In a recent episode, the animated comedy show South Park severely trolled puppy murderer Kristi Noem, the head of the department of homeland security.
Two weeks ago, South Park kicked off its 27th season with one of its angriest, most politically daring episodes. The animated sitcom, long a magnet for controversy, incurred the wrath of the current US administration for its brutal and graphic send-up of Donald Trump as a petty, micro-penised dictator, as well as parent company Paramount’s cowardly capitulations to him.
…All of this is to say that the new episode, titled Got a Nut, is coming in hot. And for the most part, it lives up to the hype.
The episode follows two different stories: in one, the show’s resident bigot, Eric Cartman, is outraged to learn that fellow fourth grader Clyde has risen to prominence as a white nationalist podcaster who makes offensive claims about women, Jewish people, Black people and other minority groups to goad them into debating him in exploitative viral videos (“WOKE STUDENT TOTALLY PWNED”). Of course, Cartman isn’t angry on behalf of any of those groups; he’s mad that Clyde is ripping off his gimmick and reaping all the rewards. He decides to muscle in on the act, styling his hair after Kirk’s signature coif (“the stupidest haircut I’ve ever seen,” says one character), trolling college girls on social media and proclaiming himself a “master-debater”.
The other storyline sees South Park Elementary’s kindly counsellor Mr Mackey out of a job thanks to government budget cuts. Desperate to find a new way to “make his nut”, he reluctantly joins Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Alongside his fellow masked goons – a collection of inexperienced, illiterate miscreants – and under the leadership of DHS secretary Kristi Noem, Mackey ends up taking part in violent raids at Dora the Explorer concerts and the literal gates of heaven, where he helps round up every Hispanic in sight (per Noem: “Only detain the brown ones! If it’s brown, it goes down!”).
I cannot link to the whole episode but here are some clips from recent shows.
I like how the Trump administration complaining has made South Park relevant again after what, a decade. Like a couple of other cartoons it gets churned out year after year because low animation cartoons are cheap, not because they are popular or widely watched. It would have been much better to simply ignore it, it would have blipped by and vanished in a day.
Trump and the people around him didn’t do that. They can’t stand anything making fun of them. Yes, South Park is cheap, insulting humor. But by complaining to press they have given it more coverage then it ever would have had.
Some people you can outmaneuver just by standing still.