Ethnic Humor and Discursive Integration in South Park Matt Sienkiewicz and Nick Marx
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Beyond a Cutout World: Ethnic Humor and Discursive Integration in South Park matt sienkiewicz and nick marx a quick survey of recent popular Ameri- Although this understanding may suffice for can film and television comedy reveals a trend the purposes of popular criticism, it neglects in the portrayal of racists, racism, and the sorts the question of how media texts are ultimately of stereotypes historically associated with con- able to create messages that, while offensive servative, Eurocentric worldviews. Comedians on one level, can be deemed socially accept- such as Sarah Silverman, films such as Borat: able when considered in a larger context. It Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit also fails to consider whether this trend makes Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, and television a positive, progressive contribution to discus- shows such as FOX’s Family Guy all casually sions of prejudice in America or works to anni- reproduce the external markings of racist hilate the distinctions that make such debates beliefs in the service of comedy with what is possible. In this essay, we look to the show that presumably an ironic tone. As New York Times perhaps best represents this phenomenon, critic A. O. Scott notes in discussing the work of Comedy Central’s South Park, in order to arrive Silverman, such texts are often assumed not to at a better understanding of the ways in which be truly racist by virtue of the fact that they so the program’s overtly offensive ethnic humor effortlessly engage in the offensive. Ironic rac- operates within a broader discursive context. In ism, in this view, takes advantage of the notion doing so, we argue that the program’s integra- that in a culture so concerned with political tion of offensive humor into contemporaneous correctness, only creators “secure (in their) lack media discussions of ethnic prejudice works of racism would dare to make, or to laugh at, a to show such prejudice as a systematic, social racist joke” (E13). Thus, to present racist char- problem, not one that can be blamed on certain acters in the current comedy environment may, “bad” individuals. paradoxically, testify to the creator’s ultimate Current scholarly accounts of the use of lack of prejudice.1 ethnic humor in adult-oriented cartoons in general, and South Park in particular, are insuf- ficient because they often fail to account for matt sienkiewicz is a PhD student in media and the life that these programs have beyond their cultural studies at the University of Wisconsin– moment of broadcast. The offensive ethnic Madison. His primary research areas are Palestin- humor in South Park must be understood in a ian television, media globalization, and depictions discursively integrated context, one that takes of Judaism in American popular culture. He is also an Emmy-nominated screenwriter and a documen- into account the material circumstances of the tary producer. show’s production and its circulation within in- dustrial and cultural discourses. By accounting nick marx is a PhD student in media and cultural studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. for the way in which South Park has moved to His research focuses on popular film and televi- a shorter production schedule that allows it to sion comedy. consistently engage with public discourses sur- journal of film and video 61.2 / summer 2009 5 ©2009 by the board of trustees of the university of illinois rounding current events, we demonstrate that outlets such as Comedy Central, at least for the program’s offensive ethnic humor needs to the time being, offer transgressive humorists a be set against a broad context that has been forum that both accommodates their style and previously unexamined. We contend that South ensures it an increasing viewership. Although Park must be understood as what Geoffrey not grappling specifically with South Park’s Baym calls “discursively integrated media” ethnic humor, Tueth nonetheless cites a criti- set at the intersection of “news, politics, en- cal industrial element—the program’s position tertainment and marketing” (262). We argue on cable—that we expand on in examining that South Park is not constructed in a manner South Park’s process of discursive integration. conducive to the sort of deep textual analysis Although Tueth points to the broader discursive to which great works of literature are so often context in which prime-time animated sitcoms profitably subjected. Instead of great depth, the might be understood, work focusing specifi- show achieves its complexity through a wide cally on offensive representations of ethnic and far-reaching web of connections to other minorities in such programs remains largely media texts and, crucially, the larger discourses relegated to the textual level. In the following with which these other texts are engaged. It is analysis we review scholarship that employs a this latter attribute that separates “discursively literary-interpretative model in order to concep- integrated media” from the merely intertextual. tualize offensive humor in prime-time animated South Park not only asks the viewer to make sitcoms. We then address the shortcomings of connections to other media, but it also asks its such work and appeal to the broader contexts audience to critically engage with the modes of in which South Park’s ethnic jokes exist. discussion in which these secondary texts are Melissa Hart’s article “South Park, In the participating. Tradition of Chaucer and Shakespeare” is pedagogical in origin and thus emerges from a Literary Models for Understanding Ethnic consideration of a very specific sort of audience Humor in Prime-Time Animation (B5). The question for Hart is how it is pos- sible for a group of professors and students, Despite the considerable public controversy individuals who take “political correctness to that South Park’s offensive ethnic humor gen- a level mimicking Orwell’s thought police,” to erates, relatively little scholarly attention has find themselves laughing at South Park’s anti- been devoted to the specific ways in which Semitic stereotypes and other offensive humor. the program’s ethnic comedy functions both Hart suggests that other viewers, particularly textually and contextually. Recent work in Dal- those of an older generation, tend to be un- ton and Linder’s The Sitcom Reader, though, able to move beyond the show’s crudeness, provides a good starting point for grappling dismissing South Park as “coarse and ugly.” with the elements of South Park’s humor that For Hart, these difficulties can be resolved transcend and transgress textual boundaries. simply by re-dividing potential South Park view- Michael V. Tueth’s “Breaking and Entering: ers into two groups: those who miss the point Transgressive Comedy on Television” (25–34), and those who get it. Comparing the show’s for example, argues that South Park represents characters to obscene and offensive characters a mainstreaming of transgressive humor that created by Chaucer and Shakespeare, Hart had previously been seen only in more mar- suggests that South Park represents the latest ginal pop cultural settings, such as the 1983 way in which “intellectuals have stepped down Hustler magazine advertisement that lam- from the upper classes to revel in lowbrow pooned the supposed vices of Reverend Jerry humor” (B5). The educated among the rabble Falwell. Tueth questions whether South Park are thus able to better discern the meaning of and its foul-mouthed ilk will eventually become the humor, enjoying it on a deeper level that is television’s comedic norm but notes that cable more in line with the creators’ presumed inten- 6 journal of film and video 61.2 / summer 2009 ©2009 by the board of trustees of the university of illinois tions. In the specific case of South Park, Hart the Clown’s reprisal of an archaic, buck-toothed contends that the show, properly understood, Japanese stereotype to the show’s portrayal of “is really making fun of us—both the people modern-day Japan as a land full of emotionless who recognize the ignorance-based stereo- people. Dobson acknowledges that such depic- types that humanity has cultivated, and the tions may be seen as offensive, inflaming latent people who buy into those stereotypes” (B5). anti-Japanese sentiment in America and across Simply put, if the viewer is smart enough, it is the world. He is quick to counteract this per- obvious that, for example, South Park character spective, however, claiming that any such fears Eric Cartman’s campaign against the “the filth represent “overreactions and that a closer read- of the common Jew” is funny because anti- ing of the scripts and images fails to reveal any Semitism is ridiculous, not because Jews really bigotry” (56). It is a deeper look into the text, are worthy of disdain and degradation. In this he argues, that ultimately redeems the appar- approach, the enlightened viewer identifies ently offensive content of the show. Although prejudice as a problem of the individual to be Dobson specifically discusses The Simpsons, cured by educating that individual. It fails to ac- he also makes reference to Hart’s work on count for the broader, systematic, and cultural South Park. In order to offset the accusations of elements that might be implicated—one might racism leveled against The Simpsons, Dobson infer from Hart that if we all “got” South Park, sets up a two-step system of literary analysis— we would cease to be racist like Eric Cartman. the first step removes the danger from the Similarly, the respective approaches of humor in question, and the second attributes a Hugo Dobson and William Savage Jr. to South positive value to it. Park’s offensive ethnic humor are based in a Dobson utilizes Bakhtin’s notion of the car- literary-interpretive model.