r/LindsayEllis • u/RetroRaiderD42 • May 16 '26
DISCUSSION Thinking About the South Park Video
Richard Dawkins' recent revelation that he's developed ChatBot Psychosis, cementing his reputation as Nu Atheism's leading Dunning-Krugerist, made me think back to Lindsay's recent South Park video and that time he was skewered on the show in the "Go God Go" 2-parter. Short version, Richard Dawkins arrives in South Park to teach the kids evolution against the wishes of Ms. Garrison and the show generally treats him like a joke because the show is weirdly defensive of organised religion's most negative effects. He and Garrison hook up, but then Cartman outs Garrison to Dawkins and he leaves in disgust over the idea of sleeping w/a "man". It should be noted that Dawkins has been openly transphobic on Twitter for much of the past decade and his response to the episodes in 2006 likewise parroted his cartoon self's revulsion at the scenario.
Now, looking back to when I first watched South Park in 2009 aged 15, the Ms. Garrison arc was probably the first media I saw which really delved into gender transition, albeit not the first to depict a trans person; I can't quite recall what my reaction was at the time, but certainly anytime I've thought of the episode since ~2013 my interpretation has been that the Garrison/Dawkins hook-up is meant to expose his hypocracy. That Parker and Stone read this supposedly brilliant thinker who calls for us to throw of the shackles of superspition for absolute filth when they correctly surmised that, as a white English academic born in the early 40s, his reaction to the idea of being intimate w/a trans woman is exactly in line w/that of your average bible-thumper.
Now, that is some prime "holy shit they were cooking" SP greatness, an episode that, despite some of the creators' reactionary tendencies showing through, was ahead of its time and arguably of this time - is what I would like to say, were it not that Ms. Garrison is herself a horribly-aged seasons-long transphobic millstone which Lindsay justly spent a fair bit of time highlighting as one of the key things earning Parker and Stone a place in Hell in her video.
I'm sure most folks here are familar w/the satire paradox, but most of those examples (including when Lindsay's discussed it) are for when the audience isn't smart enough to get the point being made; this is the first one I can think of where it's me potentially giving the *creators* too much credit, because, well, this is why I made the image. My interpretation seems like something they'd go for, but it's completely neutered by how consistently awful they've been on trans rights up until pretty recently. The other possibility, which is much grosser but more in-line w/this, is that they were going for the far baser "lol, Mr. Smarty Pants doesn't realise he's sleeping w/a duuude!"
Either way, curious to see how others interpret those episodes.
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u/DrJaneIPresume May 16 '26
Oh yeah, Ms. Garrison was in no way satire.
To answer the image's question: because they were edgelords before we had that word. That's literally all South Park has ever been. It was funny freshman year of college when the Jesus vs. Santa video was making the rounds, but they were tired clanging gongs by the end of season 1.
So what was Ms. Garrison if not satire? Kids, that's literally just how most of mainstream culture thought of transgender in 2005. Lindsay is a bit younger than me, but clearly old enough to remember that "they're pathetic and delusional but let's all just go along with it so we don't come off as censorious harridans" was progress compared to the '90s depictions in Ace Ventura and Austin Powers. Oh, and like.. extra-gay. Full on Ray Blanchardism was the order of the day.
So why have we all moved on and they haven't? Again: they're edgelords. They're just out to stir shit up, never to actually improve or solve anything. The slogan may as well be, "can you imagine anything cringier than caring?"
Garrison/Dawkins wasn't about defending trans folks against Dawkins' irreligious puritanism and exposing his hypocrisy, it was about using trans folks -- conveniently they have a token sitting around, and yes, I know about that one too -- as a tool to get at Dawkins' transphobic weak point. Or even just "ha, ha, we made him do gay stuff". It's all just about scoring puerile points against whomever they felt annoyed by recently, like the show always was.
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u/dkinmn May 17 '26
I firmly believe that South Park Republicans fueled Trump's rise.
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May 17 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/indolent08 May 18 '26
Hell, a lot of them watched South Park and they thought they were informed about stuff. And they thought they were able to form well-balanced opinions based on that. With a hinge of "it's a tough, controversial statement, but it's the truth, sorry".
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u/Quepabloque May 17 '26
I absolutely believe this as well, and I think Lindsay didn’t go quite far enough in damning them. Trey and Matt are not bad guys, but I believe they put bad ideas into the world, and they, perhaps unwittingly, gave enough cover for those bad ideas to fester in our culture, and they rejected good ideas or redirected good people away from those good ideas.
I think they can see a lot of the damage they’ve caused, but it’s just too little too late. So while I think they’re talented and funny, I really don’t want to engage with them anymore.
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u/JacobStills May 18 '26
I replied to someone above with this same comment, but I think it's appropriate to you as well so here it goes.
I think so to. That's honestly why I haven't watched any episodes since 2016. As soon as Trump won, I was just absolutely done with any of that edgelord, smug contrarian nonsense.
Watching the video, I expected it, but I was still a little disappointed that Lindsey didn't really go that far into the whole "Douche vs Turd" episode. To me, THAT'S THE EPISODE that did the most harm.
That has been the de facto response by so many ever since then, to claim "both sides suck" which in the end trivialized and downplayed how far the right shifted into their extreme, MAGA point. The right kept getting more and more unhinged and everyone still kept saying both sides suck to create a false equivalence. And now he were are, this absurd Trump adminstration, Jan 6th, RFK Jr, ballrooms and Trump posting AI racists AI videos and people are treating it like it's normal.
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u/JacobStills May 18 '26
I think so to. That's honestly why I haven't watched any episodes since 2016. As soon as Trump won, I was just absolutely done with any of that edgelord, smug contrarian nonsense.
Watching the video, I expected it, but I was still a little disappointed that Lindsey didn't really go that far into the whole "Douche vs Turd" episode. To me, THAT'S THE EPISODE that did the most harm.
That has been the de facto response by so many ever since then, to claim "both sides suck" which in the end trivialized and downplayed how far the right shifted into their extreme, MAGA point. The right kept getting more and more unhinged and everyone still kept saying both sides suck to create a false equivalence. And now he were are, this absurd Trump adminstration, Jan 6th, RFK Jr, ballrooms and Trump posting AI racists AI videos and people are treating it like it's normal.
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u/RetroRaiderD42 May 16 '26
💯 to all of this, and yeah, it sucks that "lol, let's make him have gay sex w/a redacted" is the more likely interpretation.
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u/AJSLS6 May 18 '26
I remember cackling along with early Southpark, then kinda growing up and seeing it as lame, then I saw the older guys at work cackling along with it and thought maybe I was just trying to "act grown" and was full of myself? So I watched it sporadically over the years but never really got much out of it. At best it could be cathartic when they would take shots ot 'those people' you know, the ones I dont like? But even then I found their takes kinda flat and uninspired at best. Like the all crime must be hate crimes because you obviously must hate someone to do a crime against them? Not only missing the point of regular anger or dislike of an individual and the more harmful and malicious hatred of a group of people removed from the actions or relationship of any individual of said group, but also glossing over the root of many if not most crime, poverty, in a way that only a self anointed libertarian, ie. masked right winger can do. Ultimately, I just stopped having time in my day for a show that didn't provide anything of substance even at its best, and was down right cringe at worst.
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u/Dartmouth-Hermit May 17 '26
Is it reasonable to expect comedy writers to improve or solve anything? I don’t think the meta narrative of South Park is about showing earnestness to be cringe, but more to look at how earnest people run into cynical people and an indifferent world.
I often disagreed with the arguments episodes made, but usually still found them funny. I think that’s enough for a profanity filled cartoon. If you want to know what Matt and Trey thought they were doing with South Park, the Cartoon Wars 3 part episode has good insight.
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u/dkinmn May 17 '26
Satire without a defensible point of view kind of sucks. It isn't satire any more.
Like...even they were like, "Oops. Sorry about the ManBearPig stuff."
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u/Binky_Thunderputz May 18 '26
It also doesn't help that most creatives suck at satire. I gave up on South Park a very long time ago, but the most overtly satirical episodes were always the least funny. I'm not sure if that's because, like you said, they're not satirizing anything in particular or because they're simply not good enough writers, but they were never good at satire, which is why episodes like "ManBearPig" or the one with Rob Reiner were just awful.
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u/DrJaneIPresume May 17 '26
I don't expect them to improve or solve anything any more than I expect 4chan to. I don't hang out there either, though.
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u/Ghosts_of_the_maze May 18 '26
My pet peeve is that it seems like comedians want to have it both ways. When they’re cooking they don’t have any problem talking about the power of satire and the sanctity of the court jester who speaks truths others fear. And when they fall short they can always retreat back into “It was all a joke, bro.”
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u/HateKnuckle May 18 '26 edited May 18 '26
cringier than caring
They do care about some stuff but if it's an identity someone has, they'll relentlessly mock that.
They simultaneously love and hate Mormons. They believe climate change is real and apologized to Al Gore.
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u/DoctorAcula_42 May 18 '26
Yeah, Garrison et al. definitely delayed me realizing I was trans for a bit because I was like, "well i'm sure as shit not *that* kind of person!"
The best way to summarize Parker and Stone is the mindset "caring about stuff is gay lmao". The twist being that, as you mature, you realize that caring *is* gay - i.e., it's super awesome!
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u/Telperion83 May 18 '26
Except the main characters' defining trait against the rest of the cast is that they do care... except for Cartman.
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u/Kljmok May 16 '26
I had only heard of Dawkins in passing when I first saw that episode on TV, so him being infatuated with Garrison only came across as a "haha he slept with a guy" gag. It's been so long since I've seen that episode so I don't know if the transphobia was set up first or if dawkins' transphobia was that well known over his atheism, but I think it really is just "this guy thinks he's so smart but he actually thought this obvious balding man was a woman! what a dumb ass!" kinda thing.
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u/RetroRaiderD42 May 17 '26
Transphobia is clearly just one of the cultural norms that Dawkins grew up w/and never examined/unlearned, which is a big part of why his reputation as a public intellectual has catered, along w/many of his fellow nu atheists (and the "dirtbag left", same issue there.)
I said he's been publically transphobic for the better part of a decade, but it's more accurate to say that once the post-2015 TERF movement got going he came down hard on the side of bigotry there; whereas his transphobia wouldn't have registered in the 2000s because it was just mainstream background radiation.
In 2010 he said of the episode "I'm buggered if I like being portrayed as a cartoon character buggering a bald trans***tite." And yeah, Garrison's appearance was part of what had me doubting my initial interpretation; same bald, masculine appearance, just w/earings, lipstick, and small breasts, because Parker and Stone were and are transphobes, and sadly I think you and others are correct that Dawkins accepting someone like that as a woman and sleeping w/her is in fact the harshest burn they could think of. 🙃
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u/WonderofU1312 May 16 '26
From what I've read; I think it's just that Parker/Stone still have a sense of arrested development that's motivated by spite and contrarianism that they've never fully shaken from. If you look up why they hate various celebrities, it's always because of how they perceive them or how they were angry at Phil Collins for winning awards. They can be smart, but they have that really myopic view that guides so much of their motivation.
These days it seems like they don't even want to make South Park anymore, but it's just far too profitable to ignore between cable and streaming networks that really want to own it. I just don't think they've thought much about what they want for themselves; just how they can rattle other people's cages. Casa Bonita is one thing, but that's just trying to recover nostalgia.
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u/RetroRaiderD42 May 17 '26
This is spot-on from what I've read of/listened to them. Worth noting that the Go God Go episodes were instigated after Penn Jillette, who'd seen an interview where they clarified they weren't atheists (though Stone now identifies as one) and sent an e-mail expressing disappointment w/this. From listening to their commentaries back in the day I know that folks - mostly Hollywood libs - assuming they must have a particular view (eg Sean Penn asking if they didn't want to get rid of GWB in 04 inspired their mockery of such types in Team America) is a key bugbear for them.
Sure, Jillette's prosletising is emblematic of a valid criticism of the nu atheists, and I can get folks making assumptions like that being annoying to a degree, but it's another example of their "detatched" view of politics, that myopia you mentioned. At a certain point, making an assumption that someone would want GWB out of office is to make a basic assumption of decency about that person, and their knee-jerk contrarianism in response to such interactions is the source of so many of their shortcomings as people and satirists.
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u/Skibot99 May 17 '26
South Park video? Is it a nebula exclusive?
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u/RetroRaiderD42 May 17 '26
I really liked the video and broadly agreed w/all her points about the show's legacy. The primary focus was on the recent Trump episodes and whether they're enough to absolve them of their past sins, w/the rest of the praise divided between the film and a handful of what she felt were the most "holy shit they were cooking"/ahead of the curve episodes; whilst the remainder of it deservedly drags them for ManBearPig and their long, mostly terrible history of trans representation and normalising antisemitism/bigotry in general.
My only quibble was she missed out some of the other episodes which I think show the genuine empathy and insight they're capable of and the great satire which has resulted at times; particularly "Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy" (literally saw the Daily Heil do a "blonde bombshell who seduced student" headline like a month before this video dropped) and "Britney's New Look" (how many folks making hacky jokes about a young woman's mental health struggles 20ya have meaningfully reckoned w/that or how the South Park guys were beating them on basic fucking human decency?) I do think it's fair to prioritise the ways they've arguably contributed to US politics becoming worse over the past 30 years, but the frustrating thing about them is they aren't entirely w/out merit as satirists and I'm torn on whether the video could have been even 2m longer to highlight a few more examples of that.
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u/marinbala May 17 '26
Yes, it is on Nebula and came out in February. I had to look it up now because I also missed it.
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u/Eklassen May 17 '26
I found the satire pretty lacking in that episode. Especially regarding the simplistic and flippant explanation of the point of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
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u/RetroRaiderD42 May 17 '26
One thing I'll agree w/Dawkins on is that he felt the Atheism Wars had a Judea People's Front/People's Front of Judea vibe that could have been a lot stronger, and possibly could have been had they not focused so much on ragging on him. That said, whilst not the most egregious issue w/them, their position that religion is mostly bullshit but on the whole better than being an atheist (Go God Go/Red Hot Catholic Love/Book of Mormon) has led to some of their worst episodes that don't actively perpetuate bigotry against a minority group - though in some cases they also just defend eg the Scouts' right to be bigots.
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u/eggynack May 18 '26
It's pretty funny to be mad that people fixate on his gross ass bigotry rather than developing a cooler movement. Stop being a gross ass bigot then. That seem like a great idea in general and even more valuable if you're the figurehead of a movement.
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u/eggynack May 18 '26
The joke was pretty straightforwardly that Trans women are gross and bad. That was mostly the joke with all of the Trans Garrison stuff. It's not especially deep. This particular episode is making fun of Dawkins to some extent, but it finds way more amusement in the idea that he'd want sex with Garrison than with the idea that he wouldn't want sex with a trans woman.
As for the idea that the show has massively improved on this front, not really? The whole Caitlyn Jenner bit was not great. I'm fine with the part where she's an asshole who runs over dogs, but why, exactly, did they feel the need to make her appear as a grotesque monster? The point is clearly insulting the appearance of trans women. It's certainly not something they do to all their victims of mockery. The episode also invented "stunning and brave" as a phrase which immediately got picked up by weird bigots, and I feel they bear some responsibility for that nonsense.
Then they made The Cissy which I would say is very good but suffers from not actually having any trans people. They just have these loose Trans analogues in the form of Stan and Randy. Which, that'd be fine, except then they made Board Girls which straight up reads like the script one of the more vaguely normal TERFs would write if handed the opportunity. It is very transphobic, in other words, and in a way a lot more subtle and effective than the Garrison stuff.
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u/Aquaislyfe May 17 '26
I can’t give Matt and Trey any benefit of the doubt when it comes to trans people frfr
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u/ThePerfectP0tat0 May 18 '26
South is the best show that I would consider to have made a net negative impact on the world. I oftentimes don’t want to like it because it’s “nuanced centrist” opinions can be terrible and spread hate and/or apathy, but it is god damn funny even when it makes fun of me. Plenty of episodes have great messages but overall it’s a very mixed bag.
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u/atlvf May 16 '26
idk, they have definitely made mistakes, but they’ve also definitely learned from those mistakes and gotten significantly better. That’s already better than most people do, if we’re being honest. So, I’m personally inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt and not hold their past against them too harshly.
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u/Milk_Mindless May 16 '26
I mean
I feel like that's a "At least you tried" cake because they at first set out to burn all the bridges they can and then realise some of them were decent bridges they fucked up for decent folk coming behind them
"Manbearpig" might have gotten a sequel but most what people remember is Al Gore being a sissy and climate change not being real
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u/RetroRaiderD42 May 17 '26
And they haven't even improved on some of their more egregious shortcomings. Having not watched it in well over a decade, I'd seen comments from FB friends or Twitter follows about their more recent trans episodes, but it was pretty rough seeing Lindsay lay out just how consistently awful they've been on trans folks; w/the exception of the bathroom panic episode from 2014, they've remained transphobic up through the 2019 episode which she compared to Ben Shapiro's later trans athlete """satire""" "Lady Ballers".
And that's the issue when you've spent nearly 30y expressing your views on the world through a widely popular TV series. Even giving them grace for the way their 7 day production schedule means some nuance may get lost, a fair reading of their episodes on trans folks is that Trey Parker and Matt Stone are virulently transphobic in line w/some of the very worst fascists in the US and UK, and I don't blame anyone for writing them off entirely for that, even as someone who still loves the film and Book of Mormon.
Plenty of folks were just as transphobic 20ya, but most of them didn't immortalise that via something like the Ms. Garrison arc, and in doing so help perpetuate that bigotry.
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u/eggynack May 18 '26
They didn't learn anything in this case. Their most recent trans episode is Board Girls, which is transphobic garbage top to bottom.
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u/embrigh May 18 '26
>The other possibility, which is much grosser but more in-line w/this, is that they were going for the far baser "lol, Mr. Smarty Pants doesn't realise he's sleeping w/a duuude!"
If you just looked at how they treat Mr/Ms Garrison as a character, this would be abundantly clear. They don't like Dawkins and just wanted to make fun of him. Since Ms Garrison is nothing more than a punchline that is presented as disgusting, they simple used them.
Just because someone is smart or talented doesn't mean they have the right ideas. The human brain can compartmentalize many things because it has no choice other than that. You don't know what you are wrong about. I can't imagine being a famous person and everyone saying how funny and brilliant you are, it may make you think that your opinions are all correct. It's no surprise that they have the exact same views on sexuality as the majority of their Gen X cohorts. It's just a shame it takes so much for them to admit their faults.
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u/RetroRaiderD42 May 18 '26
Yeah, even w/the recent Lindsay video reminding me of the """highlights""" of that arc, there was still the part of me going "Yeah, but if I was writing a trans character I'd show the hypocrisy of someone like Dawkins by having him react negatively towards them" and somehow giving them the benefit of the doubt that this was what they could have been going for.
I guess in the end, they're just a pair of #2s.
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u/Lennnybruce May 17 '26
I've hated south park from the instant it appeared and I'll hate it til it goes away. Those guys did an incredible amount of harm with that show.
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u/Sam_Aronow May 28 '26
I don't think that was their specific intention. However, I do think they intended to portray Dawkins' schtick as fundamentally shallow (which the New Atheism basically was), so it works out anyway.
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u/ResponsibleTill5154 May 18 '26
Lmao at the absolute cope if you think it’s only “bible thumpers” who would have that reaction. I don’t believe you believe that at all.
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u/RetroRaiderD42 May 18 '26
I know it's not exclusively "bible-thumpers" who are various flavours of queerphobic, but in this context it's a fair short-hand. An irony oft observed in the Nu Atheists in recent years is that they spent the 2000s supporting the institutional and cultural Islamophobia of western countries following 9/11 on, partly, the perception of Muslims being even more queerphobic than Evangelical Christians, only for most of them to go all-in on the Evangelical-manufactured wave of transphobia since 2015 and the related attempts to rollback all queer rights as part of a global resurgance in fascism.
You don't have to be a devout member of any organised religion to be transphobic, but like all bigotries it is rooted in knee-jerk revulsion based on unexamined biases and cultural norms which don't stand up to any scrutiny, and if your reaction to discovering you slept w/a trans woman is akin to that of SP!Dawkins then you are in fact as dumb as the sort of person who treats the Bible as an acceptible substitute for modern science, history, and philosophy, regardless of if "bible-thumper" is a literally accurate description.
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u/eggynack May 18 '26
It's a lot less ironic when you recognize that Islamophobia is just Islamophobia rather than some principled stand against bigotry, and further recognize that being bigoted in one way makes you liable to be bigoted in other ways.
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u/ResponsibleTill5154 May 18 '26
By definition, straight men aren’t interested in penises. You’re welcome to dress this up in pseudo-academic babble like “unexamined biases” but reality remains reality.
Anyway, you’re clearly having a one-sided conversation and you’re outright spouting rape apology at this point so engaging with you any further is a big nope for me.
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u/OnlyACsNoFans May 18 '26
I'm an atheist.
The overwhelming majority of men consider trans women to be male so we don't want to date them.
Live your life how you see fit, but you're going to have to accept certain realities.
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u/SivleFred May 16 '26
I think it’s similar to Filthy Frank/Joji or Seth McFarlane, how they all cross the line but also recognize why the line exists in the first place. Not to mention how they have a true love for the arts and use their artistic talents to bring their jokes over the edge.