"From the handicapped kid, Timmy, to the black kid, Token, every stereotype enjoys itself."
In a fairly recent episode, it's revealed that the kid's name is "Tolkien". His father asks "What kind of an asshole would think that I'd name my kid 'Token?'"
Also, we occasionally use "And what side dishes will we be enjoying?" in our household.
I loved South Park, for years. I had issues when Matt and Trey leaned too hard into Both-Siderism, at a time it would have been better to take a stand, and I just sort of stopped watching it. But god dammit, nothing has made me laugh harder than Eric Cartman. 😂😂
I also think that people get very confused when characters are mean/racist, etc. I don't think Eric Cartman is aspirational. He is also....a cartoon??? He's a cartoon. If anything, he was a warning.
Political satire - much of which South Park is - is a necessary thing in society. Do they always get it right? No. Is it always on the side of social justice? No. Is it okay that it's funny regardless? Yes.
Exactly. People have trouble separating a character's POV from the creator's, and they can't always tell a cautionary tale from a good guys vs bad guys story.
oh and one more thing - I agree that the Gen xers and millennials who watched South Park growing up are, for the most part, NOT apathetic and DO care, deeply. And are, overwhelmingly, Not Republican.
I plan to dig into this deeper, but if the assertion is that younger people (say 18 to 30) are more right-wing than Gen-X/Millennials were at that age, it's worth nothing that these are people who grew up post 9/11.
I mostly caught it in its heyday while I was waiting for the Daily Show to start and have steadily paid less attention to both programs over the last decade. My only complaint with South Park is that I have noticed that, when they have trouble coming up with a coherent POV on something, they often do something offensive because they seem to believe that being transgressive is inherently funny. TBF, teenage me was bit like that. Adult me still has little to no problem with things that are offensive and clever in service of making an incisive point, and can accept something that is gratuitously offensive if it is sufficiently clever. But if the gag is lazy, it just amplifies the offensiveness, IMO. See also: the once brilliant Dave Chappelle.
Americans want to pat themselves on the back. Conservatives get that, and they tell them stories about how great they are. Progressives tell them they suck, which nobody likes, and Liberals tend to tell them they are good, but they could do better, which not everyone is always ready for.
Re the Dems moms/Repubs dads thing, Rebecca Solnit's acerbic version seems more apt - Dad isn't "cool.," he's an autocratic asshole.
Racism, sexism, authoritarianism - the deeply-rooted weeds poisoning every election.
I know I'm not smart enough to figure out the magic trick to overcoming them.
”In mainstream discourse, it’s become standard to blame the excesses of the right on liberals, the left, feminists, Black Lives Matter, affirmative action, environmental protection, and BIPOC and LGBTQ people. It’s a way that the right is granted masculine prerogatives and the left feminine responsibilities for the right’s behavior. It’s also routine to blame the Democratic Party for what the Republican Party does. The two parties are unconsciously regarded as akin to a husband and wife in a traditional marriage in which it’s the job of the wife to placate and soothe the husband and help him realize his goals or be held responsible for his outbursts and outrages."
I don’t know. I’m pretty far left but I still have a sense of humor. How I interpret the killing of sacred cow is that it’s absurd. The picking on the Black kid as a token or Timmy’s limited talking skills IS bad but it’s also what the right feels is fine. It’s like I get the inside joke that doing something like this is inherently wrong and those tropes reinforce that. WE know it’s not politically correct. Sort of like calling a bald guy Curly or a fat man Slim. Not sure I’m making myself clear here.
The Mad King's "hot streak" is in reality more of a skid mark. How the fuck is plunging poll numbers a goddamn " hot streak?". How about bravely running away for s foreign golfing vacation to avoid questions about your history of rape and kiddy diddling; does that look "hot" to you?
I have to say, even back in the day, I kinda just...found South Park grating on me because it was a bit mean from time to time. But there were definitely funny bits in it.
I honestly think of the current anti-pricktator bits as just evidence of Stone and Parker's Cheney Syndrome; the danger wasn't real till it began to affect them.
I am still trying to figure out why any Obama voter would vote for TACO, who may not have been the original birther, but he was the loudest birther. WTF?
Yeah that math ain't mathing. Only thing I can think of was it was the most fun thing to do, OR...nobody offered a lot of these folks the out-and-out sadopopulism on a major party ticket. Everything before was just the nice, polite Lee Atwater euphemisms. The pricktator offered the full-throated ethnic cleansing.
As I like to say from time to time, Ashli Babbitt was (reportedly) an Obama voter before. There are many ways people can end up losing the plot like this.
People are not as neatly ideological as we’d like to believe. Someone who thinks “this person sees me and will make my life better” can easily have voted for Obama and then later Trump.
“This show has no relevance”, says the White House flunky, who by commenting publicly on it is proving that the show is in fact relevant.
South Park always struck me as a show that went where the jokes took them, mining humor without sacrificing it for a message. Sure, the creators were somewhat libertarian but I think they cared more about getting laughs than getting a message across. And that’s why their fans span the political spectrum.
And this attack on Trump is brilliant considering Paramount just insanely paid over a billion dollars for the show (!!!). They’re doing everything possible to get backlash from Trump right after he forced the company to get CBS (which it owns) to dump Stephen Colbert for much tamer anti-Trump humor. Now either Trump has to prove his impotence by letting Paramount’s merger go through or he has to make that Quisling company dump a property they paid through the nose for. A big “fuck you” to the most deserving people.
Interesting also that they gave Colbert almost a year to give Trump all the shit that he cares to. I’m annoyed about the “settlement” but there does seem to be a “GFY” or two in mix.
>> “less humorous liberals would reflexively consider how he was skewered either homophobic — “Why is it funny that a man is in bed with another man who happens to be Satan? Check your privilege.” — or ableist — “Trump probably doesn’t see you laughing at the image of his small penis with eyeballs on it, but you know who does? People with small penises with eyeballs on them. Do better.” <<
I really did almost spew my coffee over this. Perfectly captures the humorless self-righteousness of the leftier-than-thou crowd. thank you Stephen!
South Park is a show I can't watch these days, what with the house on fire and all. But Parker and Stone have remained pretty loyal to their shine-a-light/ nothing is off limits for decades more than anyone-including them- thought they ever would. The Scientology stuff comes to mind. Like it, hate it, it's certainly art.
"From the handicapped kid, Timmy, to the black kid, Token, every stereotype enjoys itself."
In a fairly recent episode, it's revealed that the kid's name is "Tolkien". His father asks "What kind of an asshole would think that I'd name my kid 'Token?'"
Also, we occasionally use "And what side dishes will we be enjoying?" in our household.
I loved South Park, for years. I had issues when Matt and Trey leaned too hard into Both-Siderism, at a time it would have been better to take a stand, and I just sort of stopped watching it. But god dammit, nothing has made me laugh harder than Eric Cartman. 😂😂
I also think that people get very confused when characters are mean/racist, etc. I don't think Eric Cartman is aspirational. He is also....a cartoon??? He's a cartoon. If anything, he was a warning.
Political satire - much of which South Park is - is a necessary thing in society. Do they always get it right? No. Is it always on the side of social justice? No. Is it okay that it's funny regardless? Yes.
Exactly. People have trouble separating a character's POV from the creator's, and they can't always tell a cautionary tale from a good guys vs bad guys story.
oh and one more thing - I agree that the Gen xers and millennials who watched South Park growing up are, for the most part, NOT apathetic and DO care, deeply. And are, overwhelmingly, Not Republican.
I plan to dig into this deeper, but if the assertion is that younger people (say 18 to 30) are more right-wing than Gen-X/Millennials were at that age, it's worth nothing that these are people who grew up post 9/11.
Very very true. Totally different media ecosystem.
I mostly caught it in its heyday while I was waiting for the Daily Show to start and have steadily paid less attention to both programs over the last decade. My only complaint with South Park is that I have noticed that, when they have trouble coming up with a coherent POV on something, they often do something offensive because they seem to believe that being transgressive is inherently funny. TBF, teenage me was bit like that. Adult me still has little to no problem with things that are offensive and clever in service of making an incisive point, and can accept something that is gratuitously offensive if it is sufficiently clever. But if the gag is lazy, it just amplifies the offensiveness, IMO. See also: the once brilliant Dave Chappelle.
Even if republicans WERE the 'dad' they sure as fuck were never cool.
Americans want to pat themselves on the back. Conservatives get that, and they tell them stories about how great they are. Progressives tell them they suck, which nobody likes, and Liberals tend to tell them they are good, but they could do better, which not everyone is always ready for.
Re the Dems moms/Repubs dads thing, Rebecca Solnit's acerbic version seems more apt - Dad isn't "cool.," he's an autocratic asshole.
Racism, sexism, authoritarianism - the deeply-rooted weeds poisoning every election.
I know I'm not smart enough to figure out the magic trick to overcoming them.
”In mainstream discourse, it’s become standard to blame the excesses of the right on liberals, the left, feminists, Black Lives Matter, affirmative action, environmental protection, and BIPOC and LGBTQ people. It’s a way that the right is granted masculine prerogatives and the left feminine responsibilities for the right’s behavior. It’s also routine to blame the Democratic Party for what the Republican Party does. The two parties are unconsciously regarded as akin to a husband and wife in a traditional marriage in which it’s the job of the wife to placate and soothe the husband and help him realize his goals or be held responsible for his outbursts and outrages."
I just think that view is too reductive.
Baselines are, by definition, reductive? LIke gravity? ;^)
I don’t know. I’m pretty far left but I still have a sense of humor. How I interpret the killing of sacred cow is that it’s absurd. The picking on the Black kid as a token or Timmy’s limited talking skills IS bad but it’s also what the right feels is fine. It’s like I get the inside joke that doing something like this is inherently wrong and those tropes reinforce that. WE know it’s not politically correct. Sort of like calling a bald guy Curly or a fat man Slim. Not sure I’m making myself clear here.
The Mad King's "hot streak" is in reality more of a skid mark. How the fuck is plunging poll numbers a goddamn " hot streak?". How about bravely running away for s foreign golfing vacation to avoid questions about your history of rape and kiddy diddling; does that look "hot" to you?
This is a neat perspective.
I have to say, even back in the day, I kinda just...found South Park grating on me because it was a bit mean from time to time. But there were definitely funny bits in it.
I honestly think of the current anti-pricktator bits as just evidence of Stone and Parker's Cheney Syndrome; the danger wasn't real till it began to affect them.
I am still trying to figure out why any Obama voter would vote for TACO, who may not have been the original birther, but he was the loudest birther. WTF?
Yeah that math ain't mathing. Only thing I can think of was it was the most fun thing to do, OR...nobody offered a lot of these folks the out-and-out sadopopulism on a major party ticket. Everything before was just the nice, polite Lee Atwater euphemisms. The pricktator offered the full-throated ethnic cleansing.
As I like to say from time to time, Ashli Babbitt was (reportedly) an Obama voter before. There are many ways people can end up losing the plot like this.
People are not as neatly ideological as we’d like to believe. Someone who thinks “this person sees me and will make my life better” can easily have voted for Obama and then later Trump.
Some people have memories and connect dots, some people don't
Josef Goebbles was a communist before he became a Nazi, a hard core Nazi who was still there in the bunker at the end
“This show has no relevance”, says the White House flunky, who by commenting publicly on it is proving that the show is in fact relevant.
South Park always struck me as a show that went where the jokes took them, mining humor without sacrificing it for a message. Sure, the creators were somewhat libertarian but I think they cared more about getting laughs than getting a message across. And that’s why their fans span the political spectrum.
And this attack on Trump is brilliant considering Paramount just insanely paid over a billion dollars for the show (!!!). They’re doing everything possible to get backlash from Trump right after he forced the company to get CBS (which it owns) to dump Stephen Colbert for much tamer anti-Trump humor. Now either Trump has to prove his impotence by letting Paramount’s merger go through or he has to make that Quisling company dump a property they paid through the nose for. A big “fuck you” to the most deserving people.
Interesting also that they gave Colbert almost a year to give Trump all the shit that he cares to. I’m annoyed about the “settlement” but there does seem to be a “GFY” or two in mix.
>> “less humorous liberals would reflexively consider how he was skewered either homophobic — “Why is it funny that a man is in bed with another man who happens to be Satan? Check your privilege.” — or ableist — “Trump probably doesn’t see you laughing at the image of his small penis with eyeballs on it, but you know who does? People with small penises with eyeballs on them. Do better.” <<
I really did almost spew my coffee over this. Perfectly captures the humorless self-righteousness of the leftier-than-thou crowd. thank you Stephen!
South Park is a show I can't watch these days, what with the house on fire and all. But Parker and Stone have remained pretty loyal to their shine-a-light/ nothing is off limits for decades more than anyone-including them- thought they ever would. The Scientology stuff comes to mind. Like it, hate it, it's certainly art.