Is There Anyone Else Left For South Park To Offend?
Well, South Park surely wasn’t apprehensive in its return. What was probably one of the more offensive episodes ever, Parker and Stone turned The “N” Word into a national joke, making the few white people who have been publicly ostracized for using the word offended for being recognized as such (Mark Fuhrman, Michael Richards, etc.). In addition, the episode was a non-stop barrage of midget jokes, as Cartman couldn’t contain himself around the sensitivity speaker the school hired.
Really, the bottom line is this, because no one is even remotely surprised by what Parker and Stone concoct anymore, they pretty much have limitless freedom and no material is too pervasive. To the contrary, they are at the point that if the material isn’t socially or culturally edgy, then the episode would be a disappointment. I mean, what other series could have a main character on Wheel of Fortune in the final round, and being asked to complete this puzzle:
Category: People who annoy you
N_ggers
Solve the puzzle.
Then on national television, the main character blurts out The N Word, when the correct answer was actually “nAggers”. To me, the truly offensive aspect of ths scenario was not the word itself, but rather the category that Ryan Marsh applied it to. His immediate connotation with a racial epithet as a description of people who are perceived to be annoying strikes me as adding an entirely additional insult already associated with the word in question.
Can anyone else pull this off? I know HBO isn’t restrained by any FCC regulations and they do not have to worry about sponsors. But they do have to worry about subscribers, and there isn’t a single series on any premium network that can openly mock the usage of the most offensive racial slur in the history of the country and simultaneously show a fourth grader beating up a midget. This sort of creative freedom that South Park continues to relish in can have its positives and negatives, such as it deepens the pool of material they have to fish from, but when everyone and everything is fair game, it can also make its audience uncomfortable in certain situations, particularly when someone happens to be watching the show with acquaintances instead of friends or family.
As far as the season outlook, the presidential race parodies are always standout South Park episodes, with the primaries races kicking off so early for the 2008 election, I am almost uncontrollably giddy for what Parker and Stone will produce this season.
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