Running head: SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SHORTCOMINGS WITHIN SOUTH PARK
Social and Political Shortcomings Within
The Television Series South Park
Carlos J. Rojas
Michael B.Meador
Stephen S. Castro
Texas Tech University
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SHORTCOMINGS WITHIN SOUTH PARK
Works Cited
Chidester, P. (2012). “Respect my authoritah”: South park and the fragmentation/reification of
whiteness. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 29(5), 403420.
Nagy, V. (2010). Motherhood, stereotypes, and south park. Women Studies. 39(1), 117.
Schulzke, M. (2012). Contentious language: South park and the transformation of meaning.
Journal of Popular Film & Television, 40(1), 2231.
Scott, D. W. (2011). Religiosity in South Park: Struggles over institutional and personal piety
among residents of a “redneck town”. Journal Of Media & Religion, 10(3), 152163.
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SHORTCOMINGS WITHIN SOUTH PARK
South Park is a television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone that airs on
Comedy Central. It is not uncommon to see the show tackle issues such as women's issues, race, sexuality, and other politically charged subjects in a direct and sometimes uncomfortable fashion. The series is often accused of being crass and insensitive, but when examined closer many media researchers who have studied the show have come away with a different perspective. The creators of South Park use humor, shock, and satire to illuminate social and political shortcomings, often influencing changes in cultural norms.
The creators of South Park uses satire and humor to portray and minimize the stereotypes of mothers in the show. According to the article “ Motherhood, Stereotypes, and South Park,” by Victoria Nagy, there are three motherhood stereotypes identified that are in the TV show. The types of stereotypes are as followed: middleclass mother, Jewish mother, and a single mother
(Nagy, 2010). The purpose is to let the audience feel that these stereotypes can be related to the depiction that we observe in the real world.
First, South Park depicts the stereotype, a middleclass mother, in the show (Nagy, 2010). An example that was mentioned in the article was Sharon Marsh (Nagy,2010). Some of
her traits are as followed: housewife, frantic, dull, and discourage (Nagy,2010). Sharon
also falls through many other stereotypes, such as a perfect mother, divorced mother, and
remarried mother (Nagy,2010).
Second, the stereotype of a jewish mother is pieced into South Park with a negative light (Nagy, 2010). The jewish character, Sheila Broflovski,is a protective, stayathome mom
(Nagy,2010). She can also be a agitator sometimes; for example, she creates more issues
out of a situation (Nagy,2010). SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SHORTCOMINGS WITHIN SOUTH PARK
Lastly, there is the stereotype of a single mother in the show. In the real world and
television, single mothers are perceive as being a negative motherhood (Nagy, 2010). In
South Park, Liane Cartman has the characteristics that we can find similar to a negative single mother in reality (Nagy, 2010). Her son’s attitude “ is reflective of the most
negative stereotypes associated with children, especially boys of single moms.” (Nagy,
2010) She is also addicted to sexual intercourse, in which we often see in single parents
that have to support their family to be stable (Nagy, 2010).
According to Nagy, South Park likes to share different stereotypes in a whole to the audience of the show. Current television shows often have the middleclass housewife that takes care of her family, and has a career (Nagy, 2010). South Park’s reason behind having multiple motherhoods is to show that “ there can be functional families that fall outside of what is considered “normal”.” (Nagy, 2010, P. 15)
The creators of South Park also use satirical humor to highlight the struggle of personal versus institutional religion in today's society. Stated in the article “Religiosity in South Park:
Struggles Over Institutional and Personal Piety Among Residents of a “Redneck Town”, South Park often satirizes many different elements of religion, often at the institutional level according to Scott. Of religious institutions Judaism, Catholicism, Mormonism, Evangelicalism, and the
Christian music industry receive much attention (Scott, 2011). Scott's study points out a few examples: SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SHORTCOMINGS WITHIN SOUTH PARK
Ike’s Wee Wee” satirized a briss when the boys assume Ike will have his “little fireman”
chopped off; “Red Hot Catholic Love” ties the sex abuse scandals to the church’s
orthodoxy and lack of modernization; “About the Mormons” condones Mormon family’s
virtues for their positive social value, while questioning veracity of The Book of Mormon
as a sacred text (Scott, 2011). Also, evangelical religion and popular religious culture are
mocked in episodes featuring Cartman speaking like a televangelist or forming a
Christian Band in order to make a substantial profit (Scott, 2011).
The leader of the South Park Catholic church, Priest Maxi, is regularly portrayed as “hypocritical, insensitive, and usually theologically irrelevant” often with a heavy dogmatic approach according to Scott. For example, Maxi is shown having sexual relation with various people in confessional booth, while also praying for NFL team wins in one episode (Scott, 2011).
The comprehension of institutional limits to undermine religious pursuits is further show, with a evil perspective, Jesus’ challenge of attracting a large television audience to forward his message
(Scott, 2011). When Scott explains the situation in his study, Jesus addresses a television producer that he does not care about the rating of the program; however, the producer is quick to explain that without a well rated show, there could not be a message (Scott, 2011). Insinuating that when religion is adhered to marketing strategies, the underlying power of and true meaning of the quote on quote message is not heard nor understood by the audience (Scott, 2011).
Although South Park often condemns the practices and strategies of institutional religion, it also conveys the importance of individual beliefs and thinking process (Scott, 2011). For instance in the episode “The Super Best Friends”, Jesus forms a team to defeat David Blaine and SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SHORTCOMINGS WITHIN SOUTH PARK
his cult followers, while also showing an opposing view of the bible in support of individual ideals:
“ My children, it is time for you to go home and stop following this false prophet. You
should be using your money and time for other things. These are simple magic tricks. His
magic is interesting, but will it put food on your table? Feeding the hungrynow that is a
miracle! [Stan wheels in a cart with loaves and fish.] Behold! I have here fives loaves of
bread and three fish. Certainly not enough to feed this entire crowd, but now—turn
around [The crowd turns around. Jesus adds bread and fish from behind the cart to the
original baskets] Okay, now turn back. [the audience is impressed].” (Scott, 2011, p. 7)
This quote suggests that people that interpret the bible literally wordforword are “weak minded” (Scott, 2011). At the end of the episode the character Stan Marsh had this to say in defense of personal religion:
“Cults are dangerous because they promise you hope, happiness and, maybe even an
afterlife. But in return, they demand you pay money. Any religion that requires you to
pay money in order to move up and learn its tenets is wrong. See, all religions have
something valuable to teach, but, just like the Super Best Friends learned, it requires a
little bit of them all.” (Scott, 2011, p. 7)
This statement by Stan simply means all religion has some relevant value; however if the institution is more concerned about making a profit or “make promises that cannot be validated in this life” (Scott, 2011) then there is no value to be taken away from the experience, further promoting the idea of individual beliefs.
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SHORTCOMINGS WITHIN SOUTH PARK
The article written by Macus Schulzke explores the many ways in which the popular animated comedy show South Park have used humor and parody to directly engage in social issues. According to Schulzke, South Park has, “pushed the boundaries of free expression, questioned censorship, criticized government policies, mocked key social figures, and generally provided a wellconceived, if not always convincing, position on whatever is in the news”
(Schulzke, 2012). The main point he makes throughout the article is how the series has used contentious language several times to make a point that offensive words can be reclaimed, leaving old definitions behind in favor of new ones. The point is made again by showing how the creators of South Park use language as a way to combat against overreaching censorship. For instance, in the episode “It Hits the Fan”, the characters in the show say the word shit 162 times to celebrate their new ability to say the word on television (Schulzke, 2012).
The main example given comes from the episode “The F Word” where the children of
South Park begin to call an annoying gang of bikers fags, unaware of the true connotation of the word. They paint “fags get out” on billboards across town in an attempt to convince the bikers to leave, which catches the attention of two gay characters in the show who assume it is an attack on homosexuality (Schulzke, 2012). Traditionally the show is about the adults educating the children who are between the ages of 810, but in this episode it is the children who educate the adults when they realize that the children have never been taught to see gay people as deviant, and are therefore unaware of the offensive connotation of the word fag. This innocence towards issues such as homophobia and racism is used throughout the history of the show as a tool to teach inverse lessons to the adults. This is shown as one of the characters named Kyle is confronted by the town’s mayor about his language, he says, “Oh, hey, that’s not very nice SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SHORTCOMINGS WITHIN SOUTH PARK
Mayor. Just because a person is gay doesn’t mean he’s a fag” (Schulzke, 2012). He then goes on to show that this aggressive language redefinition strategy can be effective, but sometimes efforts such as this can have the effect of not redefining a word, but simply popularizing it. He also states that just because an episode of South Park attempts to redefine a word doesn't mean that it isn't still hurtful to a large portion of the LGBT community.
The author concludes by arguing that there are both positive and negative aspects to
South Parks critiques on society, and ultimately states that they serve a good cause by getting uncomfortable conversations going. It is common for the show to be misunderstood, and
Schulzke states that South Park can not be understood in a vacuum, and often the misunderstandings that surround the shows more contentious episodes stem from people not understanding the wider context amongst the season, or even the series as a whole (Schulzke,
2012). He explains this by saying, “The F Word” is no doubt uncomfortable for many viewers because it persistently uses a word associated with hate. It may even have some negative repercussions among those who misunderstand the episode’s intent or who have unpleasant experiences with the word” (Schulzke, 2012).
The last article, written by Phil Childester argues the point that South Park helps to create psychological connections about race and selfidentity amongst the viewers. He says,
“South Park emerges as an intriguing example of media texts’ potent ability to
communicate notions of race and racial differences in the relative absence of actual
depictions of racial/ethnic/cultural variances”(Childester, 2012). He argues that each of
the four main characters in the series serve to represent a distinct facet of contemporary
American whiteness (Childester, 2012). SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SHORTCOMINGS WITHIN SOUTH PARK
First he argues that Stan Marsh for the sake of the show represents the everyman, as he has very little sense of self identity and throughout the show very rarely lets insults about his identity get under his skin. For instance in the episode “Asspen”, Stan is picked on by an older rival while on a ski trip who tries to find a weak spot in Stans selfidentity “armor” (Childester,
2012), before failing to find anything that strikes a nerve. Stan represents the many privileges that a part of being white, and unlike the other characters is harder to place in any particular stereotypical box.
Second he talks about Kyle Broflovski, the Jewish best friend of Stan. Throughout the series he serves as a platform to address racial, cultural, and religious stereotypes as he constantly tries to deny his heritage because others make fun of him for it (Childester, 2012). He also serves as a constant reminder to Stan of just how white he actually is, as he doesn't have to deal with the discrimination from the third friend, Eric Cartman.
The third friend is Kenny McCormick who represents the poor side of American whiteness and is described in the show as “poor white trash”. Childester says, “Kenny is effectively muzzled by the hood of the dirty orange sweatshirt that he forever pulls tightly across his face” (Childester, 2012). This silence is symbolic of the voicelessness of poverty, and provides a stark contrast to the other characters while also symbolizing an equally important part of being white.
Eric Cartman, a racist and bigot, is the last friend mentioned in the article. His constant insistence on “otherizing” (Childester, 2012) the characters in the show is part of his contribution to the overall white stereotype painted by the show. He represents the white American stereotype SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SHORTCOMINGS WITHIN SOUTH PARK
to voice every bigoted thought that comes to mind, and is often the sounding board by which some of the more uncomfortable subjects are started.
These four central characters invite the viewers of South Park to examine their own racial positions with each episode, and are quick to point out many of the stereotypes about white culture that other programs are afraid to discuss. He finishes with a bit of caution warning the reader that it’s impossible to be sure how much of an effect the show has on its audience.
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SHORTCOMINGS WITHIN SOUTH PARK
The creators of South Park use humor, shock, and satire to illuminate motherhood stereotypes, religion, vulgar language & race/ethnicities, in which often influences changes in cultural norms. For the first article by V. Nagy, the whole summary was the three different motherhood stereotypes that are depicted in South Park, in comparison to the real world. The stereotypes of mothers in the show are a middleclass mother, jewish mother, and single mother.
Characteristics of a middleclass mother in South Park are boring, frantic, dishearten, and a housewife. For a jewish mother, they are characterized as preservative, homeloving, and a inciter in the show. A single mother in South Park has aspects that are negativity, hustler, sexually active, and a bad influence on people. According to the article by D.W. Scott, the creators of the television show also implements comedy with ties to institutional and educational religions, such as Judaism, Catholicism, Mormonism, Evangelicalism, and Christian. South Park often mocks religion in some of their episodes. For example, in the episode called “ The Super
Best Friends”, instead of jesus using his powers to make more fish and bread, he tells the believers to turn around, in which he grabs more food from a cart. This is a good example of
South Park mocking religions. Next, South Park uses vulgar words to go against the copyright of language that television shows follows today. In the article by M. Schulzke, there is a good example when the children of the town makes fun of a biker group by painting “ Fags get out” on a billboard; this action led into the gang leaving the town. This is just the show going against the rule of censoring language in the TV industry. Lastly, in the article by P. Chidester, South Park creates their main characters based on different races and ethnicities. For example, the character,
Kenny McCormick, represents the poorer side of America. His dirty, orange hoodie symbolizes SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SHORTCOMINGS WITHIN SOUTH PARK
how “ white trash” he is in the show. To merge it all together, South Park likes to use humor, and satire to create social and political views, in which separates themselves from the real world.