Trey Parker and Matt Stone Are Changing the Name of South Park to South America

which benefits fascists, generally speaking. degrading global social communication enables the basal ganglia into the local us vs them.

As much as I find satire amusing, a lot of it does not do what people think it does as effectively in this context.

Sacha baron cohen, sining throw the jews down the well had a bunch of racists singing it with zero care what it's satiring. Dave chapelle did similar to black culture. South park gets pretty close to the same.

theres a bit overeliance on satirization. Paul ryan wasn't satirically listening to "Rage against the machine"; he was actively trying to redefine it for his own delusion.

I think it’s worth watching more recent seasons, at least from the first trump presidency. I agree that they had originally a “both sides bad” approach, but over the last 10 years or so, they have much more clearly come down on the side of “maga is wrong and evil”.

There are still a variety of subjects where I’m sure people on the other side of the aisle would take objection (i think of the ultra PC “pc principal” who demands that everyone honor everyone’s pronouns at the threat of violence). Last couple of years though, the tone has shifted, for example the depiction of trump as the literal duplicate of saddam Hussein and satans new boyfriend, who literally impregnates satan with the Antichrist, and then spends the season trying to abort it.

They backtracked on "ManBearPig" (climate change) a long time ago.

south park is a product of the 1990's! its origins lean heavily on the still-true left/democratic party's pro-censorship leanings

just because the recent right/republicans were able to more effectively lean into the meme-heavy southpark-type (crude, male-targeted) humor as marketing doesn't really track with your last assertion (for me)

I think they're largely making fun of extremes, whether left, right or Kanye West, Disney/China, Scientology etc. (And once in a while apologize when they get it wrong, like Man Bear Pig) Lately the extremes are more extreme and powerful on the right and so more episodes target that

The last season made fun of ICE, Peter Thiel, Trump-gift-based-economy, shitcoins and so on (Labubus, 67, ...)

They also poked fun at themselves that South Park sucks now as it's all about politics, which I don't think they ever really wanted

I'm a big fan though

They have not changed. They still maintain this "enlightened centrist" persona, while claiming "both sides are the same". And their social commentary, if you could call it that, is very tame. They did briefly lean into making politicians out to be evil, but they kind of walked that back and now their story lines read more goofy than anything.

The whole premise of the new season is telling. It's not about the suffering people have gone through due to wars (trade or military) or the food situation (the diarrhea parasite / cancer beef ep writes itself). Nope, it's about how the silly goose in office is renaming stuff.

It's possible to be serious and funny, but the new stuff I've seen has been unserious and unfunny.

Yeah! And for that matter, has Jon Stewart atoned for his sin of leaving The Daily Show in 2015? If he had stayed, no way Trump could have won! And why didn't Oprah run in 2024--she could have saved us! It's all their fault!

Get real.

I don't think South Park ever implied both parties are equally bad. Just that they are both bad. And I don't think irreverent satire is prep work or psy-op propaganda for an authoritarian government. If anything, it's the inoculation.

It's quite clear that you haven't watched the series in the past decade. I'm sure you wouldn't be crowing the same tune if you'd watched the Mr. Garrison storyline.

> Have the creators ever reconned with their role in normalizing and popularizing.. the current situation?

For just one of them, ‘it never happened’ :p https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/south-park-gaslights-a...

This is why I stopped watching as well. They really set the table for conservative populists to feast. I resent them tremendously.

Why would they? They're firmly in the "too rich to care what the peasants think" bucket as well as not being culturally relevant for 20 years. Honestly, the fact that someone even posted here is pretty cringeworthy.

To be fair, they don't have many levers to pull