I’m very saddened to hear about the problems you and babygirl have faced, SSG Schwartz. I wish peace and happiness for you both.
I’ve just finished watching this episode.
Seriously, SSG Schwartz, you took that as a statement of what the creators felt? Really?
You’ve no problem with the “always no matter how bad it gets, cheat and have abortions to get ahead” message which worked out fine for all those involved. Yet you have a problem with a throw away statement used as a plot device to show that MR. Garrison is back for future episodes where he can be the most disfunctional fictional character(with a penis) this side of Christendom again just because it happened to be somewhat close to a RL situation you are in.
Seriously? You should not watch South Park ever again. It’s not for you.
Sorry to hear about your troubles BTW.
Thanks all for the responses. I have been able to catch one or two episodes a year for the last three years and haven’t seen Garrison on many of them. I watched it again today, and got the joke, but I still don’t find it funny. Now, Cartman, OTOH, I know he can’t be taken seriously. Crap, they need to post programs to help those of us who can’t follow who the characters are or have become.
SSG Schwartz
Don’t worry, I don’t think anyone found it funny, it was just a way to show Mr. Garrison was Mr. Garrison again.
The best scene was the kids in the sand box. That was funny.
That was my favorite part of the episode.
The OP admits that he hasn’t been an over the top fan - so I easily get how the show’s uneven quality and inconsistent messages could set someone up - laughing at a few episodes until they pop out a nasty surprise that gores your Ox.
Having said that, I guess I would just say there was nothing politically sly or filled with after school special teaching moments about how they made fun of, say, the Persians and Mexican Migrants. They weren’t making fun of people who make fun of Persians or MM - they pretty much flat out were making fun of these people.
I’m still outraged at the Simpsons for advocating that the safety of our nuclear power plants should be in the hands of sub-moronic alcoholics. For shame, Simpsons.
Just to say, not that I’m sure everyone else didn’t see it coming, but I expected Mr. Garrison would change back to a man again this season. And, to agree with most of what was said in this thread, the main point of Mr. Garrison is that he’s a bigot AND a hypocrite; he’s intended to make fun of all the extremist of each of the groups he’s been in. He started out as a womanizing, racist, homophobe. Then he became flamboyantly gay. The very episode he became a sex-crazed woman, he became a homophobe again. And then he became a man-hating lesbian. Seriously, how much more full circle could someone go by going from a womanizing, homophobe to a man-hating lesbian?
I think, more often than not, the humor of South Park is, as others have said, directed at the stereotype and not at the group itself. As someone mentioned in the Lesbian episode, they were making fun of Persians. On the surface, sure, but who make the generalization…? Mrs. Garrison. All the Persians really wanted to do was make it nice which, just happened to coincide with the racist views of Mrs. Garrison. And, an honest question, is it REALLY a stereotype that Persians like blue carpet and gold curtain rods? That’s something I’d never heard outside of that episode, and seems rather esoteric.
Of course, that’s not necessarily true for all groups. Like, I’m quite certain that they really were making fun of Scientology, Mormonism, Catholicism, Jeudaism, Atheism; but in that case, they’re not singling anyone out, they’re equal opportunity offenders.
So, yeah, it’s crass, it’s childish, it’s offensive, but that’s the kind of humor that seems to appeal to the young male demographic (look at Robot Chicken, Family Guy, and whatever else). Even still, I think that their methods may be rather harsh, but they do often make some insightful social commentary.
And the young female demo, and the older male demo, and the older female demo.
The only person I know that does not like South Park is my 17 year old step-brother.
Did I miss something? Did Garrison actually **find a woman willing to sleep with **his feminized body? Erk.
No matter what you are, somebody, somewhere wants that. Even sarcastic ego-freaks gets some. No, really.
Oh yeah, he did some pussy pounding. He got a good seeing to from Richard Dawkins as well.
I don’t think Garrison will ever find contentment until he becomes a pansexual hermaphrodite.
“Wait. You…used to be a man?!”
He did some pretty hot scissoring with someone named Janet (?) he met at Les Bos.
And Xerxes.
Well, I definitely have some catching up to do, then.
You’re right of course, but in the end, I doubt it’ll really matter.
I think it would probably be more accurate to say that he pretended to be a womanizer to put up a front for being so effeminate that the other characters all assumed he was gay from the very beginning of the series. They never even hinted at the fact that he actually slept with any women until he became one.