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Only one show on television has covered racism, homophobia, Christianity, Judaism, bisexuality, global warming, terrorism and ->-bleeped-<- in its six most recent episodes. "South Park," now in its 11th season, continues to shock the world with its farcical storylines, characters and jokes. In last week's episode, for instance, we followed Mrs. Garrison (a male-to-female transsexual) as she (he) decided to become a lesbian. However, "South Park" also has a serious side that many people seem to dismiss because of the show's constant absurdity.

    I was mad about the Mrs. Garrison character when they had started that. But after I read 'Stone Butch Blues', I lightened up a little.
    Instead of Garrison showing how tacky it is to be a TS, it seems more like her character is working on how difficult it is to work out all of the contrary programming and feelings gathered from over a lifetime. Even refusing to wear the wig makes sense to me. I'm struggling with that myself.

   I don't worship Garrison. I've always hated the character. I just see better the intricacies that underlie her personal development and self discovery.

It is hard for me to get behind the "insightful commentary" of South Park because of the rather disgusting lowbrow humor.  They do have something to say sometimes, but honestly, it's not worth my time sitting through their juvenile humor to get their "message".  Just my opinion...

Personally speaking, I think that the show is trash and their so called "messages" in the show are a bunch of BS.

Quote from: Laura Elizabeth Jones on April 16, 2007, 02:21:54 PM
Personally speaking, I think that the show is trash and their so called "messages" in the show are a bunch of BS.

   I agree with this assessment. I think an emphasis is made on the "messages" in order to give people a reason for admitting they watch it.   I don't care about the messages. I just watch because sometimes (rarely now) it makes me laugh.


  Any possible "food for thought" I may get from South Park is whatever I take or make for myself. My weird brain can also extract universal truths from Gilligan's Island.

Yeah, I used to watch South Park and I was quite fanatical about it, actually. But my interest in the show died last year. It got to a point where I did not even enjoy episodes that I used to rave about in the past. I guess that I just got burned out on it, not to mention it was on a decline for a long time anyway.

I am going to repeat what I said months ago under a different thread.  Oh well.  South Park? ah yes, I remember putting South Park where it belonged years ago, in a dumpster with all the garbage I have tossed during my lifetime.

tink

My loathing of South Park primarily comes from the fact that both the creators of the show have no basic philosophy or premise from which they derive their conclusions. More often than not, they trend heavily toward nihilism as their banner, which scares the heck out of me, because the last time we saw nihilism on the rise, we saw the rise of Fascism in the world with the millions it killed and the millions more it harmed economically and psychologically. To me, South Park is one of the downward trends on the moral and philosophical barometer of this country, which indicates to me the end of civility is fast approaching, and we who are in the minority must best prepare to survive the coming thuggery [and possible dark age]. This may be an exaggeration or a miscalculation on my part, but I'm quite certain in my assessment, it's becoming more clear each day in the media and online. Sooner or later, this thuggery must be faced head on, and civilization must return, but before that the world must taste the evil it's wrought in the words of the show's creators, and its fans, and the larger population of nihilistic savages that are nearly countless in number.

-- Brede

Guys, it's just a cartoon show...

People either take it too seriously or they completely dismiss it. There's hardly a middle ground. There's a lot of strong feelings for South Park - but you've got to remember, it's just two guys writing a cartoon show - they're not college professors who base their knowledge on statistics and factual evidence - but I wouldn't expect that from them. They don't even really share mainstram thoughts all the time - their opinions mostly reflect how THEY look at the world - like every comic out there. I will admit, South Park does have some decent messages - but due to kind of humor, people refuse or do not feel dignified in accepting the satire, which is a shame. I don't feel as if the show is trying to insight with messages every episode.

Quote from: Attis on April 16, 2007, 11:32:24 PM
My loathing of South Park primarily comes from the fact that both the creators of the show have no basic philosophy or premise from which they derive their conclusions. More often than not, they trend heavily toward nihilism as their banner, which scares the heck out of me, because the last time we saw nihilism on the rise, we saw the rise of Fascism in the world with the millions it killed and the millions more it harmed economically and psychologically. To me, South Park is one of the downward trends on the moral and philosophical barometer of this country, which indicates to me the end of civility is fast approaching, and we who are in the minority must best prepare to survive the coming thuggery [and possible dark age]. This may be an exaggeration or a miscalculation on my part, but I'm quite certain in my assessment, it's becoming more clear each day in the media and online. Sooner or later, this thuggery must be faced head on, and civilization must return, but before that the world must taste the evil it's wrought in the words of the show's creators, and its fans, and the larger population of nihilistic savages that are nearly countless in number.

-- Brede

   hi,

   Fears of the end of civilization are quite common. They come and go in intensity. People thought it was all over back in the 1980's when 'married with children' was on FOX.
   People also thought it was all over in the fifties when they had atom bombs hanging over their heads and some comic books showed scantily clad women and a lot of violence.  In fact, the consensus with comic books was always that children will no longer learn to read and society will fail in the hands of the illiterate.

   Well, the world ended in the 1980's when atrocious fashion ruled and the seventies dry heaved all over us. The world ends quite often. It always makes a comeback. I don't believe in the fall of civilization through anything other than bad economies and national bankruptcies. Our culture is so fractured that for every 'South Park' there is a 'Swan Lake' or whatever it is that the black tie class is enjoying these days.

   Please take this lightly for I have no intention of being 'deep'.


Rebecca

Quote from: RebeccaFog on April 17, 2007, 09:43:28 AM
Fears of the end of civilization are quite common. They come and go in intensity. People thought it was all over back in the 1980's when 'married with children' was on FOX.

But Married With Children never advocated violence toward folks of minorities as South Park has in the past. And that's the issue here. MWC was actually a legitimate satire, where as South Park is more or less trash by comparison. I don't identify with absurdist drivel like South Park just as I don't identify with the absurdist drivel of the Beatnik era, or of the era before that, each came as waves ever deeper into the fortress of intellect. Now, it's knee deep in our schools of thought. We live in a time where people are taught their minds are not their own, that they have no free will, and that values are arbitrary. This is how it was in the time before Hitler in Germany. When you abandon your mind to the thugs of the street and their shrill vulgar barkers, then you will get violence condoned, because what is the mind to the tramp and the thugs save an illusion?

-- Brede

Hi Attis,

   I don't identify with South Park. I do have to defend absurdity, however. If it weren't for my sense and kinship with the absurd, I'd be dead or pickled by now.

   I'm not saying that I apply absurdism in every thing I do in my life, especially not when I vote and do some other things. I am a fan of it in some art (the Marx Brothers, Frank Zappa), and I often use absurdity in order to express myself when I'm creating something for myself. My best laughs come from absurd situations.

   
   Please don't kill me.


As inoffensively as is possible -
Rebecca

I'm not, I'm just pointing out that it leads to one inevitible conclusion: the end of the human mind.

-- Brede

I just remembered.

   "Beavis & Butthead" was a lowbrow show, and for some reason, it was received seriously by some critics.  "Beavis and Butthead" was also supposed to mean the end of civilization.

   MTV itself was supposed to bring an end to society. I think maybe Playboy magazine too was supposed to be the end (back in the fifties).   And, 2 Live Crew.  And Public Enemy, and NWA.


   Just an observation. I'm curious if anyone else remembers the attitudes prevalent in the culture at those times.  When will the world end next?   

Those were moral panics. I'm talking about an underlying indication that both Matt and Trey literally think that reality is malleable, and that everything is an absurdity, in the opposite is more often true in practice and observation. When you teach that to people, then they begin to treat their lives and the lives of others in kind.

-- Brede

Civilization isn't going anywhere because of a show that stars a talking piece of ->-bleeped-<-.

QuoteI'm talking about an underlying indication that both Matt and Trey literally think that reality is malleable, and that everything is an absurdity

You do realize that South Park is supposed to be funny. This isn't a documentary show or something - it's comedy. Of COURSE it's gonna be absurd - what do you expact exactly?

Personally, I think any show that purports that Family Guy was written by manatees, that girls have secret fortune-telling devices and sends a boy in "under cover" as a girl to steal it, and that features an intelligent and mobile towel (even if it does smoke illegal substances) should not be taken too seriously.

Personally, I find a great deal of society's problems to be blamed on Leave It to Beaver.  Ain't anyone I know grew up in a household like that one...yet, it remains the Americal "ideal".

.....Laurie

Quote from: Robin Ellis Harriet on April 17, 2007, 03:39:55 PMYou do realize that South Park is supposed to be funny. This isn't a documentary show or something - it's comedy. Of COURSE it's gonna be absurd - what do you expact exactly?

Something with taste.

-- Brede

Well for the most part you're out of luck there. I can't help you - but I can say that personally, I think the messages/satire they describe is very valid anyway.

a tasteful alternative to South Park?

Futurama is pretty good. Low & High brow. but with accidental commentary?