Thursday, December 11, 2014

Change!!!

After talking about satire in class today, I couldn't help but to think of the Comedy Central show, South Park. The creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, are satirical kings with what they do with South Park. Although the show is extremely explicit, it has a lot of meaning behind all of the F-bombs. In one episode, they focus on the presidential election of Barack Obama in 2008. Specifically, using hyperbole of the general population to his campaign slogans "Change" and "Yes we can." In the episode, the entire town's democratic population is out partying on the streets with signs that say "Change." One of the main characters, Randy, cusses out his own boss saying that he doesn't need his job anymore because Obama is bringing change. The party eventually gets out of hand leading to the tipping of a cop car. So why is this funny to us? Although it is an exaggeration, it is kind of true. A lot of people reacted this way to some degree. I think this episode was made to somewhat criticize the whole country and how they reacted, both democrats and republicans.

In the episode, while the democrats are out partying the republicans are fearing that the country is doomed because of the new president. They are all trying to hide out in a bunker and arguing over who gets in and who doesn't; looking like something out of an "end of the world" scenario. Once again over-exaggerating the public's reaction to Obama winning.


1 comment:

  1. South Park is a genius concept for a show because it contains different kinds of humor. On the surface, it seems to rely heavily upon slapstick comedy and crude jokes, which make it approachable for the common man, but when you start to watch closely, you realize how clever the writers are. I remember it stunned me when I found out that my 7th grade science teacher, Mr. Roby, who was the most serious man I've met (legend has it he has never smiled), loved South Park, claiming that it was an incredibly smart show. Now that I'm older, I can certainly appreciate his sentiment. It is usually on the forefront of social commentary -- for example, the episode that came out on October 1, 2014 is entitled "Gluten Free Ebola". They responded impressively quickly to the ebola scare in their episode in which they mocked diet trends.

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