Show me Cartman’s redemption arc. Ah, wait, you can’t. There isn’t one. You mention Game of Thrones, though, so lets look at that. It’s a singularly bleak fantasy world where good people who try to do the right thing are often punished for it, and evil people prosper because of their wickedness … up to a point. The people who are most comparable to Eric Cartman are the Boltons, Walder Frey, and Cersei Lannister.
No spoilers here, but they’ve all suffered for their misdeeds, and that’s in Game of Fucking Thrones, one of the most cynical television shows of all time - except for South Park.
If there’s a redemption arc of which I am unaware, please enlighten me. I’m betting there isn’t, because as someone noted upthread,
"Also, despite the serialization recently. it is just a TV cartoon show. Badly drawn and the impressions poorly done. Yes there is going to be episode reset. "
Ah, wait, that was you. Kinda hard to have a redemption arc if there are no arcs, period. Also, the point of a redemption arc is that the character changes for the better - last time I caught a random episode by chance, Cartman was still the same old Cartman.
Yeah, that’s fine, it’s just a more colloquial “transpeople”. Just like “transman” and “transwoman” work just as well with “transdude” and “transgirl” or whatever other colloquial terms for man/woman.
Anyway, I saw this on Twitter and thought it was a pretty good description of how I feel about South Park:
The last few seasons have had 1-2 season long arcs. As in, failing to watch the previous episode makes things confusing.
Why do you need a redemption? That’s a really weird necessity. Have you seen shows like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia? Everybody is awful, and nothing suffers for it.
Cartman has done some nice things; he’s not completely evil. In the current season he seems outwardly false but otherwise genuinely nice. I’m sure it will eventually change. But often even when his own intentions are pure, he’s still an asshole. Like when a new student joins the school, so he assumes she’s destined to be with the only other black student in the school (his name is umm… Token Black).
There are situations where they point out that Cartman doesn’t get his comeuppance, and that sometimes bad people don’t while good people suffer. During “Cartmanland,” he is given all kinds of gifts while Kyle, mostly decent, slowly decays from hemorrhoids. At least by the end, Kyle is cured after witnessing Cartmans self-ignorance-inflicted failure. Oftentimes, Cartman is very successful until he hoists his own petard.
Random dude on Twitter is not a credible cite. That quote is from 10 years ago. Also that link looks like Reddit, especially as it’s too long. From a deleted user.
“Credible cite”? What the hell? This isn’t debunking a factual claim, I thought it was a well articulated post for how I’ve always felt about the episodes of South Park I watch.
And yes, it’s a Reddit post, but I saw it as an image posted on Twitter today.
The clip I saw about the overuse of “safe spaces” seemed fair to me (as I believe in communicating with opponents rather than shutting them out) but of course it’s a point that is usually most keenly made by anti-liberal types. That’s all I’ve seen of it in 10+ years.
Back when I saw it, it actually seemed quite liberal - maybe I misunderstood, I must have done given that the creators apparently despise liberals. The Big Gay Al episode I remember for example - although he was a stereotype (and that’s fair, as there are gay people who unapologetically do fit the stereotype, I think that’s perfectly fine) the conclusion IIRC was “it’s okay to be gay, and you shouldn’t prejudge people for it”. Maybe they were being sarcastic shrug
Sounds pretty awful to transpeople either way.
At the end of the day I’ve always just kind of had the impression it’s edgy humour for ~16 year olds that makes no bones about being as offensive and un-PC as possible (ISTR Family Guy tried to kick that up a notch when it first came out). It’s an outlet, which could well be necessary, and best not taken too seriously. When you’re a teenager you’ve had years of teachers telling you to be respectful to others, lecturing you on sexuality and political correctness and cramming morality down your throat all day and all you want to do is be a massive rebel, misbehave and have… I suppose you can say like a way of venting some offensiveness. Then eventually you actually grow up. Better they do this than going around being horrible to people IRL.
I’m not trying to be an asshole…but there sure are a lot of people commenting on this show and its content and its viewing audience and the hidden beliefs of the authors…who haven’t watched the show in 10+ years.
That is the genius of the show. As soon as they had perfected their CGI animation technique, Matt and Trey realized they could produce an episode in just a few days, which meant they could be almost to-the-day topical, something that is impossible with traditional animation. They have the combination of a ridiculously short production time with the creative freedom of the animated medium, so they simply choose from among the news/pop culture events from the last week, mercilessly make fun of it, pump out an episode, repeat.
I love It’s Always Sunny - because the show punishes its horrible main characters constantly. It acknowledges that they are terrible people and they suffer for it. They are the victims of their own evil in almost every episode.
Cartman - the worst I usually see for him in a typical episode is that he loses whatever advantage he had gained through his evil, and there’s no real comeuppance. Occasionally, they zig-zag and actually have him getting his ass kicked, sure.
And I don’t **need **a redemption, but I just find Cartman too unlikable a character who gets away scot-free with too much to find the show entertaining. It feels like Parker and Stone are basically just glorifying Randian Objectivism as a moral philosophy. The only reason we’re talking about redemptions is because somebody else brought it up as a reason Cartman may not be so bad. I’d be perfectly happy if, like the cast of Always Sunny, he were made to suffer in just about every fucking episode for his horrible behavior. No redemption required!
See, even you believe that version of safe spaces instead of what they really are. They are just a place to go to get away from the real world for a while. It doesn’t stop you from having conversations with them. It just gives you a respite. Everyone inherently seeks out safe spaces–even and especially those who decry them the most. Why else are they so angry when someone defends against bigotry?
There’s also a use of them in the case of colleges, but that really refers to having rules about bigotry. This isn’t new–if I’d’ve left racist messages everywhere in college, I’d’ve gotten in trouble. Colleges usually have some standards of behavior.
The reason the right is against them is they make them into a boogeyman that they are not. And that’s why you can say that this was a conservative message.
Still, I want to make clear that Matt and Trey are liberal in a lot of ways, even though they say they hate liberals. They live in California, in one of the crowned locations for snobby liberalism that ignores reality. That’s what they mean by “liberal,” as you can see by any time they depict someone as explicitly liberal.
They are actually rather liberal, but they don’t consider themselves such. Where they aren’t so liberal is with the trans issue and their understanding of PC culture. And while we’re pretty good with the former here, there are a lot of anti-PC types here–on a message board that pretty much everyone agrees leans liberal. The difference is that they recognize their liberalism in other areas.
Previously I would have described them as libertarian, who tend to be liberal in social areas other than PC, while conservative in financial areas. But the way they went after libertarianism this last season, I don’t know. They were all about how corporations were manipulating the social sphere with ads–essentially about how making everything about money was a bad thing.
They even blamed the SJW thing on that–where it had become more important to sell yourself as being anti-bigoted than to actually be that way.
Yeah that’s fair. Was piecing things together based on clips and comments in the thread.
I see, thanks for the insights. This is the thing, there are a lot of loud voices out there, mostly attacking each other and making things out to be as evil as possible on the opposing side. When you’re trying your best to have a balanced view from the fence and hear everyone out, sometimes you end up with the wrong idea. The way I’d heard it was stories of “we need to debate this thing in an academic environment but group x are not allowed” which seemed a little counterproductive to me, FWIW (I’ve been involved with ‘echo chambers’ myself so am aware of how comfortable they are but also the pitfalls)
I duly apologise to both for weighing in on things I don’t know enough about. Old habit (and sadly common)
Well, there is an element to that, although it’s not as censorious or dictatorial as its detractors try to make it. Sometimes, you want to be able to discuss issues facing your community without having to constantly defend your first principles. Like, I might want to discuss aspects of queer culture, without having to constantly defend the validity of homosexual relationships. A forum that catered specifically queer and allied people, and didn’t allow people who view homosexuality as sinful or unnatural could be described as a “safe space” for that sort of thing. Think of it a bit like a church. Not in terms of the devotionatry aspects, but a church service isn’t really the place to start an argument about the existence of God, or which sect has the right deity. A church is a safe space for Christians, where they can discuss and practice their faith, without having to worry about defending it.
Of course, like any reasonable notion, it can get pretty fucked up when embraced by morons. There are some genuinely stupid stories involving safe spaces out there, but they’re not really representative of the concept.
Right right, that makes sense, I mean in the case of a forum if someone is derailing too much there are often rules for that, so that everyone can participate and discuss specific subjects without a circular argument about the basics. But I can see how in other places it’s easier to just limit the participants.
And of course the internet being the internet, the worst examples get bandied around cringe threads and rise to the top of Google, which is a problem I have with one of my interests as well.
