Tiring of South Park

[womzilla]

Last week (I'm slowly cacthing up on my friends' list), docbrite indicated an inability to watch South Park, and took a little glee in Isaac Hayes walking out on them.*

*Assuming he did, anyway. I can't be the only person in the world to have noticed how odd it is that Hayes chose to address the issue of whether someone else was making decisions in his name by having a spokesperson say that no one was making decisions in his name.

Poppy's disenchantment sprang from two sources: one, realizing how much the show had devolved into petty pop-culture put-downs, and the other realizing how much the show revolves simply around being hurtful--both of which I think are much more true than they used to be and are fair markers of the show's decline. I realized while watching last week's episode ("Smug Alert") on tape last night that my enjoyment of South Park is almost completely dependent upon whose ox is getting gored this week, and sometimes even that isn't enough. I loved the episode a couple of years back which mercilessly presented the true facts of the foundation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but the episode attacking the Scientologists was only Good in Parts. (I consider the Mormon Church to be a pathetic fraud, more sad than evil, but the Scientos are an international criminal conspiracy posing as a destructive cult to gain respectability.)

A big part of it is what has been called "South Park Conservativism", which is apparently the belief that, well, yes, right-wingers may variously want to re-enslave blacks, imprison gays, rape the environment, and let the poor die in the streets, but you know, liberals are really annoying because they oppose racism, so really they're at least as bad. Last week's episode perfectly encapsulates that. Hybrid cars are a great idea, but because Matt and Trey think their owners are smug, they should be destroyed? How does this improve the discourse? Add in the extended, repetitive, and lazy George Clooney joke (I originally wrote "jokes", but let's be honest) and it was a painful experience.

(And I don't even know who they thought they were parodying in last season's episode about Alcoholics Anonymous. I guess one too many recovering alcohol tried to thirteenth-step Trey.)

The ending of "Smug Alert" had a delightful turnaround which shows that they're still capable of writing very clever things, but it wasn't enough to overcome their own smugness, and I fear South Park--one of the high points of television--is finally running out of steam.

Comments

[barondave.livejournal.com]

I tend to agree with drelmo, but I also think it's gone downhill a bit. Early shows skewered everyone all the time, even if the show was mainly hacking away at a certain topic. If you watch South Park, you will be offended. Nonetheless, some of the newer shows seem to lose perspective, such as the Smug Alert one above. I thought it was funny until the second time everyone sniffed their farts without a counterbalancing shot. Then it was just repetitious. This weeks's Family Guy episode was much better, with the best tricycle chase ever, but still... Cartman seemed cardboard and I had a hard time believing Kyle would fall for him yet again. Oh well. It's a guilty pleasure, but less pleasurable now than before, and I don't watch regularly.

Same thing for much of Cartoon Network's Mad Magazine-like deconstruction of virtually every cartoon made by Hanna Barbera: Works some times, not others. There are several in the lineup. I recommend Squidbillies... once. Most of the others are to taste. The only consistenly great one is Boondocks, and I'm not sure I forgive them for dragging Aaron McGruder away from his strip.