Too many people seem to think that portraying something is the same thing as supporting it, completely missing the point of satire. They lack the media literacy to realize that critiques can be conveyed through characters and stories in a nuanced way.
South Park parodies a lot of things, sometimes by showing something simply as what it is. Some characters are meant to be disliked. For example, when Cartman is a douchebag, but he’s not meant to be a “good guy” to model yourself after. He’s a caricature of a self-centered bigot, and in being that, is used to lampoon others like him.
The show has had some bad takes. The whole “ManBearPig” scenario comes to mind. Thankfully, the creators came around to admitting they were very, very wrong in that case. In my opinion, such bad episodes are rare, with most providing cultural commentary in a way that turns them into time capsules reflecting various moments in our world.
With that said, it’s okay to not like it. Not every show is going to appeal to everybody, especially a show that makes it a point to poke fun at almost everyone. Though one group they don’t make fun of is disabled people - they show disabled characters as normal people, getting into their own hijinks the way all the other kids do. Instead, the creators make fun of those who’d rather infantilize disabled people and hide them away, like way back when Timmy was introduced and was in a band. Le Petite Tourette explained Tourette’s Syndrome honestly, with Cartman’s abuse of the situation being standard Cartman behavior (that backfired on him beautifully.)
Shutting people out who see the nuance is a naive take. I wouldn’t go out of my way to sell the show to such people, but if they can’t see that the show has far more hits than misses, well, they’re the ones missing out.
“if someone disagrees im muting them” is the cry of someone i dont need to hear anything from
The entitled American (and I’m an American myself). My country has fostered mentalities and behaviors that I can’t stand. We act like the planet owes us everything. Obviously not everyone is like this, but America has a unique brand of entitlement that I’ve witnessed pour out of both right-wingers and even the most leftist people. I witnessed a local well-known white pro-Palestine activist refuse to participate in a march for the black community because police were present. They didn’t stop to think “this is lead by and represents them—I should stay to support their actions.”
No one is safe from being an entitled asshole and it’s healthy to have a reality check sometimes. Not everything is about America.
Oh damn I’m not one to defend the USA, but in this case I have to say, it’s not just you. I feel we absolutely live in the age of entitlement, as in, that is the biggest problem right now, and might even destroy us.
You have these far right movements going on everywhere, and they literally consist of people who, when presented with scientific facts, insist that they are entitled to have their opinion that says otherwise. And politically correct people can feel pushed to agree that, yes, they are entitled to their opinion.
But while that whole group is either that entitlement or selective ignorance, it absolutely exists on the left, too, like you said. I’ve run into LGBT+? folks that go “it’s not your time to talk, it’s your time to listen” in a comment thread. I’ll gladly talk WITH people in a respectful way, but if you just want to talk AT me… No, you’re not entitled to me being an audience for some kinda narcissist savior fantasy.
The red pill bugs, who feel entitled to women’s bodies. The female counterparts, who feel entitled to men paying for everything. The parents who feel entitled to everybody accomodating their kids. The customers who feel entitled to mistreat service workers. The people who say “I deserve” where others say “I earned”.
Entitlement, man. Work on not being entitled, and you’re already a saint among sinners.
Yeah, you’re not required to sit there and be talked at like a child. That kind of behavior makes me shutdown 100%. When I was a kid and adults resorted to yelling, I just assumed they were inept at communicating and tuned them out. It carried over into adulthood too. If a manager acted that way, I walked out and quit (I’ve done it twice in my life now). It’s similar to police in America expecting respect simply because they have a badge. Respect is earned.
The red pillers thinking they have autonomy over another human is a whole other level of insanity.
All of this entitlement and inability to communicate with respect is unique to 2 countries: America and Israel. Both are places that have drilled exceptionalism into their core values. I’ve yet to see other countries behave this way. A good litmus test for this is to use Rednote for a few months. Join chat groups, post about yourself and your country, engage with people. Your experience there will be 10x different than on Instagram. People on Facebook and Instagram will quickly resort to talking shit and being abrasive. On Rednote, the experience is completely different.
It’s even worse on websites where OPs can delete comments arbitrarily
Somebody’s got some sand in their vagina.
My take is that SP is a show about how everyone is capable of being hypocritical, petty and inflammatory. It touches on uncomfortable subjects because those are what bring people to show the aforementioned traits.
I don’t think “dark humor” is the point, it’s just there to keep the viewer engaged so they can see social issues from another angle and reconsider their views.
Yeah, it’s been a while since they graduated from sophomoric jokes into using their show to convey real messages about the world we live in. The satire is exquisite. My partner, who comes from a very different culture, typically doesn’t enjoy USA style comedy. She loves SP, though.
It’s fine if OOP hates South Park. It’s a divisive show. However, dark humor is indeed a valuable thing. Yes, sometimes assholes call sexism, racism, homophobia (etc) “dark humor” in an attempt to excuse what they know is wrong, but that doesn’t mean that the concept of dark humor is flawed.
Dark humor is often used to mock and/or point out hypocrisy. Sometimes it deliberately makes us uncomfortable. We should always reflect on ourselves and our culture as a whole. That’s a vital part of becoming a better person.
If OOP chose to “mute” me for expressing that opinion, I don’t think I’d be missing much.
The inherent problem with any satire labeled as “dark” is that people generally lack the ability to determine it as a satirical work of art.
In general I think it’s a valuable form of art. However, if you don’t hammer the point that you are actively mocking your target of satire and disavow the audience who are mistakenly attracted to it, then I think it can do more harm than good.
I think this is where I am on the fence with it when it comes to some comedians who claim they are engaging in dark works of satire, but are comfortable with having a large portion of their audience being right winged chuds who don’t understand its satire.
This transgresses pretty much all works of satire. A good example being the 40k franchise, which started out as a satirical commentary against fascism, specifically against Thatcherism. Eventually they had a large contingency of people who are unironically fans of the Empire. Though they have recently taken steps to mitigate this, they did spend decades making money from these types of people.
The unfortunate result of this “requirement” for creators to clarify their position such that everyone consuming the work understands that it’s satire, is the complete and utter loss of subtlety. Because now you’re just dumbing down your work to the level of the slowest kid in the classroom who, as the last decade has proven, is in fact very slow indeed. It would be one thing if bigots were known for their intellect and media comprehension skills, but alas…
Call me a brunch liberal or whatever but this whole mindset makes media boring. It’s for people who think of art as propaganda more than self-expression.
Don’t dumb shit down for literal Nazis. Honestly I might go ahead and say all it does is give them more things to point to to say “WOKE MEDIA IS BAD.” Because stuff written like this really does blow.
The only reason I know about 40k is MUTHA FUCKIN BOLT THROWER !!! Best metal band ever
Because adults are just grown children, sometimes. Like, seriously, age says nothing about maturity, just hypothetical, lived experience.
How dare you like something I don’t like?
Dark humour aside, what the aim really is, is to hold up a mirror to issues the mass populous takes for granted, after slow drip erosion of societally accepted rights. It’s a fight back against the mass media and thier ilk, beating you about the head with “these people are bad because…” so you go along with hunting them down, but really they’ve found a convenient way to remove YOUR rights, or distract you into not noticing something egregious they’ve done. We become desensitised to things, and south park rips that bandage off fast and painfully, by design. They show you the things you have become desensitised to, in massively parodied, over the top, over exaggerated version, so you see through your former brain washing or desensitisation. If you don’t pay attention, you don’t notice the messages always pointing out how egregious the thing actually is. I would suggest, if you have that opinion, you’ve never actually really watched south park.
And really none of us should talk from a bias, we should employ critical thinking and inform ourselves fully, before making definitive statements. So, go watch… I’ll bet you change your mind.
Either everything is funny or nothing is
Nice try Trump Administration
As someone who’s been banned or frozen from every message board i’ve ever frequented for edgy jokes, I honestly agree lol. That show’s super grating and the jokes aren’t even interesting unless you’re shallow af
ITT:
(It’s okay to like a show. Cartman’s voice just gives me a headache, you guys.)
Do you have a high res version of this?
I don’t, sorry. After some searching it appears the text comes from here: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/politics-news/south-park-politics-bush-obama-trump-1236356905/
Why are people acting like this is not a Screenshot from twitter and as if SwissArmyKazoo personaly wrote that post???
I mean, one of the running gags in the show is literally just “this guy is every stereotype of a Chinese person” and the only real joke is that it sounds like he is saying “shitty” when he’s saying “city.”
They can do better. They have done better. But there is still hella uncomfortable bullshit like that in the show.
FWIW, he’s canonically a white guy portraying a racist Chinese stereotype. I never figured out what to make of that. It doesn’t exactly make it funnier or inherently more satirical. But it is a thing.
“It’s ok I’m not actually racist I was just pretending it so I could tell a racist joke”
Man that is a city take.
Firstly. Its dark humor. I am happily letting you delete me. I don’t want to know you. If you don’t have the capacity to understand it you don’t have the basis to complain. Stupid is as stupid does.
