10 Times South Park’s Satire Was Spot On
South Park is well known for its satirical humor and it occasionally hits the nail on the head when it comes to satirizing real-world events.
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South Park has been one of the most offensive programs on television, consistently, and has been poking fun at celebrities, politics, and current events for over two decades. There have been dozens, even scores of episodes that have perfectly provided a spot-on satire of a significant event in history, or a ridiculous one.
Satire is essentially an ironic or exaggerated humorous device used to illustrate and criticize peoples’ stupidity over common issues and events. South Park may very well be the best when it comes to satirizing a bevy of topics both obvious and taboo.
10 One Of Their Best Satires Involved The Cable Companies
While the main focus of the episode was on the adult entertainment that the parents of South Park were watching, the episode does a great job highlighting the absurdity of monopolistic cable companies. Cable companies often raise rates because they can, offer service windows they constantly miss, and provide glitchy service with no accountability.
The cable company in South Park really goes over the top, suggesting that they hold all the power and their clients must follow their rules or suffer the consequences. Even when the kids explain that their parents are being murdered because of the programming on cable, they dig their heels in and explains how it’ll take weeks for them to flip a simple switch.
9 The Episode That Poked Fun At Mormonism
The Mormon episode does poke its fun at Mormons by highlighting some of the core beliefs of the religion. However, it also highlights some of the better parts of the religion and how Mormons are really no different than everyone else.
South Park paints the picture of Joseph Smith’s founding of Mormonism with accuracy while also indicating how absolutely ridiculous it is to believe the story in the first place. However, it also suggests that not all Mormons blindly follow such a wild tale. Some merely agree with the principles taught by their church because it make them happy.
8 The Black Friday Game of Thrones Style Trilogy
Not only was the Black Friday trilogy topical and hilarious, but it also highlighted the ridiculousness of the Black Friday ritual (and the console wars) that Americans perform each year. It also satirized the pop-culture sensation, Game of Thrones, which was a big influence on the trilogy’s story.
Instead of the coming of winter, the people of South Park prepared for the coming of Black Friday. After multiple delays and the CEOs of Xbox and Playstion sweetening the deals, the Black Friday opening is an absolute bloodbath. The showrunners also cleverly included real-world videos of Black Friday crowds, highlighting the actual craziness of the tradition.
7 The World Of Warcraft Episode Really Stuck It To Those Nerds
When World of Warcraft was at its peak, the stigma around the culture of gamers was negative, to say the least. South Park decided to poke fun at the culture around the game and even turned the boys into unhealthy, incredibly overweight nerds who all suffered from acne and carpal tunnel.
The show also highlights how people can over-romanticize a game and view it as the most important thing in the world when in reality, it’s just a game. Randy even throws kids out of the way in a real store so that he can give Stan a weapon in the game, before tragically dying (in the game) at the hand of the guy his son was trying to defeat.
6 World War Zimmerman Hits The Nail On The Head
The Zimmerman case was a huge point of contention and is one of the major events in the ongoing social justice movement, but that didn’t stop South Park from tackling it head-on. The racial division over the case was the main focus of the episode, comparing the zombie virus outbreak to the outrage over the Zimmerman verdict.
Typically, when Cartman is running an episode, fans know it’s because he’s leading the charge on something that is morally awful and this episode is no exception. The final sequence shows demonstrates the differences between how shooters are viewed according to the the race of the victim.
5 PC Principal Is The Embodiment Of Over-The-Top Political Correctness
PC Principal is a frustrating character but embodies the politically correct culture perfectly. He tackles things like social justice, gender issues, and specifically Bruce Jenner’s transformation into a woman. Every aspect of his life encompasses Political Correctness, he’s even the leader of a PC fraternity in the heart of South Park.
To highlight the over-the-top ridiculousness of it all, Randy ends up joining the frat and shamelessly shoves PC rhetoric down peoples’ throats when he’s just in it for the booze. PC Principal eventually develops a bit more, but his initial purpose in the show was to shove PC culture in everyone’s face, especially when it was over-the-top and ridiculous e.g. telling someone to have a nice day is a microaggression.
4 The Scientology Episode Sheds Some Light On An Odd Group
Scientology is another subject that South Park has poked fun at, especially considering the laundry list of eccentric celebrities part of the organization. R. Kelly, John Travolta, and Tom Cruise all make appearances in the episode and are/were Scientologists at one point.
The episode explains the actual beliefs of the organization and showcases how they are able to recruit people. South Park paints the picture that Scientology is nothing more than a cult designed to steal money from its followers.
3 A Giant Douche Against A Turd Sandwich Succinctly Summarizes Politics
Politics is certainly a familiar topic for the team at South Park. One of the better political episodes that highlight the absurdity of the political system is when voting in a local election is the most important thing in South Park despite the candidates being a giant douche and a turd sandwich, literally.
There is even a “Vote or Die” campaign employed by Diddy, where he just goes around shooting people who refuse to vote. Stan gets caught up in this and even ends up being exiled from the town because he refuses to vote. Stan explains why he doesn’t want to vote (his options are trash), and the town explains that it doesn’t matter if they are both terrible, it’s the job of the people to vote. The episode essentially summarizes everything wrong with the current election system.
2 When Cartman Accidentally Travels To The Future It Highlights Human Idiocy
When Cartman freezes himself, hoping it will bring him closer to the Wii, he ends up many hundreds of years in the future. In the future, it’s revealed that an atheist who ends up marrying Ms. Garrison solves the problem of countries fighting over religion. With religion decided, that just left science.
While the future is highly advanced, it suggests that no matter how far humanity progresses, they will always find something silly to disagree upon and kill each other over. It’s revealed that three factions of scientific prowess have been warring for decades simply because they disagree on the names of their organizations.
1 The Margaritaville Episode Is A Simple Yet Powerful Comparison To The Recession
The episode of South Park where Stan seeks a refund for his father’s Margaritaville machine is an excellent explanation of the recession as a result of the crashed housing market back in the early 2000s.
After going through multiple others, Stan finally tracks down the people he can return the Margaritaville to, which ends up being a clever metaphor mirroring the housing crisis. It’s revealed that Margaritaville peoples’ decision-making process involved a headless chicken landing on a map of options, highlighting the fact that the financial institutions behind the recession really had no idea what they were doing in the first place.
Link Source : https://www.cbr.com/south-park-great-satire/