Having already put my foot in my mouth once with the Jew basketball thing, let my try and explain the ‘transgendered rights’ one. The exchange between Kyle’s dad and the stadium worker regarding him needing a tank of salt water and the guy saying, “Um, too bad?” In other words so-called transgendered ‘rights’ are like all the others (black, gay, women). They almost immediately transform into special treatment not basic rights. That, IMO, was the point/joke SP was making and, again IMO, its a perfectly valid one.
George Carlin once said that, while he totally supports minority’s being treated like everyone else, whenever they get organized they inevitably get armbands and slogans and PACs and selfish and pretentious and corrupt.
Let me also say that BrainGlutton’s Homosexuality is funny post above pretty much sums up my feeling. No one has a constitutional right to live their life free from ever being offended. Part of being treated equally is occasionally being mercilessly satired and made the object of humor for being different.
I know I’m going to regret this, but I’ll say it anyway.
When I saw the episode, my reaction was “That was disturbing, but not really funny”. I completely suprised when I saw it being referred to as “Hate Speech”. I can see why people feel that way, but I don’t agree that it is hate speech, no more then any other episodes are.
If you’ve been growing up as a transgendered person in this country, you’ve probably already built up a strong back bone. Besides, most 12 year olds are smart enough to differentiate between a dumb TV show and genuin hate speech. I really find it hard to imagine someone who would be sent over the edge by South Park. Am I way off base here?
As a disabled person, I find the South Park episodes aimed at offending my demographic hilarious (Cripple Fight is one of my favorite episodes). Actually, the first Timmy episode is a good example here. Remember how the adults were offended because the children were laughing at Timmy, when honest laughter is often the first step to acceptance? The problem with the latest is it just wasn’t funny. It was a bad episode, period.
Lately it seems like South Park is trying these dark plots where one single joke is beat into the ground the entire episode (like the Wall Mart one). We’re supposed to laugh at the idea of something stupid being taken so dramatically, but once I get the joke 5 minutes in it loses its appeal. South Park’s satire can either be brilliant (Chinpokomon) or stupid (the last episode).
Is the idea that “transsexuals are deluded” necessarily hateful? Wouldn’t “ignorant” and “mistaken” cover that idea for those who disagree? Certainly some folks who hold that idea might be hateful, but is the idea itself intentionally hateful?
Sorry, don. You seem like a nice enough guy and everything but you’re not my type. I also have to study, and babysit, and do my homework, and go to bed early, and get up early, and wash my hair. Besides I’m grounded anyway and leaving town this weekend and daddy doesn’t want me to talk to you anymore.
You caught my allusion. Good. I also recall stating in one of my earlier, shorter posts that the satire of South Park is often admiitedly hit and miss. But if your standard of fine satire is Swift, damn near all attempts at satire will be substandard.
Dunno. That we embrace such coarse wit as proof we’re not humor snobs? That we subliminate the horror of modern urban living into a functioning gallows humor? That we use the inherent absurdity of Kenny’s constant resurrections as a coping mechanism? That we still find the two dozen or so dead baby jokes we memorized in third grade back in Mrs. Oglebee’s class in 1981 hilarious? Ooo! Speaking of which… What’s grosser than gross? Ten dead babies in a garbage can. What’s grosser than that? One dead baby in ten garbage cans. What’s grosser than THAT? A garbage truck filled with dead babies. What’s grosser than THAT? A garbage truck filled with dead babies and one live one on the bottom. Hey – what’s grosser than THAT? The one live baby eats his way to the top. What’s grosser than that? He goes back for seconds. Finally, what crawls, cries and can’t turn corners? A dead baby with a spear through its head.
The first part was funny, but the second part’s just wrong. South Park’s satrical aims are to skewer everybody.
This is why you need to see the episode instead of relying on other people’s descriptions. WARNING: Hold off on that burrito until it’s over.
. . . Or already killed yourself. The suicide rate among the transgendered is huge—not just among kids, but adults who can’t afford surgery, because it’s considered “unecessary cosmetic surgery” by insurance companies.
And I’ve already said I laughed when Futurama and Popular and I’m With Her did transsexual plots—because they were funny. Nasty, yeah, but witty and well-written. This was just a half-hour treatise that “transgendered people are deluded freaks, and we have to stop catering to them.”
I think a lot of it has to do with Dr. Biber’s clinic being in Trinidad, CO, which has become a haven for the transgendered. Matt ‘n’ Trey are probably skeeved out at having all us deluded freaks coming into their clean, wholesome state.
Their aims might be to skewer everyone, but I , and I believe many other believe that they do not always do so.
Wow, a situation where it is permissable to use all caps.
NO! You do NOT need see this episode. If you feel that most of the people who think it is hurtful crap are right, then stick with that opinion. Do not see the episode on reruns, or it will be half an hour you will not get back again.
No, they get to everybody sooner or later – your complaint was that they didn’t do it even handedly or with equal time or whatever.
I KNOW. I could BARELY believe it WHEN it happened. WOW.
That’s it. DON’T examine the evidence for yourself. Allow most of the complaining people who so far comprise a minority who think it’s hurtful crap make up your mind for you. Never be suspicious of people with an agenda who don’t want you to see things for yourself. Fight ignorance by avoiding experiences!
What the hell are you talking about? I cannot think of what the gay community has asked for that would qualify as special rights. The right not to be discriminated against by employers, landlords, etc? The right to marry? The transgender community wants the shocking rights to not be discriminated against, be recognized as real men and women rather than 'deluded and surgically mutilated freaks and to have insurance providers cover medically necessary treatment.
I could see that (count me in amoung those who found the episode unfunny and unfocused). Slate ran an article a couple of years ago about people who have an obsession with becoming amputees, even to the point of paying to have perfectly normal limbs lopped off. That’s something I think everyone can agree is disturbed. But what I found most interesting about the article was how the wanna-be amputees used the same language as transexuals. That lopping off a limb would allow themselves to become the person they had always felt they should be. Anyway, just more food for thought…
I and the other posters agreeing that Eve is an expert in the subject are not basing our judgement on the fact that she said so. We are basing it on repeated demonstration of that expertise over the past few years.
That may be a whoosh, because clearly they were satirizing blacks whose knee-jerk reaction is to make this accusation whenever prominent blacks get into trouble.
tremorviolet. Yes! Finally. This is what I was getting at. The language of transsexuals can be used to subvert all kinds of lesser accepted transformations using cosmetic surgical techniques. No real transgendered woman would have expectations to ovulate and bear children after a sex change operation. Although i see Eve’s point that no reputable plastic suregon of Dr. Biber’s stature would bahave as unethically as he’s shown in the cartoon. Then again, I thought he came off only mildly opportunistic.
swqueels. … except by presenting their premise as “true,” they were only indirectly satirizing Jackson’s apologists and directly satirizing bigoted white cops.
Has there been a big outcry for factual knowledge here? Define expert on the subject when what we are discussing is basically a matter of opinion. On top of which, even if it were not, appeals to expertise are not that valuable to begin with, particularly in an area where the “expertise” may lead to emotional conflict with regard to the issue.
My take on the Michael Jackson episode was that Parker and Stone were rhetorically granting every claim Jackson makes as true. The cops are racist? Fine…let’s pretend the cops are racist and want to fram rich black people. Michael’s activities with kids are completely non-sexual? Fine let’s say they are, and so on. They then went on to make the point that even if everything MJ says is true (and the absurdity of MJ’s claims are pointed out in exchanges like those quoted by Larry Mudd above) he’s STILL a creepy weirdo.
All cops were shown as being racist just to humor the bizzarro world scenario that MJ would have us believe.
