South Park at it again

[OU812]

The article is really well-written and makes many cogent points.

https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/3kvdw3/south-park-fractured-but-whole-transphobia-trans-woman

If you were starting to get the feeling their recent episodes might be an effort to course-correct the show's decade-plus history of being on the wrong side of LGBT matters, think again.

[SailorMars1994]

I havent watched a full episode of south park since probably 2008. I get why you are upset, and they are very very harsh. However, they go to extremes with everyone. Mentally hanpicapped, Jewish, Scientology, Christianity, Mormons, Aferican Americans, immigrants, people with physical limitations, muslims, celebritys weight, mental state, ect. You get it, it is a crude show. I dont watch it as i wish to have my brain power used on something worth using. But I dont think it is a personal attack in the sense that they are solely targetting us, they go after everyone.

In short, I am suprised the show is on the air as I never hear anyone talk about it anymore and two there are way worse things to worry about then a washed up show probably losing viewer ship anyway. I would rather talk about how the US government is in cahoots with discimination based groups and alliances.

[Roll]

While I haven't had a chance to play the Fractured But Whole yet, after reading the article I don't see anything that is particularly transphobic, at least not in the sense that it sets trans people apart from everything else South Park does.

It's important to remember with this sort of thing that Trey Parker's intention is rarely to mock individuals (public figures aside), and is virtually always about mocking the current political and cultural climate, primarily issues of political correctness. For instance, I've been filling out some random applications lately, and was struck by the number of "gender" options on forms now. I believe that it is this cultural change that South Park has targeted, not transgender individuals. Likewise, the variety of dialogue from NPCs reflects the variety of real reactions people encounter, just rendered in South Park's style, reflecting the culture.

I think the article also does a disservice by focusing on what are clearly video game mechanics as indicative of any statement on trans issues or which may represent a failure to explore them. For instance, the first encounter it speaks of is clearly a tutorial battle. Are cis-gender characters just not supposed to have a tutorial fight? That'd be stupid. A lot of the pronoun gendering would require more direct experience to comment upon, but I'd hazard a guess they were running up against budgets and deadlines (Obsidian is really, really, really bad about that) and didn't have time to flesh out consistent FTM vs MTF dialogue so just used the most generic gendering for "other" characters. I would also point out that choosing simply male or female would use the appropriate gendering regardless of being trans, and works perfectly fine for anyone with a binary identification, leaving the problem being mostly an issue of non-binary representation. And I don't mean to sound like I'm separating people who are non-binary from binary trans individuals with this, but simply pointing out that the problem may lie in a different direction than simply being transphobic in general. Unfortunately, even for people who accept transwomen and transmen, non-binary is still a hard thing to swallow or understand.

[Yakayla]

I was a big South Park fan. The writers has a very dark sense of humor And make fun of everyone and everything in the very offensive and shocking ways. They have always been like this. But I stopped watching the show, because they no longer want to keep making the show. They made it clear like 5 years ago in an episode. They are using the most offensive and stupid ideas they can as possible to try and get the show canceled. So really nothing they write matters anymore. They're weird guys, but actually the whole show was a satire. So don't read too much into it.

[MaryT]

I actually found the article confusing.  I only occasionally watched South Park and nobody seemed to be off limits to the crude yet satirical humour, not even Jesus. 

I think that cis people are entitled to get confused and sometimes get it wrong, as long as no malice is intended. 
"That boy in my class wants to be a girl.  Is he a trans boy or a trans girl?  Is SHE a trans boy or a trans girl?  Is she just a girl?  Aargh!"

[EvaMarie]

I played through the entire game and I honestly found nothing wrong with it. Yes, Mr. Mackey outs you to your parents on the phone, but that doesn't strike me as super weird. It's how his character would react. Once you've chosen your gender some people will call you your chosen gender and some will call you by the wrong gender. Just like real life. Rednecks will attack you and say they hate you for who you are, sadly, jut like real life . Many times people will (in my play through) say thing like when Butters says, "I thought feminine looking boys went out of style in the 80's."  There is nothing hateful, just over reacted versions of things trans/NB people deal with every day. There is no other game I can think of where you can make these character choices. (If there are please tell me so I can play them.) It's sad that South Park are the first ones to get to this point where they don't just gloss over identity. Besides Krem in Dragon Age 3 that is, but he's not a playable character and you have no real interaction with him outside of a few lines of dialogue. I hope this spurs the rest of the industry into making games where you get to make these decisions AND they matter.

[Kylo]

One of the reasons I've been a fan of South Park is that they generally make fun of everyone. Nobody should be above having fun poked at them sometimes. When you say on the wrong side of LGBT matters than makes it sound as if nobody should be permitted to joke about LGBT matters. My LGBT friends and myself would disagree - many of those who find the most humor in it are those with direct experience of it, and having a sense of humor for it is a healthy thing in my view. Nor should it just be LGBT people who are permitted to joke about it. We certainly joke about people who aren't trans around here sometimes. 

[Lilly G]

whoever called south park a satire is completely accurate, in fact, satires most often are an expression of how someones reaction is wrong, hence why there is a lot of ->-bleeped-<- against well...everyone in all walks of life....so kylo, I agree with you here, yes it is just them making a joke, however rude it seems, but the point of the joke is to attempt to incite a social change to happen, in this case, probably to try to get society as a whole to be more open and accepting. and for the record, family guy and American dad have made similar jokes and refrences and I see nothing hating on those shows.