South Park

South Park | February 22nd 2006


As a great character from a classic movie once said;
“It’s a fine line between clever and stupid.”
Which is interesting because the line kind of demonstrates what it’s saying. Because the line sounds stupid BUT it is clever too. Like the movie the line came from - “Spinal Tap”.
And it’s one of my things I love the most; being clever and stupid simultaneously, to be able to walk the line between the two, to traverse the gulf.
The master of walking that line, hell they dance all over that m**ther F***er has to be controversial TV show of the moment - SOUTH PARK.

I have been a huge fan of South Park for a long while.. Which is why it is so disconcerting and strange to have, what Don Brash lovingly describes as “The Mainstream”, placing their ignorant, grubby paws all over it.
When I hear Paul Holmes talking about it on the Radio it’s just plain weird. I feel in some way protective of the damn thing.
Leave the boys alone!
I have the need to circle the wagons in defence, to keep out the squares and the bores - the mediocre, the hoi polloi.
And it is disturbing that I have not heard ONE person on the radio, TV, anywhere say they think the show is good.
In almost all cases they miss the point - completely. Various media whores and talking heads on National Radio reveal their ignorance. Poor old Jim Mora and Linda Clark show their true, unspectacular colours (Linda’s an 80’s shade of black, Jim’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt he brought on holiday in the 70’s) –
Assorted comments:-

“Its only a cartoon I don’t know what the fuss is about”
“It’s a pathetic show for kids”
“Below childish”
“pathetic”
“A bit of fluff”

I suppose though, that is one of the cool things about the show, the way it is sort of - in code. It’s a thing that some people can decipher and some cannot. To some people it’s a silly thing for kids with farting and to others it’s genius satire.
I fall squarely in the second group and regard Trey Parker as one of the smartest people on the planet and South Park as a modern masterpiece.
The Irony!
The Layers!
The Portrayals!
And … Mostly the laughing (Mostly).
I have seen the offending or offensive episode, I downloaded it about a week ago. It’s mostly about Stan’s dad (mostly)and his alcohol problem.
It’s f**king funny. Stan’s dad’s performance as the drunken dad is a standout performance, deserving of an Oscar and the piss take of the AA message is priceless.
What it is not about really, is the catholic church. The inclusion of the bloody Virgin Mary thing is incidental NOT gratuitous.
I imagine they thought lets have him cured by a stigmata statue thing, lets make it Mary, lets have it bleed, lets have it bleed like this…
However if you had listened to the reports over the last few days you would assume the show was a pointed and premeditated attack on, and satire about the church.
I doubt whether ANY of these people have actually watched the show, let alone a whole episode of South Park.
And the truth is if someone hadn’t said
“SOME PEOPLE WILL BE OFFENDED!”
Then NO ONE would have been offended.
The episode would have screened to the usual suspects who would have supposedly been sophisticated enough to understand it and remain moderately unaffected. Maybe some stoner surfie guy watching would gone;
“Whoa my mum would freak out at this sh*t dude”
but generally nothing.
As it is I have heard a woman on talkback weeping over desecration of ‘our lady’. Why does she have to be disturbed? Should she be disturbed as long as someone somewhere makes fun of her beliefs?
And because these people have complained and the media have pumped it all up, as is usual in this situation, the show will now be the most popular South Park EVER.
Which is pretty f**ked up dude.
While we currently feel isolated, me and my South Park mates are not entirely alone in our love of the show. Harry Shearer, political commentator, incidental voice in the Simpsons (Principal Skinner, Ned Flandersand others) and himself a satarist and creator of "SPinal Tap" and others - has called Trey Parker the best satirist in the world and there is a review of South Park in UNCUT that says

“And finally, like humankind itself at the end of the long chain of evolution, comes South Park. A show so good it pisses liquid fire on everything before it. One of the highest, and lowest, achievements of modern civilisation. This, ultimately, is what Leonardo laboured for, what George Grosz, Honore Daumier and William Hogarth strove to achieve. Either that or it's a bunch of dumb gags about sphincters. But it isn't half funny.“

And really, American TV comedy is not exactly overflowing with creativity and originallity at the moment, judging from telly fare the other night. "Joey" is dire and that other one with Charlie Sheen is just the same gag ( A girl with big breasts walks past. A guy says something. Charlie says something. Cue canned laughter) forever. Soo maybe some good will come of this fiasco. More fans for South Park, less mediocrity. The just triumph of the clever over the stupid.