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

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

I think they've finally jumped the shark, but keep hoping they'll prove me wrong. The first show this season had some laughs in it. The next two, precious little.

Parker and Stone seem to hit the mark when they really go after something for a reason. They miss the mark when they seem to say, "hey, we haven't personally attacked any well-known liberals for a while," and set out to remedy the situation. In fact, their attacks on liberals get more and more heavy-handed, with less and less behind them other than some vague sense of duty.

In the case of Clooney, I guess they felt an obligation to bite the hand that helped them out early on (and the man who voiced the gay dog in the first season). It was about as funny as some very unfunny thing.

They still have an impressive body of older work. In each show, there's at least one thing I wish they hadn't done, but I think they achieved genius level over and over. Now I get more entertainment from "Drawn Together," which is particularly good at nailing cartoon cliches.

[drelmo.livejournal.com]

I am pretty unimpressed with "Drawn Together", actually, which seems to me to go for the cheap, repetitive joke (e.g. Toots is fat) rather than displaying any particularly sophisticated understanding of cartoon cliches.

Some of the characters, e.g. Captain Hero, are parodies of the cliche. Others, e.g. Spanky Ham, are examples of the cliche without much in the way of new elements. Still others, e.g. Toots, Ling-Ling, are simply cast into the form of a cliche, but mostly serve as vehicles for jokes that are unrelated to the cliche. (*Exception, Ling-Ling's battle=sex metaphor, but all his other jokes aren't related to his cliche.) That incoherence in approach doesn't suggest very sophisticated comic writing, but more a desperate grab for whatever joke suggests itself.

[(Anonymous)]

I'll grant that they've really wasted Toots as a character. I had hopes they wouldn't. She had some good scenes that more or less ignore the one-joke part, but then they go back to it. And Foxxy Love relies too much on "stupid" jokes.

Be that as it may, the throwaway jokes they make have gotten more laughs from me than most of what South Park has tried this season. Even last season, when South Park still had some good shows, I've laughed more at Drawn Together. I guess I'm just a fan of unsophisticated comic writing and desperate grabs for jokes. Which is not to say I can watch a whole minute of "Family Guy" without wishing I was watching someone's vacations slides instead. A man has to have some standards.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

That's me speaking right up there.

[drelmo.livejournal.com]

I certainly can't argue with actual laughter 8)

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed this week's episode (part two) a lot more. When they announced they were showing Terence and Philip, I perked right up. After that, I was in a better mood, which lasted through the show. Gives me hope for the rest of the season.