South Park - Season 21: Anyone Else Been Watching?

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Neurosis
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South Park - Season 21: Anyone Else Been Watching?

Post by Neurosis »

Well have ya?

I've been watching Matt and Trey's crude little cartoon evolve and evolve and evolve since it launched in 1995 when I was 9 years old (I had at least one great parent). So now it's causing me this weird feeling of vertigo watching Matt and Trey at their most erudite--they've gone from "satire" to Airplane! style "satire" to idk fucking some level beyond Swiftian satire, IMHO--actively commenting on the disintegration of American Democracy/society as American Democracy/society actively disintegrates around me.

The world is ending, but still they mine, still they mine for the lulz.

It's surreal.

If you're a non-American and therefore more indifferent to or at least more distant from the complete collapse of everything my country stands for, that's cool.[/b]
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Post by Kaelik »

when I was nine, I thought they were cool and edgy, when I was 14 I might have thought they were insightful, but honestly, the fact that you think they are insightful at 30 is a little sad.

I mean not like I actually watch it enough to keep track, but are they still just this guy but in the form of comedy?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGArqoF0TpQ
Last edited by Kaelik on Sat Oct 15, 2016 5:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

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Longes
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Re: South Park - Season 21: Anyone Else Been Watching?

Post by Longes »

Neurosis wrote:Well have ya?

I've been watching Matt and Trey's crude little cartoon evolve and evolve and evolve since it launched in 1995 when I was 9 years old (I had at least one great parent). So now it's causing me this weird feeling of vertigo watching Matt and Trey at their most erudite--they've gone from "satire" to Airplane! style "satire" to idk fucking some level beyond Swiftian satire, IMHO--actively commenting on the disintegration of American Democracy/society as American Democracy/society actively disintegrates around me.

The world is ending, but still they mine, still they mine for the lulz.

It's surreal.

If you're a non-American and therefore more indifferent to or at least more distant from the complete collapse of everything my country stands for, that's cool.[/b]
And that collapse is represented by... what exactly? Possibility of Trump being elected? Democracy doesn't mean you personally will like the elected candidate.
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Post by DSMatticus »

South Park is pretty hit and miss. It's mostly just cynicism and edge for the sake of cynicism and edge, which means sometimes they'll say something very scathing about a total asshole who deserves it and sometimes they'll come out swinging against sexual harassment laws because not being able to tell coworkers they have nice tits is fascism. No, that's not me hyperbolically making fun of them.

Kyle's father: “You see, Kyle, we live in a liberal-democratic society, and Democrats make sexual harassment laws. These laws tell us what we can and can’t say in the work place, and what we can and can’t do in the work place.”

Kyle: “Isn’t that fascism?”

Kyle's father: “No, because we don’t call it fascism.”

They're shitty people and they don't have any particularly profound insights. Their strategy is to mock everything in the shallowest way possible, so that if you happen to agree with an episode's message it makes you feel like you're in on the joke by telling you something you already knew and if you happen to disagree with an episode's message the criticism is superficial and silly enough that you don't take it personally.
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Post by Whipstitch »

Kaelik wrote:I mean not like I actually watch it enough to keep track, but are they still just this guy but in the form of comedy?
Nah, they have pointless tantrums too often to qualify as being that reasonable.

When South Park trips all over itself it's usually comes down to identity politics. They'd bristle if you called them hipsters, but ultimately they're the sort of stereotypical Gen X douche nozzles that can't handle people feeling good about themselves even when those people are actually in the right about something. It's like the idea of mild social incentives for good behavior is totally lost on them. Weirdly, at least one of them is oddly self-aware of this fact because they've even got an episode where they admit in the end that hybrid cars and paying out of pocket to lower emissions is probably for the best* but only after they've dedicated most of the run time to depicting Prius owners as being smug assholes who enjoy huffing their own farts. They want good things to happen, they just don't want anyone else to take credit for rolling up their sleeves and actually making those things happen. I'd call the whole thing pretty weird, but sadly that sort of attitude is distressingly common and doesn't really surprise me anymore.

Anyway, I still feel like the best joke they ever made was the big punchline in "With Apologies to Jesse Jackson." The gist is that some white people decide that being harshly accused racism is painful enough that it should be considered hate speech, a notion that still feels pretty topical this election cycle. It's too bad that they still managed to fuck up the episode by including "Cartman fights a midget" as a momentum destroying excuse for a B-plot.

*How the fuck this fits with their climate change skepticism and hatred of Al Gore is beyond me. I suspect they just hate hippies more than Cartman does.
Last edited by Whipstitch on Tue Oct 18, 2016 5:52 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by Maxus »

Whipstitch wrote: *How the fuck this fits with their hatred of Al Gore and climate change skepticism is beyond me. I suspect they just hate hippies more than Cartman does.
If I recall right, they're semi-libertarian. But aren't quite so narrow to personally hold a single ideology.
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Post by Whipstitch »

I'm taking levels in necromancer, you want to fight about it?
Whipstitch wrote: *How the fuck this fits with their climate change skepticism and hatred of Al Gore is beyond me. I suspect they just hate hippies more than Cartman does.
Remember this? South Park ended up doing an arc that begrudgingly admits Al Gore was right and they were dead ass wrong. Now, they still made fun of Al, because of course they did, but for the most part I'm happy they manned up this one time and admitted they deserve a plate of delicious crow. The only thing that bugs me is that from what I've gathered in various comment sections and twitter threads there is still a contingent of fan boys who insist to this day that we can't really claim Matt and Trey were wrong about global warming because "South Park just makes fun of self-righteousness, not positions." Their an idea of a defense is basically to insist that the show is without substance. I rarely side with Walter, but seriously, get a fucking ethos!
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