at 'having an opinion gone mad', and spewing out post-break-up bitterness.

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Thanks for reminding me to catch up on South Park! The following is only relevant up to S19, 'cause that's as far as I got.

 

It's been interesting to watch the evolution of the show from a goofy series of cheap shocks with not-subtle-at-all digs at celebrities, to more of a current-affairs parody show, to what we got in S19, where there's a story thread and an on-the-nose mockery of liberal types (y'know, the people who shop at Whole Foods).  S19 was, in places, like a long version of the hybrid cars episode (Smug Alert!). On the other hand, that series' statement of intent was clear from the off where PC prinicpal kicks the shit out of Cartman; there was a clear recognition that cheap bigotry isn't publically acceptable in the current climate.

 

As a young teen, me and my peers thought the early seasons were hilarious, what with the juvenile and "edgy" humour. Some parts from the early seasons still stand up, but I felt the show hit its stride from about season 8 onwards. Which is odd to think about, as most shows have long since jumped the shark or been wound up by then.

 

Isn't it funny that Mr Garrison has been L, G , B and T (twice!) over the run of the show? In S19 I also liked that the digs at Caitlyn Jenner were about the vehicular manslaughter charge rather than about being trans. I almost cried laughing when there's a scene showing the outisde of a hotel or something with dead bodies under the car parked on the street. She literally runs over every pedestrian in sight!

 

Also I don't agree with your summary that they're getting more right-wing (again, havent seen S20 or 21). There's a lot of racist, sexist jokes in the first 18 seasons used mostly for shock value, and the show has often railed against PC culture (censorship, ha!). Trey & Matt have been criticised for years for this stuff, and for sitting on the fence on issues they shouldn't be neutral on. Remember the episode where Cartman commits a hate crime? I mean, the one where he gets convicted of it? They often mock both sides of an issue but there certainly will be a lot of folks on here that think there is only one correct answer to some issues, and that it's non-negotiable.

 

Before this thread descends into endless criticism of the show, I just want to point out that you can enjoy a piece of media even if it is "problematic", and that's OK.

 

 

 

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25 minutes ago, Beasteh said:

Before this thread descends into endless criticism of the show, I just want to point out that you can enjoy a piece of media even if it is "problematic", and that's OK.

 

 

We have repeatedly had conversations on this forum about how it's okay to enjoy something problematic. This forum almost never devolves into 'if you like this thing you're a bad person.' You can criticize things you like and you can criticize things you don't like without criticizing the people who like them.

 

A conversation where everyone talks about how they like something is boring and dies fast. Unless you bring a lens and a perspective and a reading to something you can only type 'I like this because it makes me laugh' so many times before a thread just dies.

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I watched the first 3 or 4 episodes of the first season about a week ago and was shocked at how well it held up. I mostly think South Park is awful and has been a net negative on the culture, but before the tired "how do we tackle this current event as two rich libertarians who wish to protect our complacency at all costs" approach took hold South Park had a very specific tone and aesthetic, much closer to underground comics than anything else. South Park felt like a real place, the humor truly odd and surprising. I watched Season 18 a couple years ago and mostly felt like the show had become defined by having no real point of view and being held hostage by "hot button issues" it was completely incapable of tackling, but the first season had a real voice to it. And very earnestly strange vibes.

 

Of course it had a lot of lame jokes and bad catchphrases too, but whadya want, it was the 90's.

 

Asspen and Stanley's Cup are forever great, though.

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I don't really watch South Park any more. I watched it all the time in the early days and thought it was brilliant, and I remember watching the movie and thinking it was really funny. I wonder if it would stand up if I watched it again today. Little of what I read about the current direction of the show makes me want to do any of that.

 

But I was thinking the other day about Isaac Hayes in relation to South Park. It's so weird that one of the most important funk/soul musicians of his era had this second life as a character in a TV show where a big part of the audience probably had no idea who he was. And for a while it was great but then I remembered how he left and I felt very depressed by the whole thing. After he quit it felt like they threw him under the bus by killing off Chef in a particularly gross and egregious way when Hayes wasn't in the best of health and there was still some confusion about exactly what he had and hadn't said. Was that punching up or was it just making some quick comedy capital out of a bit of controversy? I don't know. Everything about it just seems really sad to me now.

 

People will still be listening to the Theme from Shaft in the ashes of our new society when South Park has been forgotten about, so I guess there's that.

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On 3/4/2018 at 10:17 AM, marginalgloss said:

But I was thinking the other day about Isaac Hayes in relation to South Park. It's so weird that one of the most important funk/soul musicians of his era had this second life as a character in a TV show where a big part of the audience probably had no idea who he was. And for a while it was great but then I remembered how he left and I felt very depressed by the whole thing. After he quit it felt like they threw him under the bus by killing off Chef in a particularly gross and egregious way when Hayes wasn't in the best of health and there was still some confusion about exactly what he had and hadn't said. Was that punching up or was it just making some quick comedy capital out of a bit of controversy? I don't know. Everything about it just seems really sad to me now.

 

This was something I remember hearing about a while back, but it turns out the reason was likely that he was coerced by scientology:

https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/7510390/isaac-hayes-didnt-quit-south-park-scientology-did-for-him-son

 

I got back into south park about a year go, I went back and watched the last few seasons and have quite enjoyed it.  For anyone interested in seeing what modern south park looks like, I'd recommend starting with season 19 where they introduce a character called PC principal.  That season starts out like you'd expect, but then quickly becomes somewhat of a meta commentary on the show and it's place in culture.  This is the season where South Park's narrative became overtly serialized, and their social commentary became more direct and expansive.  Interestingly enough, this also seems to be the point at which south park started criticizing it's own audience in some respects.  Perhaps this is something I missed out on when watching the show when I was younger, but what south park does at it's best is criticize behavior.  Of course the ridiculous antics of the show are still present, but the show's jokes seem to be more purposeful and pointed as of late.  In my view South Park went from being a show making fun of bigotry to one who points out how bigotry develops, particularly in the face of overly aggressive opposition to it.

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8 hours ago, itsamoose said:

 

In my view South Park went from being a show making fun of bigotry to one who points out how bigotry develops, particularly in the face of overly aggressive opposition to it.

How aggressive should one's opposition to bigotry be? This is a strange sentence to me.

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12 hours ago, Patrick R said:

How aggressive should one's opposition to bigotry be? This is a strange sentence to me.

 

Well I think the point of the show is not so much that you alienate the person, further isolating them and enforcing that mindset.  I mean yes, that sort of behavior does need to be pointed out but if the mechanism for doing that is belittling someone, calling them names, laughing at them, etc, you're more likely to have the opposite effect.  This is a pretty common theme in the most recent season, but they put a pretty fine point on it in an episode called "Doubling Down".  Recently a lot of South Park's subject matter has to do with the idea that how you do something can make all the difference.

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I believe the ideas that bigot's feelings are worth protecting or that people pushing against bigotry are the cause of it are capital B Bad Ideas.

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7 minutes ago, Patrick R said:

I believe the ideas that bigot's feelings are worth protecting or that people pushing against bigotry are the cause of it are capital B Bad Ideas.

 

To put it bluntly, I think this sort of sentiment is exactly what South Park seems to be calling out.  Let's take an example.  Say we have a young man, let's call him Jim.  Jim recognizes that something is out of sorts with the world, but can't quite articulate what or why.  So he goes looking for answers.  Now like most of us, Jim will be drawn to sensational characters and antics who carry with them undoubtedly toxic ideas.  But Jim doesn't see them as toxic, to him they are absurd, but this being his first foray into understanding, platitudes and double talk seem like wisdom.  Maybe the likes of Alex Jones and his ilk don't know everything, but he agrees with enough of what they say.  Jim's mood starts to improve.  For once, he feels like he's learning, his imagination is stimulated and is open to new ideas.  Then Jim goes out into the world and repeats the ideas he's heard only to be met with anger.  He's called names, accused of things he doesn't necessarily think, and is told not that his ideas are bad but that he's a bad person.  Jim isn't having it though.  Jim knows the truth, because he's only ever been given it by one side.  Where Jim was once inquisitive, he's now closed himself off.

 

Bigotry is not a character trait.  The condition is temporary, the product of inaccurate knowledge or simply a lack of it.  Plenty of people have been bigoted in the past and are no longer, or vice versa.  The inability to see past changeable opinions and make them immutable isn't the cause of bigotry, but it certainly doesn't help.  I've known some legitimately hateful people in my life, and I've never known a single one of them to change their views because someone called them a bigot.  It's not that pushing against bigotry that is bad, it's conflating the person with the idea that has the real potential to do harm.  It's comforting to think that all bigotry is the result of purposeful, malicious intent, and while some certainly is, a significant amount is not.  The goal must be to provide a better alternative, and to do that we must consider the evidence and speak to the position.  This I think is the point of South Park in recent years.  Not that we should put up with these things or protect them in some way, but that not all resistance to them is beneficial.

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I wrote a long thing but I can't really respond without getting personal and angry and that's really not worth it here, but I think your line of reasoning is very wrong-headed.

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Interesting to see that not everyone hates later seasons of South Park.

 

The last episode I watched all the way through was the 300 episode where it ends with Mrs. Garrison scissoring her enemy. I was really closed minded about transgender issues at the time, but that episode felt utterly tasteless even to me. I caught some of the episode where Cartman is trying to cancel/stop the airing of a Family Guy episode but it is pretty lost to me.

 

I guess my main problem is I hear a lot of people spouting fairly shitty opinions and then go 'I feel this way after I watched this episode of South Park that really articulated my thoughts'. This has been enough to put me off watching anymore South Park.

 

For me, rather than teaching me more about biggots' thought processes, biggots have used the show as a touch point to reinforce their ideas.

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I reject the premise that the way to fight bigotry is by warmly engaging strangers expressing bigoted ideas (politely ignoring them is even worse). It's not that I think those people are innately evil, or doomed to their beliefs forever or whatever, but I just don't think it's pragmatic. The purpose of calling out hate and bigotry isn't to change bigoted minds, it's to establish social norms: if something is unacceptable it needs to be treated as unacceptable. If someone in a socially vulnerable position is being harmed by someone's words or (especially) actions, the response needs to be to shut it down hard. I don't think (publicly) coddling people who express toxic beliefs is likely to change their mind—it might, but I don't think it's likely—but it WILL work towards softening the greater social attitude towards those toxic beliefs, ultimately making life harder for people who are already vulnerable.

 

That's not to say I think saving a bigoted soul, so to speak, is a bad thing to want to do. If you know someone and they have or are forming beliefs you think are evil, it's admirable to try to reverse that. But that's not the responsibility of society as a whole: society needs to react in disgust to things that are disgusting.

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I don't see SP as a meditation on bigotry. I'd wager that some think it is bigotry, but then everything is problematic these days. It does have a bit to say about our polarised culture and how we build social capital with gestures that don't do much to help.

 

South Park pokes fun at people who perform the rituals of PC culture in public to look good, but in private they're just as shitty as us mere mortals. There's an episode in the new season where Randy tries to get Columbus Day banned (how he acts in public), and by the midpoint he's dressed as Columbus and beating up a native american man (how he acts in private). The same episode has a gag about DNA testing to determine how much of a victim (i.e. not white) you are - again, using PC culture to justify your behaviour (and prove your progressive bonafides).

 

They've done it before - the PC Bros in S19 come to mind, as does the whole "gentrification" plot where Kenny's family doesn't benefit from the trendy new district built around them, but yuppies get to indulge in a bit of poverty tourism by living next door.

 

They also point the finger at social media - two really good episodes on that in the recent season.

 

16 hours ago, itsamoose said:

 

Well I think the point of the show is not so much that you alienate the person, further isolating them and enforcing that mindset.  I mean yes, that sort of behavior does need to be pointed out but if the mechanism for doing that is belittling someone, calling them names, laughing at them, etc, you're more likely to have the opposite effect.  This is a pretty common theme in the most recent season, but they put a pretty fine point on it in an episode called "Doubling Down".  Recently a lot of South Park's subject matter has to do with the idea that how you do something can make all the difference.

 

Is what happens in "Doubling Down" equivalent? That episode is where Heidi's left her abusive ex (of course it's Cartman*), so she's already come to her senses. It's what her friends do after that drives her back to him. AVclub did a good run-down on it.

 

As an aside: Moose, you might find a series on youtube interesting called "Why are you so angry?" - it's a collection of thoughts on how people get sucked into hate groups (in this case, GG) and how you might approach individuals in these movements.
 

 

*Cartman's not meant to be viewed as a role model. Even the show doesn't paint him in a positive light most of the time. I think we're meant to see the darker parts of ourselves in him, but recognise that it's evil to be like him. If folks take Cartman at face value, that's on them.

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@Beasteh 

I think you put it better than I did regarding the "Doubling Down" episode, the idea of the regretful Trump Voter has been a recurring theme in the last season particularly in the episode "It's up to the whites".  I intended to use the term "bigotry" in the literal sense (as in separate from prejudice), but upon a second reading I don't think that came across very well.  My intention was not to suggest these people be coddled, but that their ideas be challenged in a way that doesn't rob them of their humanity.  I would still argue that South Park's main source of conflict has to do with how people act when they don't see eye to eye, and is not necessarily about the specifics of their differences, but the public vs. private behavior dynamic is also a prevalent theme.

 

Also thanks for the recommendation on the youtube series, I'll have to check that out.  I must admit I was someone who was quick to call people names in the past, and after watching a ted talk by Megan Phelps-Roper (a woman who grew up in the Westboro Baptist church and later left) my opinions on how to deal with difference of opinion changed drastically.

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Sorry but I really hate those "actually both sides are bad" sorts of arguments. Like what is that Columbus example you cited trying to say? How dare "PC culture" call out a garbage holiday and actually no, I am the racist for wanting to eliminate it? That Columbus was good, actually? Yeah there are plenty of people out there who just parrot talking points or whatever, but it doesn't make what they say wrong. Also, "having an opinion" these days is a term mainly used by the right to be mockingly dismissive of people that are challenging a pro-straight/white status quo and I'd be real hesitant to ever seriously use it.

 

Personally, South Park lost me when they decided to devote an episode to making fun of Al Gore and climate change advocacy for some reason? There were some funny episodes beyond that point but the show's politics were increasingly trash and I drifted away from it not long after.

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Yeah, I think it's letting South Park off the hook to say "ah well it's only going after the hypocrites." Everyone can agree that the hypocrites are doing something bad. That's not an interesting take. The point is that South Park turns all the leftists into hypocrites so that they can criticize them just as much as they criticize the people with actually shitty views. But that's a cheap move. It creates a false equivalence between the people with the right views (whom the show still gets to beat up, because it turns them all into hateful hypocrites when you get down to how they actually act) and the people with the wrong views (who are wrong, obviously). Making fun of everybody only makes sense if everyone equally deserves making fun of. But not everyone deserves equally making fun of. The wrong people deserve making fun of. The right people don't.

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2 hours ago, Professor Video Games said:

Sorry but I really hate those "actually both sides are bad" sorts of arguments. Like what is that Columbus example you cited trying to say? How dare "PC culture" call out a garbage holiday and actually no, I am the racist for wanting to eliminate it? That Columbus was good, actually? Yeah there are plenty of people out there who just parrot talking points or whatever, but it doesn't make what they say wrong. Also, "having an opinion" these days is a term mainly used by the right to be mockingly dismissive of people that are challenging a pro-straight/white status quo and I'd be real hesitant to ever seriously use it.

 

I agree with your sentiment here, and in my view this isn't the point South Park is making with the Columbus episode. But, rather than beat the devil around the stump (a phrase I recently learned that is just too damn weird to not use at least once in my life), it might be best to just check out the episode and decide for yourself.  Unfortunately it looks like this particular episode isn't available online at the moment, but if you're willing I'd imagine it can be picked up on a streaming service (The episode is called "Holiday Special" and took place in the 21st season).  If that isn't possible, a summary of the episode can be found on wikipedia.

 

For once the episode has been seen, below are my thoughts.  Now given that I'm someone who enjoys south park, I would greatly appreciate anyone who does not like the show giving their thoughts on it.

 

 

 


Like most South Park episodes, the A and B plot are more about the motives of the participants than the issue itself.  Randy is primarily interested in crafting the myth of himself as a progressive hero, and Cartman really just doesn't want to go to school.  This is best described in the scene where Randy attacks a native american man while dressed in full Columbus garb, where his concern isn't that he just violated another human being, but that people might see him for what he is.  To Randy progressive opinion is not a view to be held, but a weapon to be wielded.  His entire quest throughout the episode is to find a way to use empathy as a means to power.  With this arc, South Park seems to be poking fun at liberals who are loud and proud on social media, but don't make meaningful changes in their own lives to reflect their stated views.  Cartman on the other hand is only interested in getting a day off school, and in the pursuit of this is willing to adopt any viewpoint to further that cause.  He willingly sides with bigoted viewpoints, and in turn sells that bigotry as a means for the other children to receive some benefit in their lives.  The source of the humor, at least in my reading, is not that both sides are being ridiculous about a holiday, but that the sentiments about the holiday are being employed by these two characters to further some other end.  In this way, the episode to me seems to be more about the filter of social media, and how we use it in our lives.  We're so willing to lose ourselves in sensational characters like Randy that we any attempt at a meanginful discussion ends up getting drowned out.  Even though Randy does the right thing in the end, it is in service of him being seen as a hero for doing so.  He does it for the wrong reasons and in a way that allows him to forgo any introspection.  We get the sense that while some progress may have been made, nothing has really been solved, and the next time a similar controversy comes up we're going to do it all over again.

 

Also one last thing before I go, I just wanted to say how much I enjoy partaking in this community.  I know it's helped me develop my own views, and I genuinely value the input of people who disagree with me, even vehemently so.
 

 

 

 

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Okay, so thanks for exaplaining the episode. And here are my thoughts based on the summary on the wikipedia entry and your interpretation.

 

Spoiler

Basically, using examples like that from South Park, some people immediately assume that every time I call them out on this stuff that I am doing it for personal brownie points. These people see me going 'dude that's fucked up' and then frame me as Randy. This isn't the first time South Park has done this as I am pretty sure I saw episodes back in the early days that used the same framing point.

 

I feel that this was instrumental in things like GG, no one believed that anyone was actually interested in making things better or at least shining a light on the problems in games, so they sought to find the real reasons why Sarkeesian was like this (hence 'professional victim')

 

To end this, that episode sounds pretty dreadful.

 

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Don't agree with the notion that those on the "right" side (i.e. people you agree with) should be immune to mockery. Randy is trying to use progressive politics to get status, it's his MO for the last few seasons. I laugh when it goes wrong for him. No equivalence is being drawn between progressives and bigots in the cited episode - the opposition to Randy's crusade is just a bunch of kids who want the day off.

 

Or is your complaint that they haven't taken neo-nazis to task? It's hardly an interesting take to say "nazis are bad." Would you rather they focus on taking on the current administration, which is so far beyond parody it's hard to find humor? SP has tried, though - the recent episode mentioned in the OP ("Put It Down"), or the episode about the regretful trump voter I linked to earlier, or the final episode where the parting line is about the fate of President GarrisonTrump: "It's up to the Whites"

 

 

(For the record, I don't think anyone here argues in bad faith. It's one of the things this community does really well)

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6 hours ago, Beasteh said:

Don't agree with the notion that those on the "right" side (i.e. people you agree with) should be immune to mockery.

We're never going to get anywhere if you equate "right" with "people you agree with." If there isn't any such thing as right vs. wrong, and everyone is equally right and equally wrong, and it just comes down to whomever you happen to disagree with, then nobody is going to have any good reason to get up in arms about South Park. The issue only arises if there are actually correct answers about the sorts of topics the show addresses. Are you willing to back down from your frankly insane stance that there's no such thing as right or wrong beyond "what you agree with" when it comes to the topics the show discusses? If not, there's no reason to have any conversation at all. People will simply agree with what they agree with and nobody will have any cause for calling anyone out.

 

And I am not sure anyone has been saying that the right side should be "immune to mockery." I think people have been saying that the show ought not to draw a false equivalence between the right side and the wrong side. Surely one can mock the right side without presenting it as equivalent to the wrong side. The issue with South Park, I take it, is that it typically does present the sides as basically equal, at least in the sense of everyone being shitty and dumb and the only cool thing is to be above it all, as if "above it all" weren't actually a very specific ideological position that you can only occupy if you have a certain very specific view of things that the show fails to acknowledge as being something other than neutral. And of course it isn't neutral: it's just as partisan as any of the sides the show attacks. It just cloaks its partisanship in a guise of neutrality.

 

6 hours ago, Beasteh said:

Randy is trying to use progressive politics to get status, it's his MO for the last few seasons. I laugh when it goes wrong for him. No equivalence is being drawn between progressives and bigots in the cited episode - the opposition to Randy's crusade is just a bunch of kids who want the day off.

It's not just  a bunch of kids who want the day off. If I want something and in pursuit of that thing I cozy up to bigots, I'm doing something wrong, not in virtue of wanting the thing, but in virtue of cozying up to the bigots. Why? Bigotry is wrong! This is not rocket science. Bigotry is wrong. Say it with me. It is not hard to accept this. You don't need to be afraid to say it (even if South Park suggests that you ought to be afraid).

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The problem more generally is that there is no room for people with genuine beliefs in the world of South Park. Everyone has ulterior motives.

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The jibe about "people that agree with you" was ill-judged. Sorry about that. Since it wasn't clear, I'll come out and say it - I think the show gets a lot of shit becuase it doesn't stick to the progressive party line. So SP doesn't come down on one side when folks feel it should. It's not a show that is going to agree with you and tell you, "you're right" unless you're a nihilist.

 

In spite of that, I've never felt that South Park is telling me to be afraid of having an opinion. Sure, they're mocking you sometimes, but so what? It's a show full of fart jokes, not a political pamphlet. If anything has made me afraid of holding an opinion, it's social media (SCREAM AT EACH OTHER IN 140 CHARACTERS OR LESS), but that's a topic for another day. Do you think SP's approach to issues has a chilling effect on people wanting to voice their views?

 

To be extra clear, I'm not defending bigotry, assuming we both mean something like the M-W definition "one who regards or treats the members of a group (such as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance". I don't think the show is about bigotry, though. SP uses it as a tool.

 

In the Columbus Day episode, Cartman (of course it's Cartman... again) is willing to use any means necessary to further his goal of getting a day off. That's insane - and it's funny as a result. The show eventually proposes a compromise where the kids get what they really want (a day off school) and the holiday doesn't celebrate the colonisation of North America by genocidal European settlers any more. This doesn't look like sitting on the fence to me but I'll grant you the episode does portray both sides as stupid.

 

3 hours ago, Cordeos said:

The problem more generally is that there is no room for people with genuine beliefs in the world of South Park. Everyone has ulterior motives.


 At times PC Principal (not his fraternity of bros, just him alone) fulfils the role. He consistently believes in justice, but makes pratfalls because he's just a white dudebro when all's said and done. I guess it's just not interesting to see things going well.

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43 minutes ago, Beasteh said:

The jibe about "people that agree with you" was ill-judged. Sorry about that. Since it wasn't clear, I'll come out and say it - I think the show gets a lot of shit becuase it doesn't stick to the progressive party line. So SP doesn't come down on one side when folks feel it should. It's not a show that is going to agree with you and tell you, "you're right" unless you're a nihilist.

I think the issue is not that South Park fails to say the right thing but rather that it says the wrong thing. Nobody goes after cooking shows for failing to "stick to the progressive party line," because cooking shows aren't taking on these sorts of topics in the first place. But if South Park wants to explicitly address contemporary political issues, obviously people are going to attack it for getting the wrong answers. If the right answers are the progressive party line, then trivially, South Park will be attacked for not sticking to the progressive party line. But it's being attacked because it gets the wrong answers! Surely there's nothing wrong with that, is there? It's not like South Park has to keep injecting itself into the conversation about all of these hot button political issues.

 

43 minutes ago, Beasteh said:

In spite of that, I've never felt that South Park is telling me to be afraid of having an opinion. Sure, they're mocking you sometimes, but so what? It's a show full of fart jokes, not a political pamphlet. If anything has made me afraid of holding an opinion, it's social media (SCREAM AT EACH OTHER IN 140 CHARACTERS OR LESS), but that's a topic for another day. Do you think SP's approach to issues has a chilling effect on people wanting to voice their views?

I am not sure exactly what this is a response to. I do not see anyone in this thread arguing that South Park is telling you to be afraid of having an opinion. (Perhaps you misread me when I said "afraid" above - I just meant that the wrong opinion is something one should be afraid to hold, because one ought not to hold wrong opinions. I didn't literally mean South Park is scaring people.) I see people in this thread arguing that South Park is advancing objectionable political messages. I don't know or particularly care whether South Park has a chilling effect on people who want to voice their views. I merely care whether South Park's views are objectionable or not. It seems to me that they are, which is particularly unfortunate given how popular and influential South Park is. But even if it were a show nobody watched, I'd still think its views were objectionable.

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6 hours ago, Cordeos said:

The problem more generally is that there is no room for people with genuine beliefs in the world of South Park. Everyone has ulterior motives.

 

This is a fantastic observation, but I'd put a slight twist on it.  It's not that South Park isn't interested in people with genuine beliefs, it's that they tend to get crowded out by those with ulterior motives.  Most of the episodes have a character (usually Kyle) who presents the moral of the episode in a genuine way.  In almost all cases this character is almost immediately passed over, ignored, or looked at skeptically to the point where their position is as well.  I agree that this can be a problem, but I have a hard time saying it's a bad aspect of the show because it seems to be their major critique of modern society.  That this can lead to a "Issue X wouldn't be a problem if group Y would just shut up about it" sort of idea that's become more prevalent lately.  It's not that genuine beliefs don't exist, it's that they are almost always sullied by people with ulterior motives, to the point where people who would otherwise support those ideas become skeptical of them, or outright hostile to them.  Now certainly South Park is not the first show to make this observation, but I think they do quite a good job of poking fun at it.

 

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