20+ years of cultural commentators, the Oscars, and show ratings suggest that you're wrong. Stone + Parker may be assholes, but they are insightful assholes, performing the much-needed task of holding our noses to the shit we left behind
"Insightful" about how people respond to messages in the same sense that a successful demagogue is, except that they are playing on "easy mode" where they don't have to produce results of their own to be judged by -- or even, in classic demagogic fashion, to distract from by attacking some other target -- sure, they are definitely that kind of insightful.
Insightful beyond that...well, none of the evidence you point to is explained any better by adding that additional assumption.
They don't hold peoples noses to the shit left behind, they are just masters of the clever juxtaposition of the cheap, easy, shallow (mostly recycled, but for the juxtapositions) attacks.
They are also good at crafting amusing stories, and welding the shallow attacks into the stories as a delivery vehicle. So I'm not saying that they aren't talented, just that the talent has nothing to do with any substantive insight regarding the substance of their targets. Actually, I think they'd be a lot less successful at what they do if they didn't have an absolute and total lack of interest in substance, which would be a distraction from the cheap, easy bomb-throwing.
EDIT: Rereading that, it sounds more hostile than I would like. I mean, South Park is great entertainment, there's certainly value to periodic, momentary escape into the kind of cheerful,shallow nihilism it wallows in. My wife and I had Stan and Wendy figurines on our wedding cake. I'm not anti-Stone/Parker, just against the idea that their work is insightful social commentary. Not only is it not, and not only is that central to its success, but, to the extent it is (personally, to me, and arguably socially) valuable, that's also central to its value. Its not intellectually stimulating, enlightening, or insightful, its an escape from being intellectually "on" at all.
Charlie Chaplin was didn't exactly delve into ideology.
'PC Principal' is a brilliant satirization.
They skewered the sometimes insufferable Tom Cruise because everyone else has to 'fall in line' to the inside censorship and only they had the courage to just 'have a go'.
The bubble they've created for themselves where they can now get away with just about everything is otherwise non-existent in the industry.
Yes, that's the genre they operate in, which I thought goes without saying.
No, that's no part of what I was trying to describe.
> it's cutting and intelligent not because of the depth of their understanding of some issue, but their willingness to offer characters and comedy around simple ideas and perspectives others dare not broach.
It's clever in presentation more than “intelligent”, and, no, almost none of it is around “ideas and perspectives others dare not broach”.
+ Mickey Mouse as a totalitarian fascist? You couldn't breathe this outside of a writers room, anywhere, and yet, it's something that probably a lot of people, even within the industry, absolutely love.
+ Walmart as a cultural monster, devouring society? Possibly not an unpopular idea, but definitely not one that anyone can do, because Walmart represents too much advertising power. Many of us hate Walmart, so where's the Walmart skits on SNL? There are none, because they're shills. SNL literally exists to sell Walmart ads.
+ Very simple articulation of how China is able to suppress and censor American businesses? Nobody in entertainment will touch this. Hollywood exists to sell films, and China will eventually be their biggest market.
+ Insufferable WholeFoods/hipster gentrification culture?
+ Jesus snorting cocaine, depictions of Mohamed?
+ Wrestlers as posing, effect actors, ultra authoritarian 'PC Bro' culture, Japanese businessmen deferring to the 'large penises' of American businessmen for social favour, a 'Token' Black character ...
Most of it is completely inane obviously, but the whole thing exists to satire/make light commonly accepted norms with insufferable artifacts, or to give air to the the issues nobody can talk about. That's what makes it funny.
'Man Bear Pig' was probably wrong and not in a good way, so they did another show about it ... which is great ... but really who cares? It was funny at the time.
A lot of folks object to the characters they write, or the cheapness of the animation, but I don't think that South Park would be the success it is without either of those things. It's crudeness attracts a lot of the counterculture types unafraid to go against mores, who I think are naturally more receptive to a given episode's themes.
Stone + Parker have made it very clear that most episodes start out as a joke. But then, so do most comedians' routines. And comedians almost never need or want to explain the nature or thought process behind their jokes, because all that reasoning is encoded within the joke itself. That is part of why I think they are so insightful -- that they can form elegant, meaningful commentary on previously untouchable subject matter, using such crude tools, and get away with it. For 20 years and counting.
Who else can do that? George Carlin, and I'd maybe add Stephen Colbert and Dave Chapelle if their careers as political or social satirists hadn't effectively ended the way they did. In any case that's a pretty small club to be a part of.
Not every episode should be held to such lofty standards, of course, and I am definitely not enjoying it as much as before they started serializing everything. But overall the show has given me words and a perspective to start to think about dozens of social and cultural issues long before they came up elsewhere in my life.
South Park never does this. They just make fun of people or current trends in society, without evaluating them morally. They are more drastic, but never claim moral superiority.
Also, entertainment is both plural and singular jb. Like sheep.
In this regard you are opposed to David Foster Wallace and therefore, obviously, wrong.
They are literally one of the only entities in the US to point-blank take on Chinese censorship.
They are comedians, not Scientists, they're allowed to step out of bounds and be 'wrong' that's the point - it's not even about 'right or wrong' for gosh sakes.
Anyone taking literal social cues from an antagonizing cartoon is going to be led astray.
The 'Assault on Reason' is coming from a lot of angles these days.
Do you wonder why people on talk shows, on the news in interviews, never say anything bad about anyone, never have an opinion, never critique - unless it's political? - because they risk being ignored, losing out on the next deal, upsetting a director/producer/exec/casting agent on the creative side, or advertisers (very powerful) on the business side.
Count how many people will mock Tom Cruise, Scientology, China, Hollywood - or more poignantly almost corporate brand etc. - none really - it's to expensive to one's career.
How often has SNL mocked Google, Apple, Tesla, Ford or any major corporations (or their products) in an edgy, satirical way? Never. It doesn't happen because it's censored for obvious business reasons.
How many SNL or other comedy skits have you seen over all the massive rape allegations concerning Hollywood figures? Nobody is going to touch that because they're all in the 'same industry' - it's socially toxic.
There are zero shows on Television today which aggressively take risks for the sake of 'comedy' - it's almost sad that it's getting kind of old and there's nobody to hand the torch too.
Parker and Stone have carved out for themselves an amazing 'safe bubble' years ago - they basically took a stand and said 'we will say anything' and didn't care which bridges they burned. Weirdly it became 'accepted' for them to court controversy within the walls of their show.
Sacha Cohen does some really outrageous stuff, but it's politically very safe.
South Park as a vehicle is stale, it was 10 years ago, but that it's legit satire, and one of the only sources of it, is why it's still around.