'I hate conservatives, but I really... hate liberals'

For decades, with few exceptions, a liberal sensibility dominated American humor. From Lenny Bruce to Norman Lear's "All in Family" to "Will & Grace," the laughs came at the expense of fuddy-duddy conservatives and bourgeois conventions. But over the last few years, a new kind of cutting-edge humor has emerged whose primary target is the Left. It's a sign of how much ground liberalism has lost in our cultural life.

The No. 1 example is South Park, Comedy Central's hit adult cartoon series chronicling the misadventures of four potty-mouthed fourth-graders named Cartman, Kenny, Kyle, and Stan. Now in its ninth season, South Park, with nearly 3 million viewers per episode (one recent half hour garnered 4.4 million), is Comedy Central's highest-rated program, credited by many with putting the network on the map.

Some conservatives have blasted South Park for its mind-boggling vulgarity, even calling it a "threat to our youth." But those critics don't get it. As the show's co-creator Matt Stone sums it up, "I hate conservatives, but I really (expletive) hate liberals." Stone acknowledges that he and his fellow 30-something Coloradoan colleague Trey Parker are "more right-wing than most people in Hollywood" -- though, he cautions, that's the case partly because Hollywood types are so out there on the Left.

South Park has a sharp anti-PC edge. One episode mocks multicultural sentimentality about the supposed wisdom of native cultures. Kyle contracts a potentially fatal kidney disorder, and his naïve parents try to cure it with "natural" Native American methods, with disastrous results. Stan tries to get his friend sent to a hospital, but runs into fierce resistance.

Kyle's mom reassures him: "Everything is going to be fine, Stan; we're bringing in Kyle tomorrow to see the Native Americans personally."

Stan responds: "Isn't it possible that these Indians don't know what they're talking about?"

Stan's mom interjects: "You watch your mouth, Stanley. The Native Americans were raped of their land and resources by white people like us."

To which Stan has a perfectly logical rejoinder: "And that has something to do with their medicines because ... ?"

South Park regularly mocks left-wing celebrities who feel entitled to tell everyone how the world should run. In the episode "Butt Out," actor, producer, and celebrity activist Rob Reiner blows into town on an anti-smoking crusade, and tries to draft the boys in a sleazy plan to frame the local tobacco company for selling cigarettes to minors. In a classic sequence, set in a downscale local bar, Parker and Stone perfectly capture the Olympian arrogance of liberal elites. Reiner begins to sniff the air violently, detecting a faint whiff of cigarette smoke wafting through the bar. He detects the source: a man wearing a "Buds" cap, quietly enjoying a beer and a smoke. "Would you mind putting that death stick out," Reiner hollers.

The man, surprised, responds: "But, uh, this is a bar." Reiner: "Isn't smoking illegal in bars here?" "Not in Colorado," the bartender tells him. "Oh my God! What kind of backward hick state is this," Reiner explodes. The smoker tries to reason with him: "Listen man, I work 14 hours a day at the sawmill. I just got off work and I need to relax." But Reiner will have none of it: "Well, when I relax I just go to my vacation house in Hawaii!"

The Buds man gets angry: "I ain't got a vacation house in Hawaii!" "Your vacation house in Mexico, then, wherever it is," snorts Reiner. The boys eventually put a stop to the "tubby fascist," saving smoking in South Park.

In a 2004 interview, Parker and Stone expanded on just how much they loathed meddling celebrities. "People in the entertainment industry are by and large (tramp)-chasing drug-addicted (expleted)," Parker noted. "But they still believe they're better than the guy in Wyoming who really loves his wife and takes care of his kids and is a good, outstanding, wholesome person. Hollywood views regular people as children, and they think they're the smart ones who need to tell the idiots out there how to be." (This contempt for Hollywood activist lefties was also on display in Parker and Stone's hilarious puppet movie "Team America: World Police.")

Hollywood, in its knee-jerk leftism, has also long looked down on the business world; indeed, one study from the 1990s showed businessmen committing almost half of all murders and vice crimes on the tube. On occasion, South Park gleefully bucks the anti-business trend. In one entry, a "Harbucks" coffee chain arrives in South Park. Town residents resist it at first, but everyone eventually admits its coffee is better than anything else on offer in town. "Harbucks Coffee started off as a small, little business" Stan tells a town meeting, "But because it made such great coffee, and because they ran their business so well, they managed to grow until they became the corporate powerhouse it is today. And that is why we should all let Harbucks stay." It's worth noting that Matt Stone's father is a semiretired economics professor.

South Park has also satirized the 1960s counterculture; abortion-on-demand (Cartman's mother seeks to have him aborted -- even though he's 8); sex-ed in school; hate-crime legislation; and many other liberal shibboleths.

Conservatives sometimes find themselves skewered too -- phony patriots and Mel Gibson have been among those slashed. But the deepest thrust of South Park's politics is pretty clear.

Parker and Stone have made their show not only the most obscenity-laced but -- paradoxically -- also the most hostile to liberalism in television history.

For the uninitiated it should be mentioned that the show is usually quite funny and the best bits often have nothing to do with politics nor lean toward vulgarity.

My favorite episode is still Shenanigans....the "line ride" always cracks me up.

I am a believer in the free market

And which "free market" would that be? Such a free market doesn't exist. What currently passes for "free trade" is simply global socialism, where the wealth of American citizens is confiscated and redistributed to third-world cesspools (after the neocons and Democrats rake off their generous share).

The neocons are content with the current socialist income tax structure -- they differ with the Democrats only on the rates of the slave tax.

I'd much prefer the Republican policies of the McKinley era to what is currently happening. Technology may have changed, but the principles are just as applicable today.

Or for a quicker study, you can read a more recent discussion: Riding the free trade raft over the falls.

Proud South Park Republican here!!

It always cracks me up to see the Puritans freak over South Park. Obviously, they're clueless as to the true nature of the show.

It seems more and more of them around here have read threads like this and just quietly slink away instead of making fools of themselves.

Impossible!!!

No one could possibly hate hippies more than me!

I like South Park myself. "South PArk" Republicans are really just libertarian types.

Unfortunately, I think the creators don't really understand traditional Conservatives all that well. By Traditional, I don't mean the paleo-cons, but the Goldwater Conservatives.

Again, I like the show but they skew Conservatives based on the actions of a few. Every group has their crazies but the Left is alomst ALL crazy. Their exceptions are people that are not stupid or insane but powermad.

Examples... how about when they had the Rednecks on that were upset about losing their jobs to the people from the future.

I don't think like that and no Conservatives I know think like that either (Well, I know a few, LOL!). So, they are wrong on that point.

Also, they are hostile to religion. That's cool, it makes for some funny shows. I am not particularly religious but I'm not hostile to religion either.

Just my long rambling opinion. Thanls for your time.

Arioch7 out!

Seeing that as a mocking of liberal rhetoric seems a bit of a stretch IMO. If SP wants to rip on something, they usually don't go about it in such a convoluted way; IMO they'd have just had some cliche liberal running around spouting melodramatic anti-repub cliches.

I respect your opinion. I disagree though. Matt and Trey's writing drips with sarcasm in pretty much everything they do, and the "Republicans are evil" is a recurring joke on the show that pokes fun at the liberals' seriously lunatic opinions of President Bush and the GOP in general.

This is not much different than when the people on the Earth Day episode kept saying "Republicans are responsible" and moving their hands like a hypnotist.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.