Matt Stone and Trey Parker have done more to make our generation crueler than nearly anyone else, because they can get away with it under the guise of “this is satire, duh”, not realizing that poorly-done satire only reinforces the cultural forces it is meant to mock. When 13 year-old-kids are watching South Park, they aren’t tuning in to the little infinitesimally small lessons supposedly being taught, they’re laughing at Timmy being severely disabled, they’re laughing at sexual harassment, they’re laughing at child abuse, they’re laughing at anti-semitism, they’re laughing at people who have had sex reassignment surgery.
And the “satire” is so often pathetically weak. There isn’t a single nativist in this entire country who can’t laugh at a “der takin er jerbs” joke, because those jokes don’t actually rebut or mock the arguments made by people opposed to immigration. It’s just saying a common political phrase in a funny voice. Is that how low the bar for “satire” has been set? There’s occasionally more effective satire on the show, but not nearly enough for it to be defended on the basis of its value as satire.
But if you try to explain any of this to die-hard South Park fans, they’ll completely blow it off. They think that the fact the show upsets me simply means that the show has accomplished its purpose, never actually questioning whether or not that purpose is a worthy one. That’s why the show is so insidious: it wraps itself in this cynical layer of self-containment that prevents it from ever being pointed out for what it is: a detriment to the type of society that any decent person wants to see. South Park is far more dangerous than the Westboro Baptist Church, because South Park is something that people accept and defend.
Yes. And there’s a whole genre of shows, news websites and media out there now whose ‘satire’ amount to LOL IT’S FUNNY BECAUSE ITS OFFENSIVE. That is not harmless, that is actively creating (and has created over the last decades) a culture in which bigots can thrive and feel like they never have to defend themselves.
The issue with South Park is that while it does have some satire that is well done and some other interesting moments of insight, you have to already have a knowledge base in order to see/understand/appreciate it. Otherwise all it does is reinforce bigoted ideas that people already have.
It’s the difference between laughing at because you thinks he’s actually funny, or laughing because he’s a caricature of the ego driven id of white America.
And while the show is not intended for young people, they find it and watch it and internalize it’s shallow lessons because they aren’t able to see any of the layered ideas because they simply don’t have the knowledge yet. And that is damaging. But because South Park has been around so long it’s become ingrained in American culture, and there’s no real way to keep kids from watching it.
In 20 years South park’s creators never tried to make their show less accessible to young people though, nor did they try to make their messages clearer when they realized they were reaching a wide audience. No, they purposely stayed in the zone where it is possible to argue that the show is secretly progressive to a small minority who ‘get it’ while practically bigotted to everyone else. They produce a hugely profitable product based on how-offensive-can-we-get and play a huge part in normalizing open bigotry because of it.
Two decades is a long time to not notice that you are furthering the thing you claim to mock.
Oh, I’m not arguing in defense South Park here. I completely agree with you. Its causing problems and the creators have done nothing to try and correct anything. Why would they when they’ve discovered that they can milk this cash cow for tons of money? They don’t need to adjust their content because they’ve managed to make a product that’s defensible from any viewpoint enough to not need to change. They’re making a profit and have very little to lose from any fall out that may occur from their show’s content. Their priviledge let’s them have the position of “oh well we make fun of everyone” without realizing that they’re really just fanning the flames of someone else’s shitty beliefs.
YES!
QueerAnarchism 