Why do so many people regardless of whether their reasonings are justified or not pinpoint South Park for ruining a generation of millenials?
I never really tolerated this take on the show. And how many often accused Matt and Trey of being libertarians or even downright bigots even though they're trying to make a socialist statement on civilisation or the topic of the week like gay marriage and treatment of disability in media and how people could potentially be faking it for exploitation both of which were actually very well done and progressive especially the tourettes example.
Also they've ruthless mocked Trump in a story arc not only once but twice. And their latest season is so aggressively ruthless and savage, It feels like they're doing more for the liberal No Kings uprising than The current democratic party leaders who are all talk and no substance.
I'm not saying I don't fully disagree with people's disdain for the show (primarily the trans community. I can see why they hate South Park's guts) but to consider it a permanent stain on basic human decency and a horrid influence for milennials is honestly pretty hair splitting if you'd ask me.
Am I missing something here within these folks? is punching sideways/mocking everyone equally really any worst than complete douchebags straight up punching down for the sake of pissing off the unfortunate because they find it hilarious (Looking at you Tony Hinchcliffe, and Babylon Bee)? Are the South Park guys really to blame for shaping an entire demographic into not caring about any Global Disputes with Current Affairs? Or did the boundaries pushing and subtle satire simply got lost in people who either grewed up into the very thing they were mocking or viewed it as a cesspool of nihlist Slop?
106 replies
They're not though. Their politics aren't socialist, or progressive, or anything.
Their comedy is about shock and being uncomfortable. Whether the topic for the week is political, social or interpersonal the show will have a take that is designed to shock and make people uncomfortable, because there's laughs in being uncomfortable.
Claiming southpark is socialist is like claiming your fever dream was more Dengist than Trotskyite. That's just not how it works.
Do you watch it? I definitely think sometimes they are making valid and salient points and sometimes those points touch on things at least adjacent to socialism.
They do satire, i.e., "isn't it weird that..." Or "isn't society hypocritical for..."
Sometimes they aim at one thing, sometimes another. Sometimes warranted, sometimes not, imo...
Not the person you're replying to. There was the special about "navigating the American health care system", that was very on point, but other than that, I can't remember a lot "socialism" points across the show. Any examples?
I feel like I very much doubt the showmakers would claim the title "socialist" in their worldview
Hence "adjacent". This is quite clearly criticism of at least one key aspect of capitalism:
... do you think that everyone who made a criticism of capitalism is thrn socialist?
Because that's what you wrote.
Do you think every person that isn't specifically saying the same things you is vehemently against you?
Because that's what you wrote.
Okay but you do see how that is absolutely not making a socialist statement, yeah?
Do you see how you didn't read?
No. I read it.
#puritytest
https://nebula.tv/videos/lindsayellis-south-park
Stone and Parker are the embodiment of genX politics. That is the cynical mantra that people who believe in stuff are the real fools. And it doesn't matter if you deny the Holocaust or advocate for green energy, in South Park you've committed the same sin.
Sure they make fun of Trump. But they also had an entire season devoted to frat-boy bullies and tyrants who advocated for inclusion, equity, and social justice. Because that's a social problem in American and Matt & Tray simply have the courage to finally speak truth to power.
Oh, and meanwhile Global Warming is a hysterical myth that Al Gore invented.
For what it's worth, they have officially said they were wrong about Climate Change.
And it only took how long? So brave of them to admit they were wrong long after public consensus shifted (never mind scientific consensus, which was already solid before that episode was even made).
And you’d rather they didn’t? Obviously it would have been better if they didn’t mock climate change in the first place, but if they then use their same platform to use the same influence to acknowledge their mistake, it’s much better than them just staying silent about it. It’s incredibly counterproductive to mock people who actually admit when they were wrong, even if they’re not as quick about it as you want them to be.
That's a really good distillation of their ethos. I'm going to try to remember it.
They did air two apology episodes in that regard, though.
This is pretty accurate but I would say it's both their flaw and their strength. There's a lot put on the shoulders of the show probably because it's such a cultural force and has been around for a long time. They're often lauded for their take downs and for how well they distilled absurdities in various beliefs and I actually think that praise was pretty well deserved. They can take anything, whatever it may be and find the angle where it is risible and stupid, and that works great for comedy and only becomes a problem when it's expected to somehow be right in doing so or is to have a coherent philosophy that can be discerned from the years of output and that's where it really starts to break down. When something like Southpark is around this long and people place so many expectations on it, when it has to mine the cultural milieux for something current and relevant week after week and still stick to it's "ripping on everybody" schtick, the limits of the actual commentary and messaging start to become apparent. This leads to justified criticism like yours but at the end of the day it was only ever just a tv show and frankly what they do achieve is pretty impressive for the medium and for its longevity even when compared to where it hits the limits of both.
Even if that was their mantra (which I don't think it is), it's absurd to generalise that to all of Gen X, as if all of us have the same politics.
No to all of this.
believing in stuff makes you stupid about that stuff.
Those Frat boy Bullies and tyrants are all over lemmy and other social media. If you can't see that, you're one of them. There are also real incidents of abuse and harassment on college campuses where good people are getting fired and sued over harmless actions like not using gender neutral pronouns in their emails or some ridiculous crap. Bullying and harassing people into your 'cause' is should never be socially acceptable.
The reason so many folks are so insanely hostile over social justice is they believe in it, and they think violence is justified in it's name. They don't think it's something to stand up for, they think it's something to beat people down with, literally.
Where are you getting these stories about who is getting bullied on college campuses for these reasons?
Are the people getting fired over not using gender neutral pronouns in the room with us
That's such a stupid take.
People who are "hostile" over social justice, are hostile against social injustice. Social injustice is violent, in many many ways.
Your take is basically "I don't like these people, because they are violent against violence to try to fix it". I'm sure that stagnating in violence is better than to try to fix it, huh.
Tell me that you're a privileged brat without telling me that you're a privileged brat.
yeah, please prove my point harder. insulting people is so 'big and strong' of you.
you're a pathetic bully who day-dreams about beating people up. how 'just' of you.
Yeah I want to beat up nazis, and if you feel bad for the nazis then guess which side that puts you in.
The point that you're proving isn't what you think it is.
it's proving that you're a wannabe thug who is looking for excuses to beat on people by irrationally calling them nazis because you feel it gives you permission to hate and beat on them.
Which means... you're a nazi. because that's what nazis do, hate on people who are different than then.
normal folks who aren't nazi wannabes don't sit around fantasizing about beating anyone up.
Ah yes, the typical far-right technique of mirroring attacks against them.
"We're not antisemitic nazis, the leftists are, look at them criticizing Israel".
"I'm colorblind, maybe you're the racist one by focusing so much on color"
And whatnot.
Let me guess, next you're going to start mentioning freedom of speech?
next time someone says something you don't agree with in person, i think you should go punch them in the face, and beat them until they are hospitalized.
and see how far that gets you in your quest for justice. show everyone how just you are by beating the shit out of a person for real, instead of fantasizing about it online. see how they react.
IMO South Park just holds up a mirror to society (in probably 90% of their episodes, anyway). People who are comfortable / powerful in society won't like looking at the ugliness in that mirror. People who understand how fucked up everything is will appreciate the value of the mirror.
I think a smaller amount of their material is just them griping about various pet peeves, which is fine. They are human and very creative, so of course some of those types of things will come out in their work, too.
And some of it is just to be funny, pure absurdist jokes and gags. In the sense of "the universe doesn't care" types of things. Those land hard for me, but some people don't find that kind of thing funny. The people who don't find it funny aren't wrong, they just have different tastes in humor.
I think you nailed it. You can take what you want from their episodes oftentimes, they are not trying to convince anyone of anything but how stupid some people and things are from at least one perspective. That's it. When people act like they're anti leftist or something like that, they've 100% missed what was being done.
You mean: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, comics, Dungeons and Dragons, video games, anime, South Park, etc.?
Because people have been stupid for a million years.
We've got quotes of Socrates bitching about the youth...
Yeah, but he also complained about writing which is very funny as we only know that he existed because other people wrote about him.
There was an odd period of time in America where a large portion of the population got their political information and social awareness from the Comedy Central television network.
The Daily Show, Colbert Report, and South Park.
People often had a better sense of humor about things back then though
I'm not even trying to make a stupid joke, it's true
Having a sense of humor makes you less of an insufferable annoyance when talking about topics that are heavy
Please return me to 2006. I hate everything and would like to go back. (lol)
Doesn't seem that odd compared to today ... can we go back?
One one hand, South Park has expertly satirized current events for its entire existence, and the writing is genius.
On the other hand, it pretty much gave all the worst school children in the 2000's permission the scream "fag" and "jew" all the time because they didn't understand that Cartman isn't supposed to be a role model.
The Colbert Effect
South Park has always been viewed this way. As awful terrible and 'ruining the children'.
It's always seen this way by ignorant people who never watch the show. It's still one of the most relevant and accurate satire comedies going on.
And it really makes folks uncomfortable, hence why they want to put it down.
Im an Xer and love the show. Its both high brow and extremely low brow and they rip everything and everyone including themselves.
As a fellow generation member who recalls downloading the original short over FTP - the idea that a TV show can ruin a generation is as laughable as the Satanic Panic.
Hope you're hanging in there, it's tough for us Xers.
come september unemployed for two years. happy closing in on retirement. Wait. thats not real either.
Software?
IT.
I don't think it's impossible. Think about a TV show run by the tate brothers or something like that.
One show does not ruin a generation of people.
So are you saying fox news has had no measurable effect on people?
Are you making shit up whole cloth?
That's a network, right? A gigantic, concerted effort to propagandize, not one show. And I didn't comment at all about networks or concerted efforts to propagandize.
🤷♂️
Do ypu need me to explicitly list out every show on the metwork. Are we incapable of discerning between one show andna group of shows. Probably where all the lack of understanding is coming from
People who think South Park ruined anything or that the creators are politically shitty do not get it and probably haven't watched much of it. Imo to think they are politically shitty, it takes being a purity tester type who is looking for secret evil everywhere. The type who is not satisfied with the evil people being honest about their beliefs, they know the truth: most people who claim to have leftist views are actually secretly evil conservatives. This is a type of person I will never get along with.
Like how they demonized climate change for nearly a decade. I got it crustal clear during the al gore episodes
What the fuck are you talking about? Easy block of a purity testing twat who doesn't understand comedy or satire.
He's talking about the fact that for over a decade south Park played a significant part in fueling climate change skepticism with Al Gore screaming "manbearpig guys I'm super cereal" only for the creators to later admit that yeah they were actually super wrong about climate change and it is a serious issue. That's why they made manbearpig real and had it start killing people, but that doesn't erase the influence that they've already had on people. It'd be like if they had a TV show calling aids fake and gay for the first few years of the aids crisis and then only changed their tune once it started affecting people they know.
Claiming that anyone who rightfully criticizes their handling of climate change as being a purity testing twat with no understanding of comedy or satire is disingenuous and makes it obvious that you don't actually understand what you're talking about
South Park has always been hated by the same people for the same reasons. It's a fucking cartoon. No one is forced to watch it. I like some episodes, I dislike others. I watch the ones I like, I don't watch the ones I don't like. I don't get what's so hard about it. If I can do it, other people can do it too.
Damn that's a boomer take... "If everyone could just act like me we'd all be better off"
Lmao. I don't give a fuck what you or anyone else thinks about South Park, and I certainly don't think anyone would be better off just because someone changed their mind about a cartoon.
But keep putting words in people's mouths so you can win arguments with strangers on the internet, if that's what you're into.
lol let me demonstrate what actually not caring what you have to say looks like...
I like South Park mostly, but the way they have handled LGBTQ+ stuff often wildly misses the mark.
I haven't seen any SouthPark in a decade, but I only remember Big Gay Al and Mr Garrison. I always thought those were so obviously wrong that it woul be hard to take offense at them. But I'm not the one to judge that
They have had multiple episodes on trans people that have basically insinuated that they are not meant to be treated seriously.
Ms. Garrison being treated as disgusting not for their horrible attitude, but for their transitioning, attempting to bodyhorror with the dolphin transitioning of Kyle's father, and, just, the entire trans athlete episode. Also, Cartman's mom could fall into this category if you don't treat that as more of a one-off joke.
Essentially, they do occasionally do a lot of research on certain select topics like Tourette's, but then they pull this shit out and you basically can see they unapologetically do not care.
Basically, they, at best, do not give a shit about trans people, and at worst, actively hate them. The trans athlete episode is, to me, especially egregious because you could ACTUALLY DO a trans athlete episode real fucking easily that gets the basic facts right and still even put their normal libertarian spin on it, and it would have been enjoyable to everyone without implying that trans people are faking it to win sports (and exclusively women's sports at that, a thing they have previously implied in prior episodes no one gives a shit about anyway.)
I viewed the ‘Strong Woman Competition’ episode as lambasting the idea that a man could just one day start identifying as female and suddenly sweep all of the athletic competitions. Like “look at this ridiculous scenario that could only ever happen in an upside-down universe like South Park”. I took it as being a tear-down of the conservative panic over trans athletes. Maybe that’s just me, though.
The treatment of Garrison and Caitlyn Jenner is pretty bluntly transphobic though. There’s no commentary nor subversion of concept there; it’s just mean spirited hating. They’ve never really atoned for that.
I think, if I were gonna make an episode like that, I would simply just take someone like Randy who is not the least bit athletic, and have him try to transition to get some sort of edge. There's a lot of ways it could go, but really understanding the side effects of HRT and what typical requirements a standard trans athlete has to fulfill to compete as their gender would likely have Randy losing whatever competition he is in.
I mean, considering that he is canonically Lord, it wouldn't be a crazy pick, either. This doesn't even require adding in a trans character, but it does involve them researching transitioning and how to compete as a trans athlete.
There has yet to be a single group that has not been lampooned by SP. You take umbrage with it because it's finally targeted a group you care about.
Hell, you can be trans in the South Park game and the entire community rallies around to support you.
Just because you are not rah-rah-rah cheered 24/7 by literally everyone and everything does not mean something is transphobic. It's was just your turn on the mocking wheel, which is good, it means you're being treated just like everyone else. Which is the entire fucking point, that you're no different from any other human.
You are just fucking wrong. You can make a South Park trans episode where you make fun of trans people without disparaging the fact they are the gender they identify as. These episodes do not promote a "both sides" approach to transness. They state, fairly unequivocally, that trans people do not exist. There is no other side to that narrative. The trans dolphin episode (and several Ms. Garrison episodes) makes it pretty clear they think that surgical reassignment is grotesque. The trans athlete episode is wrong on multiple different levels.
The trans athlete episode could even fucking exist with that same plotline if they showed that that rhetoric was harmful to both women and trans people and, you know, not a real thing that has ever happened. They could even try to play up that they're trying to be too inclusive or some shit. But because they do not show a real trans athlete in that episode, there is no other side. It is purely a dunk on transwomen in women's sports which is transphobic.
Again, there are episodes where they do their research. But most of the time, they don't, including this. This just happens to be a topic I fully fucking understand.
Like, holy shit, this is easy shit to make fun of. Trans people are so easy to throw jokes at that don't question their gender identity. Fucking just talk to a trans person. You can do the same level of jokes aimed at black people that they do to Token! They are racist jokes, but they don't treat Token like black people are disgusting or awful or other disparaging stereotypes, even if he does fall into several stereotypes.
Punching everyone equally gives the appearance that everyone deserves to be punched. Just another form of "both sides" bullshit.
Folks are rightfully calling out the anti trans stuff and anti gay stuff, and the climate change stuff. But one that really sticks with me the most is when they punched down on alcoholics.
Basically they implied alcoholics should be able to enjoy a tiny bit of alcohol here or there, and called out alcoholics who completely abstain as being undiciplined losers.
As someone with outrageous amounts of alcoholism on both sides of my family, it doesn't sit well with me at all.
Plus, Matt and Trey are Republicans, so fuck them.
From Wikipedia, so it seems like he's had some personal experience as well.
Also I don't think they are republican or democrat
they are Republican.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190801200619/https://www.dangerous.com/42908/trey-parker-matt-stone-come-republicans-room-full-hollywood-elites/
Pretty sure if it was the opposite, and they declared themselves liberals to a room full of uncomfortable right wing elites, we wouldn't be ignoring their history or rejecting that label.
South Park has had some really good moments. The last season was especially fantastic.
But South Park has also had many equally terrible moments. They've been pretty awful on trans issues. The whole PC Principal arc really said a lot about who Matt and Trey are as people. And even if they eventually walked it back, the fact that they tried to deny climate change has to be brought up in conversations like this.
For the most part, I'd say the show has been at its best when it's kids getting into hijinks and at its worst when Matt and Trey use the show as their mouthpiece.
Ruining? I think they meant enlightening.
Pretty sure they do.
Meh. That's true now but early on South Park really encouraged the whole "apathy is cool" attitude and lots of people mimicked. I'm talking about when it was still new and mostly watched by middle and high schoolers.
They leaned into anti-woke stuff pretty hard, right as it was being used to radicalize men. I agree that some of the criticism from the left misses some of the nuance in some of the plots (eg, PC principal often being the voice of reason), but some of it is valid IMO. At best they were out of touch in a pretty harmful way. It's good that they seem to be making an effort to repent with the recent seasons, but they definitely weren't helping the situation for a solid decade before that.
To think that a comedy show that aired for 5 hours per year (22 minutes (without ads) per episode, 13 times a season) ruined a generation is daft as fuck.
Fred Durst did more damage to Gen X.
\,,/(^_^)\,,/People are bad at media literacy?
A tale as old as time.
Remember when fundamentalists viewed Pokemon as a satanic threat?
Miss me with that modern satanic panic bullshit lmfao
hit me with that satanic picnic
Part of the problem, like the problem with Team America, is that the ideas still propagate even if you're mocking them. The same is true of The Office, making fun of misogyny and racism by acting it out while trying to play it straight is very similar to acting it out earnestly. It's not a defense to say it's parodic or subtle or sarcastic.
More than anything, South Park was dominated by the shock factor. The content wasn't particularly insightful, educational, or complex. It was mostly absurdism and shock, both fundamentally predicated on doing things other people weren't willing to do because it was taboo or uncomfortable.
Did some young viewers come away with enlightened sensibilities? Probably. But RATM achieved the same goal without reproducing the messages of the movements that they were fighting against.
Comment deleted and moved to correct thread.
This is exactly why I had to stop watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It’s brilliantly written satire most of the time, but I know people are getting the wrong ideas from it and laughing at truly despicable behavior that they’re going to emulate first for ironic humor, then eventually just because it’s hedonistically rewarding.
Personally I’m not going to stop watching something just because other people are too dumb to not emulate the goblins in it
Sad this is not upvoted 100 times.
I do really appreciate that The Gang's misbehavior always ends up screwing them over. That's a big difference compared to South Park.
That's a very fair point. But even that level of “nuance” I think can be lost on an audience of many millions in a generation where a large proportion of kids make it to college without ever having read an entire adult-level book cover to cover.
It's probably the conservatives who claim South Park ruined a generation. My ex came from a conservative culture and she doesn't like South Park. Obviously, adult, crude and dark humour won't jive well with conservatives who are taught a certain way. If I had remained in my home country, I could grow up not liking South Park as I was pretty conservative.
I just don't like South Park. There are couple good episodes - but to me most of it is slop for the masses.
Very little actual value over shock factor and being vulgar for vulgarity sake.
Tho it is my personal preference - if you enjoy it go ahead and have fun! Life is just too short and messed up.
Same. Watched it as a teen and grew out of it.
It’s clearly not to blame for anyone’s troubles, though. It’s just social commentary in the form of a juvenile cartoon.
From someone who really enjoys the show, this is extremely accurate.
I've never particularly enjoyed southpark. not my cuppa.
but i wouldn't say it ruined anything and it's frequently poignant in it's evisceration of certain people or groups of people. maybe they're part of those groups?
I'd say they are a mixed bag with how they handle handle things. Obviously they are a very mixed bag on LGBT+, They have little bits of support here and there, and huge mockery and issues at other points. Climate change and environmental issues, they fell straight into the liberterian hole of "it's all a hoax". With every character who believed it being a complete idiot or a manipulative monster. Though I do have to give them props for eventually realizing their mistakes and making newer episodes basically mocking their former view. I have far more support for a group that can realize their own mistakes and take the time to communicate a correction in their format.
Explanation for those who don't watch south park. One of the most famous ones is Manbearpig. Basically in the episode Al Gore was constantly leading the kids into danger and causing destruction trying to protect everyone from a monster he called manbearpig. Which is basically implied in the episode that it's all in al gore's head.
Several years later they did a different episode in which, manbearpig actually appears and starts wrecking the city, and everyone stands around either saying that they don't believe manbearpig is real (right in front of wakes of destruction and death), to immidiately saying "oh no manbearpig is real, but it's too late to do anything so we just have to watch him destroy everything"
Al Gore was insufferable and did more damage to climate change awareness than he did good. His movie was massively overblown and inflated and paranoid. He was a coward who gave up the election in Florida and then went full bore into this issue, while he himself was massive hypocritical in his own life, having a massive carbon footprint while telling the rest of us to stop driving our cars.
They were targeting Gore more than Climate change.
I've never denied climate change but even when Inconvenient Truth came out and I watched it, I was like 'this is some over the top bullshit.' Michael Moore had the same problem, massively over dramatizing shit and shooting himself in the food in many of his documentaries.
Liberals and leftists fuck up all the time when it comes to an accurate portrayal of events, dangers, and reality. And yeah South Park goes after them for that, as they should.
What almost nobody gets is that South park isn't targeting issues, it's targeting the inflated egos of those involved in the issues. When you use a social issue to feel socially superior to other people, you're a pathetic dickhead and you need to be taken down a notch. That is what South park does. Your notion of 'justice' or 'truth' doesn't excuse you from being a miserable abusive cunt to other people around you, or the violence you think is justified in the name of your 'freedom'.
I can agree with the concept that yes making fun of the people is a different matter than the issue. but to be fair their metaphors on all climate change and environment issues in the early seasons, were almost always universally put with something that flat out doesn't exist. Hence why their semi-correction episode that came out years later, specifically involved admitting it did. IE the message from that episode wasn't "Al gore is going about this in the wrong way". it was "there is no right way because he's chasing nothing". Seconds in a different episode where the kids destroyed a dam, blamed it on global warming, and all the scientifically minded characters blindly listened.
IE you can compare that to say how Sally Struthers was treated in the "Starvin Marvin" plot, or the anti-bully organizations etc... where they didn't pretend that the activists were hallucinating/fabricating the problem.... but did attack the hell out of them for the directions of their solutions.
They have very different ways they handle "bad solutions to real problems", and "the problem isn't even real".
Nah, leftists and liberals rarely exaggerate the problems, but instead go about communicating it in horrible ways that only works when someone already agrees.
I wish I remembered all the dumb slogans that were flying around in 2015-2020. They were mostly about as useful as, "fuck the police" for appealing to someone that doesn't understand the oppression/authoritarianism so they think you just want to get away with crimes or similar...
I'm just here for the comments. 🍿
Do you like South Park?
Should I be ashamed if I was born 1988 and have never watched a single episode? 😅
Basically: yes.
I wouldn't think so. I've never seen The Godfather.
Because South Park put a mirror to their own bullshit. And they are those that say that about South Park.
Who defended Trump? The OP?
I'm quite confident that your interpretation of the post is incorrect. OP is using South Park's criticism of Trump in defense of the show.