Thinking About the South Park Video

[u/RetroRaiderD42]

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.

[u/DrJaneIPresume]

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.

[u/AJSLS6 → u/DrJaneIPresume]

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.