I’m not entirely aware of all the “problematic” stuff out there. I don’t even like the word “problematic”, however - I take issue with ‘South Park’s’ portrayal of trans people. I’m aware that it’s ‘South Park’, and they make fun of everyone… But when Mr. Garrison got a sex change operation, I remember him saying something along the lines of: “I’m not a woman! I’m a man with a mutilated penis!”
I don’t know if they received any backlash over that… but now they show Caitlyn Jenner as an ugly person with a raspy voice. Now, I don’t mind swipes at Jenner at all. I think she’s a bigot to be honest. But what’s with making her so busted.
I know there are going to be tons of people saying that they don’t watch the show anymore and that it’s not funny. I get that. But is this something other’s have noticed?
South Park is and always has been part of that obnoxious “truth is in the middle” “POLITICAL CORRECTNESS IS AWFUL” crowd. It was always less apparent during the earlier years because Clinton was an easy target and not many people liked Bush, however, it’s not an unknown phenomenon.
“South Park Republican” was a term for a new wave of center-right Republicans as early as 2001.
I find it fairly unsurprising given this attitude that they’re really negative against transpeople. Finding supportive people outside of the mid-far left progressive “base” quickly becomes dicey.
That’s not to say they haven’t had good episodes, or had humorous, smart takes on real issues where both sides are being a bit hyperbolic, but South Park has never exactly been a “progressive” show.
I’ve heard another description of “South Park Republican”. It’s someone who will espouse libertarian views e.g. pro gay rights and pro tax cuts, and act like that makes them more enlightened than a mainstream Republican supporter. And yet, when it’s time to vote, they’ll support the anti-gay bigot who promises tax cuts every time.
That’s not surprising. People tend to vote for their own interests first. I’m not gay, but I pay for a lot of taxes. While I support rights for gays, I’m not going to vote for a bad candidate just because he or she supports gay rights when literally every other position is unsupportable. Do you choose the candidate who supports gays and wants to limit the First Amendment, or do you support the guy who wants to cut taxes and makes no promises to support gay rights?
Yeah, they are a surprisingly common political orientation: lots of naughty “we’re anti-establishment” superficial stuff but with a core of conservative bias. A lot of right-wing political forums are dominated by these types.
When it comes to trans and political issues, they really don’t know anything and so they try to poke fun at what the don’t understand and that fails miserably, of course.
I don’t know about “the last few seasons,” but last season was the one where I would argue they most pushed their own point of view, where the jokes are much funnier if you agree with them. Before, the jokes were funny even if you disagreed. I think it’s because of the continuity and keeping everything on a theme.
I also think that episode 2 of this season was out of touch. I think they don’t really get what trolling is and why people have a problem with it–no one would give a shit about what skankhunt is doing. And kids don’t use Twitter as their main platform.
As for the trans stuff: they’ve been bad since Garrison transitioned. And the way they keep treating Caitlyn Jenner suggests they still are. I really wish they’d stop using her. She’s not even actually useful now–she’s just there so Garrison isn’t talking to himself.
Yes, people do. But the thing is that South Park has been a morality tale for so long. You even had explicitly stated lessons at the end, and they weren’t sarcastic (with a handful of exceptions). They actually do push a message of tolerance for others, and treat selfish Cartman as the butt of the joke.
Also, you seem to be combining two arguments. There’s voting for your self interests, and then there’s the idea that the anti-gay candidate may support other good things that make up for it.
They did a whole show a few years back about the transgendered. It included quick graphic real life shots of gender reassignment surgery involving genitalia, and then had Kyle’s dad wanting to become a dolphin, and having surgery to do that. The message seemed to be wanting to be the opposite gender, and having the surgical procedure to become the opposite gender doesn’t make you that gender.
I find their politics pretty repugnant. They say they disdain extremism, but do so in a way that could be consider extreme itself.
I can still get a chuckle out of the show now and then, but I find A.) it’s way too repetitive, B.) it’s a political soapbox for a pair of assholes and C.) Cartman has escaped karmic justice for way too long, for way too much.
Sure, BigT, they sometimes treat him as the butt of the joke, but I submit that just as often, Cartman is the fucking protagonist of this show.
Garrison isn’t “trans” he’s Garrison. Mostly a horrible, selfish person.
As for Caitlyn. The Emperor has no clothes. They’ve done a caricature of her and dialed it up. Particularly how despite how 'brave this multi-millionaire is" she did kill someone with her car.
so…NO…they don’t have a “thing” for transgendered.
They sure act as if they do. Despite who they’re talking about, a character from the show said something along the lines of: “I’m a man with a mutilated penis!” after a sex change operation. Are you saying that that statement only applies to people like Garrison?
Same thing with Caitlyn. Having her run over people with her car on the show is one thing, but making her look like she had a botched surgery is another story.
Having that character say that doesn’t even make sense. Presumably Garrison opted, by es own free will, to have that surgery, no? Why would e do that if e didn’t actually consider emself female, and considered the surgery to be mutilation? Now, having someone else say that about Garrison, that makes sense (in a jerkish way), but for him to say it?
In some sense, Garrison’s journey isn’t too far removed from the early seasons of Soap, in which a homosexual character thought he should have gender-reassignment surgery to become female and could thus form a “normal” couple with his boyfriend, who himself was deeply closeted.
I’m not sure when or how they dropped this storyline, but it was a good twenty years before South Park.
Jodie on Soap changed his mind about the surgery after his boyfriend Dennis, who was a famous football player, dumped him to get married to a woman.
I believe in the later episodes of the show, Jodie was hypnotized into being an old Jewish man and stopped being homosexual at all. But I wasn’t watching anymore by then.
Count me in as a person who feels that South Park has doubled-down and ratched up its holier-than-thou faux-libertarian slant, and has become mostly unfunny.
And, aside from the relentless political smarminess, they’ve just stopped caring about character at all. All the regular characters have become charactures of themselves (if that’s even possible). They’re extreme, reactionary set pieces that have been reduced to their lowest-common-denominator level of interest. New characters are even worse (the last episodes I watched were last winter’s involving ‘PC Principal’. What an obnoxious, tired gag. It used to be that South Park could lampoon PC-ness with at least a little fun and subtlety and self-depreciation. Now they just put up strawmen and light them on fire).
Basically, no one on the show is human anymore, and none of the stories are fun. The first X number of seasons were some of the quirkiest and funniest television I’ve seen, but today’s South Park is little more than a political/humor blog by rich libertarians.