Portrayal of Current Events on South Park

When I was younger, I was never interested in watching South Park, but as I got older I started watching the show more and more not only because it was funny but because of the way Trey Parker and Matt Stone addressed current events on the show. One of my all-time favorite episodes is Elementary School Musical (Season 12, Episode 13) because of the way it parodied the portrayal of high school in Disney's High School Musical franchise. Mostly recently, South Park has dedicated three episodes of its current season to mocking BP's response to the Gulf Oil Crisis. This clip relates back to our readings this week because without seeing the actual BP president's apology video, the parodied one is insignificant. As Ted says,
"they can call attention to and critique visual and auditory signifiers of power like the suits, impersonal terminology, 'breaking news,' and 'expert opinion' tropes of contemporary U.S. journalism, while also exposing those institutions for the biased and conservative forces they are. However, responsive tactics are also limited by that same methodology. Although they can certainly “speak truth to power,” to borrow Foucault’s terms, they cannot reinvent the structures of power themselves. In other words, they react rather than recreate." Although South Park has successfully altered its viewers as to how they feel about the apologies, they can only make fun of the apologies and not change the outcome of the events.

Coon 2: Hindsight
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South park- not afraid to address taboo's

South Park has never failed to make everyone crack up, there may be a moment of uncomfortable if you have never watched the show before but as it goes on and even to viewers, you can not help but laugh at the parodies that south park is know for.
After reviewing Ted's conclusion in his book, with the second paragraph i noticed the use of "convergence culture" i had no idea what this meant so googled.
the unity of old and new media. realistically the show uses profanity and thus can't be watched by everyone, it addresses issues that go on day to day to make fun of them and addresses even the taboo's that are in society. This may be why people feel uncomfortable sometimes, but with the shows ridiculous nature sometimes its hard to to find it hilarious. Overall i think it goes beyond just being a cartoon, and is an extremely clever show!

Watching South Park

Before this class I had never seen a full episode of South Park. When I was younger my parents did not completely ban me from watching the show, they just let my brother and I know that they strongly disapproved. The reason for me never watching the show was not my parents’ discouragement though, it was the fact that I was never exposed to it and didn’t have the desire to really go out of my way to view it. Now that I have been exposed to it and know a little more what the show is all about, I find myself interested and motivated to seek out more episodes. I never realized that South Park critiqued our media culture intelligently and in a way that is fascinating, entertaining, and funny.

South Park has always been one of my favorite shows since Season 2 when I started watching. Many of my friend’s parents would not let them watch South Park because they believed the show was outrageous, and it would teach their children bad morals. My parents on the other hand let me watch South Park. They saw the humor in it and realized that most of the episodes were really only making fun of the stupid things in the media and the present. I began to fall in love with South Park because “they react rather than recreate.” South Park always seems to make the serious things funny.

Disruptive

In class we always compare the critical in postmodernism with The Daily Show and the ontological with the Colbert Report. The differentiating factor between critical and ontological is that the disruptive can inhabit what it is parodying. THe critical is merely reactive. Colbert embodies the stereotyped right wing nut and sometimes even takes it to a farther extent. One of my favorite segments he does is with his gun "sweetness." It is inhabiting paranoid gun owners. However the razor line that these ontological critique-ers must walk is marked by people thinking they are actually being serious. In this interview Colbert says that he says things he doesn't believe and that it is a character, but numerous group of conservatives mark him as a leader or important figure. It is a little ironic that they are putting something nonexistent on their pedestal.