God help us when South Park is helping us find our moral compass...
Comedy has always been a place you'd look if you want to see someone speak truth to power, for millennia too, and South Park has always done that.
We might like the cheap goods coming from China, but remember they come from people who are forced to work at 7 days a week 14 hours a day for nearly no pay.
Boycott the NBA and Blizzard and anyone else who won't start standing up for democracy.
It had considerable part in setting back efforts to deal with climate change.
They did a mea culpa, but still, I can't tell you how annoyed I was in college with the amount of people who would challenge the idea of climate change just because they watched a South Park episode.
It’s basically about nihilism.
"if you decide not to choose you still have made a choice"
No, not always. They sometimes do that. Calling vegetarians pussies [0] is not speaking truth to power. It's punching down. South Park's approach is more the "try to piss off everyone" approach, which while funny, is a bad way to find your moral compass.
The "vegetarians are weak" meme will slowly die as more amateur and professional athletes (including MMA champions, Olympians, and even the guy who coined "You hit like a vegetarian") jump on the plant-based wagon:
Like I said, South Park does make fun of everyone. That's explicitly not always speaking truth to power, like the parent poster is claiming. And I agree with the grandparent post that we shouldn't look to South Park as a moral compass.
Well, it's been well established that they would make fun of anything. I'm not arguing that. You tell the writers what they should be doing though.
That term is just a way of framing speech that you disagree with in order to censor it for being anti-virtuous.
No it's not. You're making a lot of false assumptions about what I said based on zero evidence. If you don't understand what I'm saying, that's one thing, but don't put words in my mouth.
Exactly how many irreverent comedians who achieved significant success and are not really accountable to anyone, telling it like it is, have been cancelled by the cancel culture?
Cosby, TJ Miller, Louis CK, Jeffrey Tambor, James Franco, ...? A good list of people who did morally reprehensible things of varying degrees, from illegal to merely opening their employers to civil liability, and in my mind, they should be "cancelled." Maybe you can argue some of these, I don't think so.
Azis Ansari? I don't know how tranchant his "speaking truth to power" has ever been, but he did a Netflix special this year, and I would need pretty compelling evidence to believe that's your smoking gun. I predict he'll be just fine in a few more years.
Kevin Hart? Maybe. Again, not much of a politically-motivated comedian, but getting removed as Oscar (?) host was damaging. Nonetheless, it looks like he had 5 movies/specials in 2019 and has work scheduled for 2020. Besides the car crash, I think he'll be alright.
Dan Harmon (like James Gunn) was a political hit job and didn't go anywhere.
Am I missing anyone?
Outside of e.g. #metoo, some people didn't like Dave Chappelle's recent Netflix special. I'm not a fan of him "punching down" at trans people myself, but, I don't think it's anything he hasn't said before. Nonetheless it was trending in the top five for most of last month, I think he is, and will continue to be, doing fine.
I just don't see where people attribute all this power to "cancel culture." Chik-fil-A, Nike, ..., all doing just fine despite on-going boycotts from "cancel culture."
Another example is Shane Gillis — cancelled because of something he said, not any specific action. Getting cancelled for sexually abusing people is one thing, getting cancelled because of “offensive” speech is the real problem. Roseanne and Gillis and Hart got cancelled for words. CK, Franken, Spacey — they were ousted for actions. That isn’t really part of cancel culture. Driving someone out of business because of vile and criminal actions is much different than firing a comedian because of a joke.
If I were a comedian that make vile jokes about Obama and his daughters, I’d be cancelled. If I made vile jokes about Trump and his kids, I’d get a Netflix special.
Furthermore, they're all still working, so I don't see how cancelled is the right word here.
This is false. The show got cancelled because of tweets by Barr that were seen as racist.[1] She was already known as a Trump supporter for 2 years before her show was revived[2][3] so that could not possibly have been a factor in her firing.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseanne_Barr#Valerie_Jarrett_...
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseanne_Barr#Reality_televisi...
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseanne_Barr#Support_for_Dona...
That's not the comment she got canceled for. She was being horribly racist. Trump support is less the issue than it is extra gasoline between his racist comments and her horrible comment.
> If I made vile jokes about Trump and his kids, I’d get a Netflix special.
Where is your example here?
As for Barr and Gillis, both ABC and NBC acted immediately to get rid of them when it looked like they would hurt their bottom line. Is that "cancel culture" to you?
> If I made vile jokes about Trump and his kids, I’d get a Netflix special.
Which kids? Who is out there making fun of Bannon, or are you saying Eric/Don Jr/Ivanka/[that other one] are off limits?
I'm not aware of anyone targeting any under age Presidential children..........
Oh except when Malia was being called out for drinking under age, I guess. Or, here's former Presidential candidate John McCain making a joke about Chelsea Clinton (https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/sep/02/women.j...). So I guess if you make a joke about Trump's kids, you get a Netflix special; make a joke about a Democrat President's kid, run for President?