Town In The Outskirts Of South Park example essay topic

South Park is an animated television program on Comedy Central predominantly known for its raucous, controversial, and outwardly disturbing humor. Since the show started in 1997, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators, have been attacked by the censors, the parents, religious organizations, and even their own fans. Their idea of "pushing the limit" to increase shock factor is what has pushed the show forward over the last seven seasons. What the attackers do not realize is that the elements of racism, sexism, homophobia, beastiality, and the celebration of taboos are all a satire based on modern society and the stupid things we do.

They fail to see honesty brought out in the open for once. Most importantly, the main characters are 8 and 9 years old! Like it or not, these are the things that children think and do, of course in some cases a bit more excessive than reality. Amongst all the issues, one of the most controversial is racism.

Matt and Trey show elements of racism throughout almost all the episodes of South Park, whether it be the boys verbally torturing Kyle for being Jewish or comparing Mexico to Hell. However, these spouts of racial and ethnic slurs are merely commenting on what America, as a society, has become over the years, turning the blatant racism in the show into what we call anti-racism. There are only four black people in the entire town of South Park, and only two are main characters. Chef, the school's cafeteria chef, is a stereotype right out of a blacksploitation film of the 70's. He is the only man in town who is incredibly obsessed with sex (especially with white women), and also the only man who can sing. The other, and more in depth, is a student at South Park Elementary School, appropriately named Token.

Token, at first, lived in a town in the outskirts of South Park, but was busse d in to South Park Elementary to promote cultural diversity. His voice is very monotone and doesn't speak very much in the show, which parodies most television shows or movies with only one African-American in it. In "Episode 401 - Cartman's Silly Hate Crime", Eric Cartman throws a rock at Token for calling him fat. After all apologies were made, the FBI involved themselves in the matter, calling it a "hate crime".

In court, when asked to describe Token, Cartman's response was, "He's a black kid that goes to my school". This infuriates the district attorney, who returns with "Black?! You called him black? !" It is apparent that Matt and Trey are commenting on the obsessive political correctness that goes on in our society. The amount of tip-toeing that occurs because of historical guilt can cause an uproar. I don't know one black man who would get offended by being called "black", just as I would not get offended if someone called me "white".

People seem to take political correctness a bit too far. After Cartman is sentenced to juvenile hall for 13 years, the judge decrees that, "if you want to hurt a human being, you'd better make damn sure that they " re the same color as you". This statement alone speaks completely against hate crime laws. Whether you murder a black man or a white man for whatever reason, the crime was still full of hate, making the term "hate crime" in itself irrelevant".

[It is] clear that the primary thing that was wrong with slavery is the practice itself - the fact of some individuals being able to own other individuals... It would not matter by what criterion individuals were assigned". (Wasserstrom, 489). This doesn't only relate to slavery, but can be related to hate crimes as well. Hate crime laws in themselves, are part of what Richard A. Wasserstrom calls overt racism. A crime is a crime, no matter what color the people involved are, but making a special law for special situations creates more racism and bigotry in society.

In "Episode 408 - Chef Goes Nan ners", Chef starts a movement to have the South Park flag changed. He claims that flag is racist because it is a drawing of four white men lynching a black man. The argument against changing the flag comes from Jimbo and Ned, the proprietors of a local gun shop. They argue that the flag is history, and you cannot change history.

After the elementary school gets word of this, the 3rd graders are asked to debate about it themselves, but when Chef finds out that some of the kids are for the flag staying the same, he throws a fit and yells, "Your cracker-ass parents have turned you into cracker-ass cracker racists". This is a horribly racist and contradictory statement to yell at children. It turns out in the final debate that the kids didn't even realize the man being lynched was black, and thought people wanted to get rid of the flag because of the violence. They just saw the men as five people, so in the end, Chef turned out to be the closest thing to a racist, because he was only thinking in terms of color.

Within the story, the children are "color-blind" and would probably believe in Wasserstrom's assimilation theory. Through the eyes of the 3rd grade class, the color of someone's skin doesn't matter. "Assimilation always implies coming into the game after it is already begun, after the rules and standards have already been set... ". (Young, 501).

It would be impossible for the adults of South Park to think the way these innocent children do. The children have not had to deal with racist problems as of yet and are at a fresh start. The thought that the adults would just see it as a completely non-racist issue would be outlandish. Outside of the story, Matt and Trey used difference to show how things should be. The three registered black South Park voters, were for changing the flag while Jimbo, who is constantly characterized as a "redneck", and his two friends were against it. The entire rest of the town was completely indecisive.

This shows the racial tension in South Park, and it's not until the children speak up that they realize what they have been doing. The adults of South Park seem to always learn a lesson about racism and such from their children of all people, but in "Episode 512 - Here Comes The Neighborhood", it's a different story all together. When Token's family buys a giant house in South Park, the kids finally realize that Token has a lot more money than anyone in town. After being made fun of by all his friends, he tries to get more rich people to move into town, so he won't be the only one.

It just so happens that they are all black. Will Smith, Snoop Dogg, Kobe Bryant, Bill Cosby, and Oprah Winfrey (all in snobby rich accents) are just some of the people that get big houses in South Park. The town starts to get worried that all the rich people are moving in and call them names such as "cash checkers" and "riches". They post signs up that say "people living below their means only" at restaurants and bars, make them sit in the front of the bus like they were in first class, and burn lower-case "t"s on their front lawns for "time to leave". Finally, they try to scare them out of town by dressing up like ghosts and pretending the town is haunted. This is an obvious reference to what went on during segregation, but many people classify this episode as a blatant display of racism.

However, since the reference was right out in your face, there is more to it than meets the eye. After so much bigotry and hate in the world, many people are immune to racist remarks they see on television. Unless it is thrown right in the face of America, like Matt and Trey have done, people don't realize what is going on in the world around them. People can look at this episode and agree that history does repeat itself in many different ways.

Segregation doesn't only have to be blacks vs. whites. It could be rich vs. poor, Jews vs. Christians, or America vs. The Middle East. This is what the creators are trying to say with this episode. Of course, people are going to laugh at it. Racism is so normal to us that we can see it as something funny. In retrospect, South Park is beyond racist.

In fact, they are so blatantly racist that they have become anti-racist. Sometimes, though, it seems that the faux racism towards blacks just covers up the shows actual intent of racism towards the lower to working class whites in Colorado, also referred to by the characters themselves as "white trash". But can we consider this racism, since they themselves were born and raised where the show takes place? I believe it is not so much a form of racism as it is making fun of their friends and family growing up, but society has deemed the show racist, so the stigma sticks with it as the seasons run on.