I never really tolerated this take on the show. And how many often accused Matt and Trey of being libertarians or even downright bigots even though they’re trying to make a socialist statement on civilisation or the topic of the week like gay marriage and treatment of disability in media and how people could potentially be faking it for exploitation both of which were actually very well done and progressive especially the tourettes example.
Also they’ve ruthless mocked Trump in a story arc not only once but twice. And their latest season is so aggressively ruthless and savage, It feels like they’re doing more for the liberal No Kings uprising than The current democratic party leaders who are all talk and no substance.
I’m not saying I don’t fully disagree with people’s disdain for the show (primarily the trans community. I can see why they hate South Park’s guts) but to consider it a permanent stain on basic human decency and a horrid influence for milennials is honestly pretty hair splitting if you’d ask me.
Am I missing something here within these folks? is punching sideways/mocking everyone equally really any worst than complete douchebags straight up punching down for the sake of pissing off the unfortunate because they find it hilarious (Looking at you Tony Hinchcliffe, and Babylon Bee)? Are the South Park guys really to blame for shaping an entire demographic into not caring about any Global Disputes with Current Affairs? Or did the boundaries pushing and subtle satire simply got lost in people who either grewed up into the very thing they were mocking or viewed it as a cesspool of nihlist Slop?
they’re trying to make a socialist statement
They’re not though. Their politics aren’t socialist, or progressive, or anything.
Their comedy is about shock and being uncomfortable. Whether the topic for the week is political, social or interpersonal the show will have a take that is designed to shock and make people uncomfortable, because there’s laughs in being uncomfortable.
Claiming southpark is socialist is like claiming your fever dream was more Dengist than Trotskyite. That’s just not how it works.
Do you watch it? I definitely think sometimes they are making valid and salient points and sometimes those points touch on things at least adjacent to socialism.
They do satire, i.e., “isn’t it weird that…” Or “isn’t society hypocritical for…”
Sometimes they aim at one thing, sometimes another. Sometimes warranted, sometimes not, imo…
Okay but you do see how that is absolutely not making a socialist statement, yeah?
Do you see how you didn’t read?
No. I read it.
#puritytest
https://nebula.tv/videos/lindsayellis-south-park
Stone and Parker are the embodiment of genX politics. That is the cynical mantra that people who believe in stuff are the real fools. And it doesn’t matter if you deny the Holocaust or advocate for green energy, in South Park you’ve committed the same sin.
Sure they make fun of Trump. But they also had an entire season devoted to frat-boy bullies and tyrants who advocated for inclusion, equity, and social justice. Because that’s a social problem in American and Matt & Tray simply have the courage to finally speak truth to power.
Oh, and meanwhile Global Warming is a hysterical myth that Al Gore invented.
For what it’s worth, they have officially said they were wrong about Climate Change.
And it only took how long? So brave of them to admit they were wrong long after public consensus shifted (never mind scientific consensus, which was already solid before that episode was even made).
And you’d rather they didn’t? Obviously it would have been better if they didn’t mock climate change in the first place, but if they then use their same platform to use the same influence to acknowledge their mistake, it’s much better than them just staying silent about it. It’s incredibly counterproductive to mock people who actually admit when they were wrong, even if they’re not as quick about it as you want them to be.
They weren’t random people that were shooting the shit with some friends, they had an incredibly successful media platform that they used to spread disinformation about climate change after scientific consensus had been reached. You don’t get to ‘oopsie’ that one and skate by with an ‘I was wrong, my bad’, which is all that episode was. If they don’t want to be criticized for that then they need to step up and actually use their influence.
But that would involve caring about something, which is cringe, a far greater sin in their eyes than cheering on the ghouls making large swathes of the planet uninhabitable.
people who believe in stuff are the real fools
That’s a really good distillation of their ethos. I’m going to try to remember it.
This is pretty accurate but I would say it’s both their flaw and their strength. There’s a lot put on the shoulders of the show probably because it’s such a cultural force and has been around for a long time. They’re often lauded for their take downs and for how well they distilled absurdities in various beliefs and I actually think that praise was pretty well deserved. They can take anything, whatever it may be and find the angle where it is risible and stupid, and that works great for comedy and only becomes a problem when it’s expected to somehow be right in doing so or is to have a coherent philosophy that can be discerned from the years of output and that’s where it really starts to break down. When something like Southpark is around this long and people place so many expectations on it, when it has to mine the cultural milieux for something current and relevant week after week and still stick to it’s “ripping on everybody” schtick, the limits of the actual commentary and messaging start to become apparent. This leads to justified criticism like yours but at the end of the day it was only ever just a tv show and frankly what they do achieve is pretty impressive for the medium and for its longevity even when compared to where it hits the limits of both.
No to all of this.
Stone and Parker are the embodiment of genX politics. That is the cynical mantra that people who believe in stuff are the real fools.
Even if that was their mantra (which I don’t think it is), it’s absurd to generalise that to all of Gen X, as if all of us have the same politics.
IMO South Park just holds up a mirror to society (in probably 90% of their episodes, anyway). People who are comfortable / powerful in society won’t like looking at the ugliness in that mirror. People who understand how fucked up everything is will appreciate the value of the mirror.
I think a smaller amount of their material is just them griping about various pet peeves, which is fine. They are human and very creative, so of course some of those types of things will come out in their work, too.
And some of it is just to be funny, pure absurdist jokes and gags. In the sense of “the universe doesn’t care” types of things. Those land hard for me, but some people don’t find that kind of thing funny. The people who don’t find it funny aren’t wrong, they just have different tastes in humor.
I think you nailed it. You can take what you want from their episodes oftentimes, they are not trying to convince anyone of anything but how stupid some people and things are from at least one perspective. That’s it. When people act like they’re anti leftist or something like that, they’ve 100% missed what was being done.
Punching everyone equally gives the appearance that everyone deserves to be punched. Just another form of “both sides” bullshit.
Folks are rightfully calling out the anti trans stuff and anti gay stuff, and the climate change stuff. But one that really sticks with me the most is when they punched down on alcoholics.
Basically they implied alcoholics should be able to enjoy a tiny bit of alcohol here or there, and called out alcoholics who completely abstain as being undiciplined losers.
As someone with outrageous amounts of alcoholism on both sides of my family, it doesn’t sit well with me at all.
Plus, Matt and Trey are Republicans, so fuck them.
The scene in which Randy gets arrested for drunk driving is based on a near identical experience that Parker had with his father when he was nine years-old.
From Wikipedia, so it seems like he’s had some personal experience as well.
Also I don’t think they are republican or democrat
Also I don’t think they are republican or democrat
they are Republican.
Pretty sure if it was the opposite, and they declared themselves liberals to a room full of uncomfortable right wing elites, we wouldn’t be ignoring their history or rejecting that label.
You mean: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, comics, Dungeons and Dragons, video games, anime, South Park, etc.?
Because people have been stupid for a million years.
We’ve got quotes of Socrates bitching about the youth…
Yeah, but he also complained about writing which is very funny as we only know that he existed because other people wrote about him.
People who think South Park ruined anything or that the creators are politically shitty do not get it and probably haven’t watched much of it. Imo to think they are politically shitty, it takes being a purity tester type who is looking for secret evil everywhere. The type who is not satisfied with the evil people being honest about their beliefs, they know the truth: most people who claim to have leftist views are actually secretly evil conservatives. This is a type of person I will never get along with.
No, I watched all of it. What the fuck are you talking about with “looking for secret evil everywhere”?
South Park has always been hated by the same people for the same reasons. It’s a fucking cartoon. No one is forced to watch it. I like some episodes, I dislike others. I watch the ones I like, I don’t watch the ones I don’t like. I don’t get what’s so hard about it. If I can do it, other people can do it too.
Damn that’s a boomer take… “If everyone could just act like me we’d all be better off”
Lmao. I don’t give a fuck what you or anyone else thinks about South Park, and I certainly don’t think anyone would be better off just because someone changed their mind about a cartoon.
But keep putting words in people’s mouths so you can win arguments with strangers on the internet, if that’s what you’re into.
There was an odd period of time in America where a large portion of the population got their political information and social awareness from the Comedy Central television network.
The Daily Show, Colbert Report, and South Park.
People often had a better sense of humor about things back then though
I’m not even trying to make a stupid joke, it’s true
Having a sense of humor makes you less of an insufferable annoyance when talking about topics that are heavy
Please return me to 2006. I hate everything and would like to go back. (lol)
One one hand, South Park has expertly satirized current events for its entire existence, and the writing is genius.
On the other hand, it pretty much gave all the worst school children in the 2000’s permission the scream “fag” and “jew” all the time because they didn’t understand that Cartman isn’t supposed to be a role model.
The Colbert Effect
South Park has had some really good moments. The last season was especially fantastic.
But South Park has also had many equally terrible moments. They’ve been pretty awful on trans issues. The whole PC Principal arc really said a lot about who Matt and Trey are as people. And even if they eventually walked it back, the fact that they tried to deny climate change has to be brought up in conversations like this.
For the most part, I’d say the show has been at its best when it’s kids getting into hijinks and at its worst when Matt and Trey use the show as their mouthpiece.
Ruining? I think they meant enlightening.
Pretty sure they do.
Meh. That’s true now but early on South Park really encouraged the whole “apathy is cool” attitude and lots of people mimicked. I’m talking about when it was still new and mostly watched by middle and high schoolers.
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Part of the problem, like the problem with Team America, is that the ideas still propagate even if you’re mocking them. The same is true of The Office, making fun of misogyny and racism by acting it out while trying to play it straight is very similar to acting it out earnestly. It’s not a defense to say it’s parodic or subtle or sarcastic.
More than anything, South Park was dominated by the shock factor. The content wasn’t particularly insightful, educational, or complex. It was mostly absurdism and shock, both fundamentally predicated on doing things other people weren’t willing to do because it was taboo or uncomfortable.
Did some young viewers come away with enlightened sensibilities? Probably. But RATM achieved the same goal without reproducing the messages of the movements that they were fighting against.
This is exactly why I had to stop watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It’s brilliantly written satire most of the time, but I know people are getting the wrong ideas from it and laughing at truly despicable behavior that they’re going to emulate first for ironic humor, then eventually just because it’s hedonistically rewarding.
Personally I’m not going to stop watching something just because other people are too dumb to not emulate the goblins in it
Sad this is not upvoted 100 times.
I do really appreciate that The Gang’s misbehavior always ends up screwing them over. That’s a big difference compared to South Park.
That’s a very fair point. But even that level of “nuance” I think can be lost on an audience of many millions in a generation where a large proportion of kids make it to college without ever having read an entire adult-level book cover to cover.
Comment deleted and moved to correct thread.
To think that a comedy show that aired for 5 hours per year (22 minutes (without ads) per episode, 13 times a season) ruined a generation is daft as fuck.
Fred Durst did more damage to Gen X.
\,,/(^_^)\,,/They leaned into anti-woke stuff pretty hard, right as it was being used to radicalize men. I agree that some of the criticism from the left misses some of the nuance in some of the plots (eg, PC principal often being the voice of reason), but some of it is valid IMO. At best they were out of touch in a pretty harmful way. It’s good that they seem to be making an effort to repent with the recent seasons, but they definitely weren’t helping the situation for a solid decade before that.
People are bad at media literacy?
A tale as old as time.
Remember when fundamentalists viewed Pokemon as a satanic threat?
