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Eleven years on, is there anything left to laugh at? David Knox wonders.
Let’s face it, it’s been a long time since South Park achieved ‘watercooler’ buzz.
This crudely crafted animation elbowed its way onto television screens, as if two dirty college kids had shuffled paper characters around an artboard and sniggered into a microphone.
Now part of the TV establishment, has its shock value become a cliché? These days, it only attracts buzz when it pillories pop culture heroes, such as Steve Irwin, Michael Jackson or Tom Cruise.
But this week’s new episode had me laughing and gasping at the same time. If the intent is to make one uncomfortable, it has succeeded. Still, television is a landscape. I heart TV that seeks to push an envelope amid the melodrama of Grey’s Anatomy or Brothers and Sisters.
I hope you’re sitting down for this…
Cartman invites Butters to stay the night, during which he plays pranks on his sleeping friend and snaps photographic evidence.
Next day he shows the boys his evil deeds, including one alarming pic of “Butters’ wiener in mah mouth, he must be gay!” Cartman’s naivety is a hoot. But when Kyle points out it actually makes Cartman gay, he is forced to “reverse the gay polarity” by sticking his own wiener back in Butters’ mouth! Are you getting all this?
But Butters’ Dad interrupts Cartman’s attempts at balancing the universe and assuming Butters must be ‘bi-curious’, sends him off to a special camp to “pray the gay away”.
Here is where Trey Parker and Matt Stone truly aim, lock and load their wrath, using comedy to lambaste religious groups. The real shock value is kept for running gags of camp leaders continually finding suicide victims behind every second door. Okaaaaaaay.
I remind myself that comedy as far back as the Greeks has been used to provoke reactions and effect change. If Parker and Stone are subversively educating a predominantly youthful audience that homophobia can lead to death, is there an argument for its use in a greater context? The key is to balance it with the triumph of self-esteem over misguided brainwashing.
After 11 years, every viewer should realise South Park is designed to shock. And while there are still taboos and issues to address in American culture, we could be stuck with Cartman for years to come.
Screw you guys.
South Park airs 8:30pm Mondays on SBS.
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