Posted on 04/17/2005 9:30:15 AM PDT by USMC Veteran
Edited on 04/17/2005 12:25:20 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
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.
And that's why I don't see the appeal among conservatives. We happen to be on the same side on some things, but they are not allies. They clearly hate social conservatives, whic ARE the core of the conservative movement..
Anybody that "hates conservatives" isn't someone who I trust, not matter what they think about liberals. And they ARE filthy and vulgar.
You're very much right that the terms "conservative" and "Republican" shouldn't be used interchangeably; perhaps I did, but I didn't mean to.
The show is def. not "Republican", but to me it doesn't seem terribly conservative either. The show generally portrays all authority as inept at best and criminal at worse - not that one should be skeptical of all authority until they prove their worth, but that all authorities are worthless and thus should never be respected.
I can heartily endorse skepticism, but it seems SP, like most modern US entertainment, veers pretty much into full cynicism, and that strikes me as very harmful in a democracy (because instead of ever seeing gub'mint as possibly being us, the people, it will always be seen as hopelessly, eternally oppressive).
I enjoy watching SP, but I don't like the idea of viewing it as the basis of a desirable ideological viewpoint. I don't mean to sound reactionary about that.
Social "conservativism"=Hyperreligious liberalism, and is not the "core" of anything other than making all of us (the REAL conservatives) look foolish.
Sorry, this was my first attempt at posting. I'll try harder next time.
"As I was reading this there were a number of times that I had the strong sensation that I had read this exact paragraph just before."
(Voice of James T Kirk):
Caught..in..time..loop!...Must...break..out..somehow!...
Spock!..hit..back..button..on..browser!...
I don't know what Matt and Trey's political views are, but it's definite that they're 100% anti-PC.
I did see a bumper sticker that said: "I'm grateful he's dead."
Well that's great. However, this nation of states is supposed to be a Republic. The Framers themselves warned against a democracy, which unfortunately it has become. And frankly, their version of always questioning authority for the most part is a good thing. Sure, there are a few issues I have with SP, namely based on religion and faith.
But for the most part, everytime they do question authority, I can see in most instances where they are making fun of those we put in positions of power misusing same said power. I believe, except for the language, many of the views they hold towards government could be pulled from statements by a majority of the citizens of the respective states before 1850.
"Last week, I changed my party affiliation from Republican to Independent."
I changed my registration from Republican to Independent about two months ago. I felt that I needed to be able to say to any liberal that I was a registered independent and hence no particular dogma/policy positions to live up to. I told one liberal friend that I essentially was a mirror image of Jim Jeffords - registered Independent but voted Republican for organizational purposes.
The point I wanted to make to my liberal friends is that too much time is spent defending a party's plus and minuses whereas as an independent I can truly speak for myself without all the baggage, deserved or not.
I figure that it would be nearly impossible to get a Dem to switch to Pubbie but that it was very possible to get them to switch to an independent status. Change tends to be a step program as opposed to a big leap.
I once came up with the definition of pragmatism as being sober idealism. I feel now that I can address that rationale better and am all the better, and more effective, for it.
Gen Xers don't like authority for authority's sake. Convince us that there's a point to something, and we'll back it. You can treat us like children and force things on us for our own good, but you'll have dumped your credibility for good.
That cultural 'loss of credibility' is why liberals, hippies, and the 'nanny state mentality' are despised among a rapidly growing segment of young America. No one knows better than young people that most liberal ideas are just idealistic lines of dogma that don't work in the real world.
South Park conservatism might seem rough because it is. It's more individualistic, libertarian, and unashamed to be confrontational. In that sense, it could easily come in conflict with more authoritarian strains of conservatism, especially from the more religious side of the house. We don't intend on being controlled by anyone who can't be reasoned with, liberal or conservative.
As a cultural movement its' appeal is broad and deep. It won't be silenced, and trying to do so only feeds it fuel by proving it's point. It's pent up resentment at the system that insists everyone ignore the fact that the emperor has no clothes. (The emperor, in this case, being liberal ideology, and the clothes being positive results.) South Park conservatism demands that the truth be spoken, and with a sharp edge to it as payback for the lie that provoked it.
I don't know what to tell older conservatives that don't get it. South Park conservatives, as they start to get older and assume leadership roles in society, will have the younger Millennium generation pouring in as reinforcements. If you think we've gored some sacred liberal cows, all I can say is give it another 15-20 years. You ain't seen nothin yet.
You would abort the boy who wrote "Woodland Critter Chrsitmass"?
Loved the recent baseball episode. The team was playing other Colorado towns' teams and when it came to Pueblo, the opposing team was entirely Hispanic, spoke Spanish (wasn't the sign "welcome to Pueblo" in Spanish too?). Made a point probably too subtly for the lib viewers!
bttt
The "bait and switch" form of social commentary, i.e. the use of profanity as the bait to send an anti- liberal message. A similar tactic was used in a children's book over 60 years ago. Most adults think that the story book, "The Little Prince", is meant for children, but the author hid his adult message in a book he reckoned that adults would more likely read to their kids than read for themselves. The message of the book, in fact, was meant for the adults. The liberal left still believes that "The Little Prince" is a book for children.
I'd trade "potty-mouthed" conservatives for the platitude laced, factless PC language of the liberal left any day.
Well, as a 27 yr old, I think I know a thing or two about this here "Generation X"....
I fully understand that SP is emblematic of a cultural "movement", but what I question is is what that movement is and if it's something positive.
If I can be a bit obtuse, with a bad analogy, but I'm kinda reminded of a scenario from an ethics class I took in college: if someone sees a $20 on the dashboard of an unattended convertible, and doesn't take it because stealing is wrong, and another doesn't take it either because he fears getting caught...what's more important, that no stealing occurred or that one's reasons were better than the other? In other words, is motivation secondary as long as the desired behavior is performed?
I ask because I doubt that the appeal of SP has much to do with any sort of meaningful ideology - anti-PCism because of free speech, anti-Liberalism becaust it's become fascist, etc etc. I think a lot of the appeal simply has to do with the show celebrating people saying and doing what they want without regards to old fogies' standards on language, decency, and the like.
In other words, one person may like South Park because it exposes the hypocricy of liberal facism, but another person may like it because it mocks people (teachers, gub'mint, religious figures) who would tell them how to behave or what they should believe is right and wrong.
IMO it is the latter that is more appealing to SP's audience - they watch because people these days, regardless of how they identify themselves, do not want to accept any limits or judgment on their behavior, not because it speaks to some coherent ideology they hold. It's like, while I agree that PC'ism needs to go, I also feel that a lot of people are anti-PC more because they don't want to have to think about others rather than because they worry about true free speech, and I think it's important to distinguish between supporters who honestly, actually support a position, and those who are simply compatible but are motivated by very different reasons.
/I realize I'm using generalizations here, but in talking with friends and students, that seems to more or less hold truth
But at the same time, the advocate for the illegal aliens in that episode was named "liberal hippie douche". It takes everything I have to restrain myself from using that moniker on certain freepers.
I just didn't like how they pounded "baseball is boring" into the ground. That particular joke got old quick (but then, I'll admit my bias to being a huge baseball fan).
To be honest, I don't really remember that episode too much other than Stan's dad's drunk arrest rantings ("I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I thought this was America!") and one of the SP kids realizing that the other team had trained to lose better than them...or something to that effect.
Wow, what a bunch of morons (the libs there). That is why you always check the internet before seeing a movie.
Again, I understand everything balances out, or goes in the conservatives' favor, but I don't believe being anti-liberal automagically makes one pro-conservative. One can be both, and I feel SP is.
I guess I tend to prefer "positive" definitions (this is what X is FOR) rather than negative ones (this is what we're not, or what we're against).
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