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

[readwrite.livejournal.com]

My sister is a big South Park fan, and she got me into it. I've often found it very funny. But the whole conservatism thing can get really annoying, most notably in Team America,* which, while it had a few good moments, was basically the world according to the New York Post and thus a big yawn.

*Yes, I know it's not part of South Park, but it's really the same mentality.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

For some reason, Team America had me looking at my watch. It seemed to me there was maybe about thirty minutes of real good material in it, and thirty more of so-so stuff, and the rest (another thirty at least) of utter dreck they had to cram in to prove their conservative bad-boy bona fides. I haven't watched it a second time yet.

[readwrite.livejournal.com]

That about sums it up for me, too, though I'm not sure there's even that much good material. I did think the doll-making was good, though.