How ‘South Park’ Perfectly Captures Our Era of Outrage
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
That last fact needs extra emphasis. The multi-month lead time needed for every other scripted show on Television means that South Park is the only show that can pull Ripped-From-the-Headlines commentary without things being dated by the time the episode airs. (Law and Order: SVU is show that is guilty of this to a hilarious degree)
"Procedural" refers to a specific type of scripted television, typically but not always a legal, medical, or law-enforcement drama. A procedural show follows the same format every episode: a mystery of some kind is introduced (medical, crime, or what have you), and the characters go through the procedures of solving the mystery. Law & Order: SVU can be described as a procedural; South Park cannot, unless you're using a very very loose definition of the term.
If you're looking at this in terms of nested sets or categories:
- Scripted vs. Nonscripted
- Comedy vs. Drama (usually also means half-hour vs. hour)
- Episodic (every episode is self-contained) vs. Serialized (the show follows an overall, evolving storyline that builds each episode)
- Subgenre
So a show like L&O: SVU would be a scripted, one-hour drama in the crime procedural subgenre. (We could also describe the show as episodic, but given that all procedurals are episodic, this would be redundant.)
South Park is a scripted, half-hour comedy in the animation subgenre that typically follows an episodic format, with occasional serialized story arcs spanning multiple episodes (and in the case of this season, the whole season).
tldr if there is a long term story it is very loose.
There has been long term development of some themes, each of the four characters has a key characteristic that I do think develops over time, but not with the same hidden strong continuity that I expected to find when I set out on this journey.
Most notably Randy's deteriorating marriage to Sharon, Stan's loneliness and insecurity about his family, (and Shelly) progresses from season to season
Cartman's relationship with his mother and his coming to terms with his weight, possible homosexuality, and finding his father progresses from season to season.
I looked to find development in Kyle's moral compass but could not discern anything.
Kenny overcoming his identity as "the poor kid" for lack of a better term seems to progress as well.
I watch the show less often now because that sprint was enough South Park to last a lifetime but I look forward to seeing how the show wraps up and if there is any closure instead of just ending in a fart joke.
Just the facial animation to sync up the mouths with the script, limited as it is in South Park, has to have some interesting automation underlying it. Unless they've got a huge army of animators chained to their desks pushing sprites around that they didn't show.
It's satire, if you don't enjoy watching it.
Then don't.
If you are truly worried about peoples views being strongly influenced by the content of South Park, then your opinion of peoples intelligence is far less than mine. It's for entertainment, and the viewer ship knows this.
I think you might be overestimating the amount of energy that is put into having an opinion on the Internet. We're not exactly sending hand-written letters via pigeon. It takes seconds-to-minutes to state a view.
> If you are truly worried about peoples views being strongly influenced by the content of South Park, then your opinion of peoples intelligence is far less than mine. It's for entertainment, and the viewer ship knows this.
Putting consumerist entertainment on a pedestal is unjustified. What one thinks is entertaining is a reflection of their views on society. Being for entertainment does not strip a commodity of its social context.
That's not true at all.
Edit: I'll expand on this since it's getting downvoted.
Most Americans have absolutely no idea what "satire" is -- so they can't "know that South Park is satire". I think they know south park is funny, but in the same way a bully making fun of a nerd is funny: the bully is hilarious because the nerd is pathetic. South Park is funny because "social justice warriors"/Al Gore's insistence that climate change is an urgent problem/gun control advocates are wrong in their position.
The cool thing in millenial culture is to not care about anything. Having a cause of any kind makes you an SJW or a nutjob and that isn't cool. Liking what you do for a living makes you a nerd and that isn't cool. Being genuinely in love with your partner makes you whipped and that isn't cool. The only thing people aren't chill about is the need to be chill. All the time.
South Park captures this very well, I think. Caring about anything, having any hobby, South Park shoots it all down. It even shoots down itself -- notice how after every moving monologue from Stan or Kyle about how we all just need to stop caring about something, we get a nice comic relief of Cartman calling whoever just poured their heart out a faggot and does something vulgar? We can't even care about not caring.
Because of this, South Park was pretty regularly referred to as a moral and ethical guide by most of the friends I made in college. Who, like most people, have no idea what sarcasm even is (it isn't cool to pay attention in AP lit, you just do it for the grade and move on).
(I would even say that South Park isn't sarcastic or satirical and is instead flatly advocating utter nihilism. This seems to fit with the creator's styles and I think is a major contributor towards this cultural impulse towards nihilism. But that's another comment.)
It seems to be quite the opposite. Every week I'm let know what it is I'm supposed to be outraged about.
-> I would even say that South Park isn't sarcastic or satirical and is instead flatly advocating utter nihilism.
It would seem, if anything, South Park just tries to round things out to free speech. You can call that nihilism, I guess, in a sort of perfunctory way.
I call this the "Five minutes of hate". If you don't get that reference, read 1984 by George Orwell. I think you'll find it very illuminating.
One week, it was Chik-fil-a and how we should hate them because their CEO gave money to a cause I disagree with, the next it's some baker in oregon who dared to refuse to do a wedding cake for a gay couple. (I'm queer, I believe in gay marriage, but just because you have the right to marry doesn't mean you have the right to make some business sell you something.)
There's a lot of other stuff from 1984 that have become real-
The memory hole-- how everyone forgets the past (and the media-- our big shouting head-- pretends like it doesn't exist.)
Double-Speak is Double-plus real too. Etc.
One of the things that's most jarring about the Internet age is that a minority group that previously would be blacklisted from newspapers, ignored by local administrators, etc., can actually broadcast its grievances to the world as a whole without any mediation. The decline of money going to journalism as the print medium dies means that instead of an actual journalist working on a story for weeks at a time, a "journalist" is a SEO grayhat with a click quota, and pulling "stories" from twitter is easy.
Do you think that most millenials are activists? How many do you think are involved in activism? How many millenials do you think have been to a protest?
>It would seem, if anything, South Park just tries to round things out to free speech. You can call that nihilism, I guess, in a sort of perfunctory way.
I think you're reading too much into the theme of this season -- it's easy to do that when it seems like someone agrees with you. But how does dismissing climate change, gun control advocacy, or the concern of parents over their children's safety relate to free speech?
I think a lot would call themselves activists, yeah. Because like you pointed out the barriers to participation are considerably lower and millennials are an entire generation removed from the the 1960s-70s, so they didn't witness the civil rights movement etc. Now, how many have actually been to a protest? I'm not sure, but I also don't think that matters anymore since that seems hardly the threshold level for participation anymore.
-> I think you're reading too much into the theme of this season -- it's easy to do that when it seems like someone agrees with you. But how does dismissing climate change, gun control advocacy, or the concern of parents over their children's safety relate to free speech?
And we wouldn't want any room for debate on those nuanced, complicated issues now, would we.
These people were accepted to a college?
Isn't this just a classic example of selection bias? The people who will have views on South Park are exactly the people who put a lot of emotional energy into expressing them. I'm willing to bet that they're a tiny minority compared to the number of people who don't care enough either way to say anything.
I think the creators are just doing what they usually do which is take advantage of a controversial topic and satirize it. I guess it just so happens that more people care about the topic at hand (political correctness) and empathize with it.
Was it, though? It seemed like the the chiding of Yelpers directly ties in to how people take their (perhaps authoritarian) views and opinions on things as sacrosanct and beyond reproach. In the same way that the PC Bros feel they're obligated to check everyone's privilege, the Yelpers felt like, if they weren't reviewing, no one would know anything about eating.
Why do reviewers always assume that because a show uses controversial content that it must have some sort of sociological agenda? They are making a show that is funny so that people watch and they can profit. The author strikes me as the sort of person who would describe Howard Stern as a troubled artist, rather than a talented entertainer. Some people are out there just to make people laugh and bring home a few bucks while doing so.
> But in a way, its project and theirs are the same: to deal with tensions by prescribing more conversation, even if it’s uncomfortable, not less.
Are you kidding me? The show does the exact opposite if you've seen more than a handful of episodes. This comment summarizes the show much better than this article:
https://www.reddit.com/r/circlebroke/comments/3tsd5o/south_p...
> Uncritical, detached acceptance of the status quo is the only morally upright posture, and those who draw a distinction between is and ought are all smug bullies, outlandish freaks, and/or closed-minded zealots.
> It's a show that teaches its audience to become lazy and self-satisfied, that praises them for being uncritically accepting of their own biases, and that provides them with an endless buffet of thought-terminating cliches suitable for shutting down all manner of challenges to their comfort zones.
Or in video form: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TttI60-mjQ
To play devils advocate to this point, I think perhaps this season in particular is trying to say that changing the status quo is fine, but changing the status quo for the sake of changing the status quo isn't. Changing the status quo requires collective scrutiny, and accepting the supposition that the status quo is always bad is not quite correct.
Randy complains to his wife that, because South Park has ostensibly embraced this new anti-status quo agenda, it is therefore paradise. His wife retorts "is it?"
>> It's a show that teaches its audience to become lazy and self-satisfied, that praises them for being uncritically accepting of their own biases, and that provides them with an endless buffet of thought-terminating cliches suitable for shutting down all manner of challenges to their comfort zones.
On this point, the same critique of laziness can be applied to the "status quo == bad" crowd. Perhaps applying a little more intellectual depth and thought to why, from a moral philosophy perspective, we should go about changing it and then processing that into a how with the goal of that change being a productive, value-added process.
r/circlebroke is ego defense dressed up as analysis.
"apathetic-libertarian" is an interpretation for people that identify so strongly with their own political positions, that they can no longer laugh at themselves. A lazy categorization that allows them to dismiss thoughts the show might otherwise spark.
South Park's political criticism is often more about the unreasonable ways people act than their political goals. You can behave like a shithead and take yourself too seriously even in the service of an incredibly laudable goal. But that idea doesn't always play in a "with us or against us" mindset.
South Park has middle fingers up in all directions. That's just skeptical and contrarian, not apathetic. Unless you're already primed to choose apathy over having a think. Or will still choose apathy over something you can't believe in 110%. And the "libertarianism" of the show is largely just an anti-authoritarian "fuck off." But because you can tie it to that name, people with nothing smarter to say can just use guilt by association and tie it to everything crazy that also happens under that name.
One perfect example for me was the episode where Kenny was left brain-dead in the hospital. Cartman wants the plug off to inherit his toys and the other kids want him to stay plugged because they think that's what their friend wanted. Cue a whole episode of "my side vs. your side" until we learn that Kenny DID want to be plugged off should something like this happen. Cartman was right for the wrong reasons and Stan & Kyle were wrong for the right reasons. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_Friends_Forever_(South_Pa...
Or the 2008 episode about the american elections where both sides are obsessing about how the other will turn America into hell by the next morning only to discover the world is still there. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/About_Last_Night..._(South_Par...
I think MLK's strategy is the absolute gold standard for promoting intelligent discussion around social issues. Outrage won't solve anything, other than to silence dissent. And what a terrible world that would be to live in.
Doesn't it seem currently (as also dramatized by SP) to be a war of emotional extortion of whom can most, disproportionately bully others with their micropain and force the rest of us to change our language every other week and walk on eggshells? (Sure, real sensitivity to prevent actual offense; and address actual bullying.)
That reminds me a great deal of the situation at the "Twentieth Century Motor Corporation" in Atlas Shrugged, when the workers were paid according to their need- they focused on needing more.
* I don't like libertarianism and have been known to vigorously dissent with its principles, but even I wouldn't stoop so low as to consider South Park a reflection of the views of a sincere and thoughtful libertarian.
Libertarianism is a philosophy that rewards the wealthy and those with in-demand skills. It very much isn't a philosophy about caring for fellow humans in any way but lip service.
Being a libertarian and not believing these things sounds like a very sociopathic mindset, I agree. If you think "turning the economic crank as fast as possible" won't eventually invent us all flying cars and diseaseless super-bodies and free food-dispensers (and a pony!), then it's pretty obvious that redistributing wealth is the "right thing to do."
But if you do believe that, then you have to measure the ROI of each dollar spent investing in the economy (and thus in turning the technological crank) vs. direct redistributive charity, as a means of helping the people on the bottom. Personally, I don't think it's clear which direction has higher ROI.
This is, of course, an economic perspective, but the history of economics generally agrees with them.
Herein is one of the huge problems of libertarianism - there's no space for shades of gray. Everything is an absolute, a binary; either something is or something isn't, but the real world doesn't work that way. Some capitalism is good. Unfettered capitalism is not - the libertarian cry of "well if someone wrongs you, then sue them for damages in court" is all but useless. You may not even know which chemical company was poisoning the air you have been breathing for 10 years that caused your illness, but libertarians wouldn't restrict the company's actions ahead of time; apparently a monetary settlement (that of course an individual will be able to force a large company into settling in courts...) is always an appropriate solution.
Hell, one libertarian I was talking to was suggesting privatising courts, and saying that the courts would be paid on performance. Somehow he thought that would mean the courts would be fair, rather than heavily biased to the private entity providing the paycheck.
So, we'd end up with a system where the only restriction on capitalism would be actions performed well after the fact. We've seen what happens when profit motives are unfettered, and it's not pretty.
Why is that a problem specific to capitalism? What system of justice prevents everything up front? As long as justice is somewhat predictable, others can plan based on what will happen to them.
For example, we are currently in a system where the only restriction on murder is an action performed well after the fact (e.g., prison).
> Herein is one of the huge problems of libertarianism - there's no space for shades of gray.
That's not how I see it. Markets are one big shade of gray. There's nothing absolute about them at all.
Libertarians argue against regulations, which are restrictions in place ahead of time. I find it disturbing that you are oblivious to that, even though you're responding to a comment which mentions air quality as an issue. As it stands, government regulations limit air pollution. Libertarians would remove those regulations and move the onus onto individuals to prove their cases in court.
> What system of justice prevents everything up front?
Where did I say 'everything'? This is exactly what I mean by libertarianism has no shades of gray.
> Markets are one big shade of gray.
'Unpredictability' is not the gray we're talking about here.
Regulations typically impose penalties for breaking them. People don't want to pay the penalty, so they don't break them.
> Where did I say 'everything'? This is exactly what I mean by libertarianism has no shades of gray.
My point is that you're lodging a criticism against libertarianism that isn't actually specific to libertarianism.
That is some seriously twisted logic to turn 'regulations' into 'restrictions implemented after the event'.
> My point is that you're lodging a criticism against libertarianism...
What other system wants to strip away all regulations? My criticisms would apply equally to those as well.
I don't really understand where your confusion is coming from. Regulations usually take the form of, "X is now illegal. If you do X, you will be punished with Y." It's pretty uninteresting if you ask me. People then avoid doing X because they don't want to be punished by Y.
Say a new regulation is passed that says dumping waste in the local river is illegal. Governments don't then station officials watching every corner of the river preventing waste from being dumped. People can still dump if they want. But if they're caught, they now face a potentially severe penalty.
There is very little difference from how regulations fundamentally operate than how other laws function. "Don't do X. If you do, we'll do Y to you." Pretty simple. The same kind of thing is prescribed by libertarians too. The only real difference is that libertarians would like to do it without coercion. (Since most libertarians view the State as the biggest perpetrator of coercion, they understandably want to reduce or eliminate it.) None of this implies that regulations like "don't dump waste in the river" can't exist if the State were reduced or eliminated.
> My criticisms would apply equally to those as well.
I gave you an example in my initial comment that demonstrates how your criticism is far more broadly applicable than just libertarianism.
Every party has flaws. Every philosophy that derives from first principles has flaws. If there's a flaw in libertarianism, it's that it doesn't recognize externalities well.
That it infuriates you is problematic. I bounce all over the spectrum on what I believe, and I frequent the DMV voter registration guy to change parties enough that he knows me by name. That said, no matter how much you love any particular philosophy, it can't always hold to be the rightest thing ever.
The American left thinks that it's too burdensome to demand an ID to exercise the right to vote, which isn't even enumerated in the constitution, but think that in-depth background checks are perfectly acceptable to purchase a firearm. The American right feels exactly the opposite. A true civil libertarian believes that an ID infringes on both, and would reject registration hurdles for both.
In scenarios like this I believe that libertarians hold the most enlightened view, which is why I sometimes refer to myself as a libertarian for convenience, depending on the conversation.
> libertarianism has no shades of gray.
On this I disagree vehemently. There are many, many shades of gray within libertarianism. Yes, there are absolutists in every camp, and yes, as with every other camp, they tend to be vocal, but there's no singular libertarian rulebook that everybody follows. There's even a Wiki article on their quibbles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debates_within_libertarianism
Generally speaking, the one universal truth within libertarianism is the non-aggression principle, which states that force should not be used. As most penalties eventually result in force (not paying taxes results in jail), it tends to seem absolutist, but not all libertarians are propertarians, nor are they universally opposed to business obligations (like carbon offsets and the like).
Which is one of the most nonsensical things about libertarianism - that any time authority want you do to something, it's referred to as 'violence'. It's 'violence' because if you keep refusing to comply, then at the end of a long chain of events, eventually an authorised officer will start to manhandle you. Hence even the smallest thing becomes 'violence'.
Yet...
Libertarianism offers "the courts" as the solution to pretty much all disputes. What happens when someone doesn't comply with court rulings? The court finds that your activities have injured your neighbour and you must give remuneration. You flip off both the court and the neighbour. What happens now? Libertarianism has quite a few of these blind spots.
Again, you don't have to be a Libertarian to be for civil liberties.
The entire (free) audiobook is a fascinating listen, even if you walk away disagreeing with everything.
Again, that problem is not specific to libertarianism. Every socioeconomic system must address it, and none of the solutions are pretty. In our current world, a person who ignores a court's ruling is physically forced to comply. I don't see any particular reason why something similar couldn't work in a more libertarian world.
Ending the drug war would help lots of communities. (Or more accurately, stop destroying them).
It's always worth noting that you don't have to be libertarian to believe in strengthening civil liberties. Libertarianism is but one flavour of that section of the political pie.
For a long time South Park has pushed the message that apathy is cool, and while protest, pacifism, and consideration for social issues is, as the creators would probably put it, "gay".
People can claim that it's entertainment all they want, but it's undeniably influential. And people like this season because of its especially strong resonance with other brain-dead ideas they have about "SJWs", "MGTOW", "Dindu Nothings", "Tumblrinas", etc.