South Park As A Gated Community

[MovieBob]

South Park As A Gated Community

I will point out how it nicely illustrates the disconnect of Privilege that began right around that moment to slowly transform South Park from the vital truth-telling youngster of TV animation to the grouchy grandpa old before its time.

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[lacktheknack]

That baby-vs-annoying-dude example at the start of the article was... kind of brilliant, actually.

 

[Zaydin]

Once again, Bob shows what a massive f**king hypocrite he is by calling out South Park, yet he gives shows like the Simpsons & Family Guy a free pass when they use their "privilege" to insult people, simply because he agrees more with the far-left leanings of Groening and McFarlane.

Bob, you are just a worthless hypocrite. And you're still wrong for supporting drone warfare.

I'm not really sure you could call Trey Parker and Matt Stone left-wing or right-wing; they generally target whatever has pissed them off at the moment, or alternatively, whatever provides the most humor to mock.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I fall in the South Park category of politics, in which I feel both sides of the issues are so far batshit insane (and downright stupid) that I want no part in it and trust none of them. I love the humor of South Park, because it really hits the nose on what "equality" really means. Humor has no politics.

 

[Rad Party God]

That analogy was kinda disturbing... but absolutely brilliant, heck, it's definitely something that could certainly happen in South Park (TBH, I'm actually surprised that it hasn't been done yet...).

 

[Shadowsetzer]

Once again, Bob shows what a massive f**king hypocrite he is by calling out South Park, yet he gives shows like the Simpsons & Family Guy a free pass when they use their "privilege" to insult people, simply because he agrees more with the far-left leanings of Groening and McFarlane.

Bob, you are just a worthless hypocrite. And you're still wrong for supporting drone warfare.

Maybe chill out and just say you disagree, instead of throwing out profanity and character attacks? You've been on the site long enough to know you hate Bob, so just don't watch/read his stuff.

 

[FFP2]

Someone has to call him out for being a dick.

You might wanna edit your posts. We're not allowed to criticise content creators around these parts.

 

[briankoontz]

I fall in the South Park category of politics, in which I feel both sides of the issues are so far batshit insane (and downright stupid) that I want no part in it and trust none of them. I love the humor of South Park, because it really hits the nose on what "equality" really means. Humor has no politics.

That's not true. Parker and Stone are middle-of-the-road libertarians, not left-wing or right-wing. They are primarily focused on issues of middle-class consumerist Americans. This gives them a very specific political position, which is consistently employed in their show.

South Park is like the Simpsons, Family Guy, or Futurama - it's so utterly middle-of-the-road that it hardly offends anyone - hence it's popularity. It's something Americans can partake in and feel American. South Park is like apple pie.

The great irony is that South Park's reputation is for being "offensive", when in truth it's anything but.

 

[Doopliss64]

I find South Park's "everyone is equally wrong, so just cool it" attitude refreshing. Honestly, in this era of ever-increasing political polarization, this is a message that desperately needs to be reinforced. Sometimes, the best way to make progress is put your overzealous emotional factionalism aside and just take in the objective absurdity of both sides from an outsider's perspective.

Unfortunately, Bob is just a very opinionated person. At the risk of unfairly calling him out personally, I would say that the mentality he exemplifies is the primary reason for the political gridlock making America so ineffectual right now at dealing with its problems. Everyone just refuses to even consider the possibility that they could *gasp* be wrong about something, and will instead fight to the death over issues that they have no stake in and are unqualified to be debating.

Edit: Sorry about my wordiness, I just wrote a research essay and the whole "vocabulary soup bullshit filler" habit is hard to shake off.

 

[hexFrank202]

Eh, I guess you're right. Yeah I hate to admit it, but yeah you're kind of right. Personally, I think Trey and Matt let the praise they've always gotten go to their heads. They aren't, and never were actually very insightful about politics. Any B-list pundit could out do them. The difference, however, was that no one expected B-grade political commentary to be coming from a cartoon! Oh wait, well, no one expected B-grade political commentary reflecting things that happened last week to be coming from a cartoon! So that was the hook.

What SP was truly good at was trolling with people. Yeah that's what Trey and Matt always really were; ornery little pranksters. THAT is what was always actually appealing about the commentary. And personally, I think that the last run of 7 episodes was the best run in the series history, and it's looking like this season will be pretty good as well. It seems like they're finally giving the commentary less of a focus.

I mean references to news headlines are still there, but they rarely still spawn into whole plot lines. They're more make up little jokes and scenes, like it was back in the first three seasons.

And if my memory serves, in the event that they do make whole episodes out of issues, they've lately been coming down pretty decisively on one side. This week's episode was pretty much "censorship is stupid. The end"

Stuff

He was just saying South Park was slightly less incredibly wonderful than it was before. But he still places it way above FG or modern Simpsons.

 

[Silent Protagonist]

Seriously Bob, I like most of the stuff you put up on this site but when you talk politics you really make a mess of things. Are you really so blinded by your own bias that you think it is completely unfair and unwarranted to mock the people or ideologies you happen to agree with while their supposed opposition should be completely fair game?

Bob doesn't seem to hate the supposed "fallacy" of attacking everything equally(which South Park doesn't really do, their thing is more that anything is fair game to mock) as much as he doesn't like agreeing with and enjoying the mocking of the people he dislikes but then being caught off guard when those he agrees with are mocked. He would much rather be able to enjoy all the mocking like with Family Guy the other blatantly liberal McFarlane stuff or just be able to avoid it entirely because it mocks the stuff he likes and dismiss it as evil.

Also, are you really going to bring up 'privilege' when comparing the very wealthy, celebrity producers of hit television shows?

Slightly off topic but on a slightly less inflammatory note: What did people think of South Park's recent episode where they touched on the whole violent media makes people violent thing? I thought it was really funny how when the parents became obsessed with minecraft they starting digging up lawns, punching trees, and building blocky structures in the real world.

 

[rasputin0009]

Seriously Bob, I like most of the stuff you put up on this site but when you talk politics you really make a mess of things. Are you really so blinded by your own bias that you think it is completely unfair and unwarranted to mock the people or ideologies you happen to agree with while their supposed opposition should be completely fair game?

Bob doesn't seem to hate the supposed "fallacy" of attacking everything equally(which South Park doesn't really do, their thing is more that anything is fair game to mock) as much as he doesn't like agreeing with and enjoying the mocking of the people he dislikes but then being caught off guard when those he agrees with are mocked. He would much rather be able to enjoy all the mocking like with Family Guy the other blatantly liberal McFarlane stuff or just be able to avoid it entirely because it mocks the stuff he likes and dismiss it as evil.

Also, are you really going to bring up 'privilege' when comparing the very wealthy, celebrity producers of hit television shows?

Slightly off topic but on a slightly less inflammatory note: What did people think of South Park's recent episode where they touched on the whole violent media makes people violent thing? I thought it was really funny how when the parents became obsessed with minecraft they starting digging up lawns, punching trees, and building blocky structures in the real world.

Exactly.

I highly recommend Bob to stay away from touching on politics. Making the analogy that South Park's comedic angles is akin to slapping an innocent baby (Liberals/Democrats) and slapping an overgrown man (Conservatives/Republicans) is pretty ridiculous. Your poor logos and crazy pathos ruins your ethos. Ya, just learned those terms in my English for Engineers class.

Joining your off topic Silent Protagonist: I really enjoyed their violent media episode and especially liked their "harder to make available" argument at the end. Much better episode overall compared to the Season premier. And you just can't go wrong with some hilarious nipple play.

 

[thehorror2]

Bravo, Bob. There's a big difference between being a balanced, reasonable moderate and being a true-neutral "EVERYONE ON BOTH SIDES IS AN IDIOT FOR TAKING A SIDE IN THE FIRST PLACE" moderate.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

You know, it's funny. I may have said this before. South Park has a decidedly anti-leftist bent and does things like have hybrid cars belching clouds of "smug" and compare Al Gore to people who are scared that Bigfoot is going to come down out of the mountains and gobble up our children, while Family Guy does stuff like literally call John McCain supporters Nazis without a hint of irony. And yet: the Internet, where people who vote Republican rarely venture outside of their own designated haunts like the Fox News site or Conservapedia, is the one place you can find truckloads of people who love South Park and hate Family Guy. There's something fundamentally different about their approaches, and it sure ain't who they vote for.

I think it's the fact that South Park's satire comes off as mockery, while Family Guy's is more openly meanspirited and... well, smug. It's the difference between "oh, you crazy people" and "fuck you, asshole". Actually, it's not even "fuck you", it's more "fuck those assholes, amirite?" *smirks at camera*

 

[SecondPrize]

Seriously Bob, I like most of the stuff you put up on this site but when you talk politics you really make a mess of things. Are you really so blinded by your own bias that you think it is completely unfair and unwarranted to mock the people or ideologies you happen to agree with while their supposed opposition should be completely fair game?

Bob doesn't seem to hate the supposed "fallacy" of attacking everything equally(which South Park doesn't really do, their thing is more that anything is fair game to mock) as much as he doesn't like agreeing with and enjoying the mocking of the people he dislikes but then being caught off guard when those he agrees with are mocked. He would much rather be able to enjoy all the mocking like with Family Guy the other blatantly liberal McFarlane stuff or just be able to avoid it entirely because it mocks the stuff he likes and dismiss it as evil.

Also, are you really going to bring up 'privilege' when comparing the very wealthy, celebrity producers of hit television shows?

Slightly off topic but on a slightly less inflammatory note: What did people think of South Park's recent episode where they touched on the whole violent media makes people violent thing? I thought it was really funny how when the parents became obsessed with minecraft they starting digging up lawns, punching trees, and building blocky structures in the real world.

Exactly.

I highly recommend Bob to stay away from touching on politics. Making the analogy that South Park's comedic angles is akin to slapping an innocent baby (Liberals/Democrats) and slapping an overgrown man (Conservatives/Republicans) is pretty ridiculous. Your poor logos and crazy pathos ruins your ethos. Ya, just learned those terms in my English for Engineers class.

Joining your off topic Silent Protagonist: I really enjoyed their violent media episode and especially liked their "harder to make available" argument at the end. Much better episode overall compared to the Season premier. And you just can't go wrong with some hilarious nipple play.

Woah woah woah. Slow down there hoss. Republicans are the baby and the Democratic party are the cellphone dude. I mean, who has been throwing increasingly large tantrums since 2008 because they're not getting their way?

 

[Xdeser2]

You know what I realized here?

you can analyze something wayyy to much. Its just a show that pokes fun at current events and tries to be funny.

Not everything needs to be probed for message or deeper meaning, not everything needs to be torn down and criticized for every detail, that doesn't make you intelligent, it makes you bitter and spiteful, and eventually takes away any ability to genuinely have fun and enjoy things.