Is
South Park Right?
by Lonnie Harris
Part of the enduring appeal of "South Park" as
political satire is its essentially disaffected centrism.
Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the film school dropouts who
invented the show after a string of failed student films
and low-budget endeavors, bring a kind of narcissitic apathy
to the table. That is, they feel so superior to the world
of current events and politics, it ceases to make any difference
to them one way or another. The issues of dire importance
to most Americans are, for Parker and Stone, simply fodder
for their weekly gross-out cartoon show.
That's why any critique that seeks to make "South
Park" a manifesto for American conservatism initially
seems so hollow. How can a show in which the entire point
is pointlessness have any constant political outlook?
Yet the argument continues to be made. With the release
of City Journal editor Brian Anderson's book "South
Park Conservatives," the right-wing media fully embraces links between the Comedy Central
cartoon and the Republican Party. On the cover of the book,
noted right-wing commentator Jonah Goldberg of the National
Review Online says "South Park Conservatives"
will "change the debate about the future of conservatism."
The book itself doesn't really explore the connection between
"South Park" fandom and right-wing voting patterns.
It identifies a demographic it refers to as the South Park
Conservative, "a large irreverant, anti-religious,
anti-authoritarian, libertarian faction within the stodgy
Grand Old Party." As described by noted Republican
blogger Andrew
Sullivan, they seek "a hard-ass foreign policy
and are extremely skeptical about political correctness."
The book proceeds to discuss, without much reference to
Parker and Stone's TV show, how a new branch of the media
has sprung up to satisfy the tastes of this recently discovered
audience. A book review on Outside
the Beltway refers to the title of Anderson's tome as
a "marketing gimmick," more interested in making
the case for a liberal media dominance than any connection
between animated TV shows as radical Republicanism among
America's youth.
It was the release of Parker and Stone's controversial
film Team
America in 2004 and a string of right-leaning episodes
at the kickstart of the show's current eighth season, that
began speculation throughout the online media about a possiby
conservative strain to Parker and Stone's ideology. Could
the duo have been secretly suggesting right-wing ideas to
a demographically desirable young audience all of these
years? Or is it all just idle speculation, the paranoia
of an increasingly embattled left?
Another look at the film Team America does
lend some credence to the argument for Parker and Stone's
"red state" outlook. Though the film ties patriotism
surrounding Sept. 11 and the War on Terror to the shrill mock
enthusiasm of overblown '80s action films, it saves most
of its cutting barbs for liberal figures who opposed the
War on Iraq. One would imagine any fair film dealing with
the issue of America's foreign policy in the Middle East
would examine the role President Bush and his cabal of advisors
had on this policy. Yet Team America features
no politicians at all, spending its time instead criticizing
figures of the left, like Michael Moore and Alec
Baldwin, who spoke out againt the current American
administration despite their role as entertainers.
The film did well enough at the box office, and pleased
most of Parker and Stone's die hard fan base, but for many
blue state "South Park" fans, it came off as a
bit more hostile than the TV show had ever been. Whereas
"South Park" generally takes pains to point out
the stupidity on both sides of the political spectrum, Team
America came off as nearly obsessed with the audacity
of anti-war celebrities.
Perhaps this is why Sean Penn, who is openly ridiculed
in the film, came out against it upon its initial release,
along with lefty bloggers such as Kos (Markos Moulitsas), who writes at the popular
liberal blog DailyKos.com.
And it may be why conservatives at such websites as NewsMax
and Sullivan's blog embraced the film immediately. Sullivan
went so far as to link the major villain in the
film, Kim Jong-Il, with communism, and therefore also
with the radical left.
It seems this trend may have continued into the new season
of "South Park," with Stone and Parker making less of an
attempt to balance out their sometimes socially conservative
ideology.
Take a recent episode in which the boys' teacher, Mr. Garrison,
undergoes sex reassignment surgery to become a woman. First
off, an actual sex change procedure, live-action, is intercut
with Garrison's cartoon surgery, in an obvious attempt to
disgust the viewer.
The plot of the rest of the episode finds other citizens
of South Park, including Kyle and his father, getting bizarre
surgeries in order to fulfill their wildest dreams. Kyle,
who wants to be a great basketball player despite his small
stature, undergoes a procedure to become a tall black kid.
And his father, who dreams of swimming around in the ocean,
gets surgery to make him into a dolphin. Both, of course,
come to learn that plastic surgery can only change your
outward appearance, and never who you really are deep down.
At first, that sounds like an appropriate message.
But is this really as benign as it sounds, a nice little
story about how you should love who you are? In reality,
isn't this episode suggesting that people who undergo sex
change operations are dooming themselves to lives as freaks
and outsiders? Parker and Stone's disdain for transsexuals
as perverse or somehow disgusting comes through clearly.
Parker and Stone aren't suggesting intolerance toward
transsexuals so much as they seek to stigmatize them as
a group, to point out their essential "otherness" and thus
suggest that it's acceptable to shun or mock them. After
all, they are deluded people who believe wrongfully that
a surgery can cause them to alter their inner selves.
Now this episode alone could merely be interpreted as
anti-political correctness, a wake-up call that just because
someone has the innate desire to change their sex, we don't
all have to accept that change as normal and natural. Many
on the left would disagree with this assessment, but it's
still a somewhat centrist point of view.
But coupled with the next episode, in which Eric Cartman
and friends battle an assortment of "hippies" who overtake
the town of South Park with a jam band music festival, it
becomes more clear that Parker and Stone carry some serious
resentment toward the left-wing in America, particularly
the left-wing movement among America's youth.
In this episode, collegiate pot-smoking hippie stereotypes
are compared to a natural disaster, and only the brave Cartman,
who has hated hippies all his life, can save the town from
eventual collapse under the strain of supporting too many
lazy, dirty, stony hippies. (The eventual solution? A drill
that will grind through the crowd of hippies, so the heroes
can turn on heavy metal to drive them away).
This comes across as a more personal attack than often
appeared in the show's previous seven seasons or in Team America. Sure, there are
always highly personal, mean-spirited attacks on celebrities.
(Who could forget the episode ripping on Jennifer Lopez?
Or the constant jabs at Barbra Streisand?) But even in previous
episodes that voiced right-of-center viewpoints, such as
the boys' stance against hate-crime legislation or in favor
of the suburban sprawl of massive corporations like Starbucks,
the episode often attempted to find a middle ground, to
explain a somewhat conservative viewpoint sensibly in language
anyone could understand.
More so than vehemently right or left wing, Stone and
Parker have really developed their own brand of right-wing
philosophy. A 2002 article by Tech
Central Station, not the new book by Brian Anderson,
that first dubbed it "South Park Republicanism."
"South Park Republicans are true Republicans, though they
do not look or act like Pat Robertson," says the report:
"They believe in liberty, not conformity.
They can enjoy watching The Sopranos even if they are New
Jersey Italians. They can appreciate the tight abs of Britney
Spears or Brad Pitt without worrying about the nation's
decaying moral fiber. They strongly believe in liberty,
personal responsibility, limited government, and free markets.
However, they do not live by the edicts of political correctness."
So once again, Stone and Parker have sought out some sort
of centrist position, although the scale continues to tip
toward the right. Perhaps, in an increasingly fractured
America, there's simply no more room for a sharply satirical
show that straddles the fence. Or perhaps, as their fan
base solidifies and Parker and Stone see the end of their
show in sight, they feel more free about expressing their
true opinions, regardless of how it affects the entertainment
value of the show.
Regardless, "South Park" remains among the bravest, most
outspoken and most politically aware shows on television.
Were it not so dense with insight and observation, it's
unlikely any debate would exist on the specific political
concerns of its two creators.
E-mail Lonnie dot Harris at gmail dot com