The Poverty of (South Park) Conservatism

There's a new right-wing jeremiad out called "South Park Conservatives." The idea is ostensibly that a show popular with the young actually espouses right-wing values by bashing the left. Ergo, this group of young potential righties should be groomed to be young Republicans.

Now, on to how ridiculous this notion is. South Park is satire, and satire is only satire when it has no sacred cows. South Park mocks the left and the right with impunity. The show's target is pretension, self-righteousness, and extremism in all forms. Yes, I love it when they paint fundamentalists as kooks, but I also find it funny when they ridicule over-the-top PCism (I make fun of hippies a lot, too). Aside from simple left and right issues, the show also mocks things that many on both sides might find amusing, like riffing on elderly drivers, or people who get a little too Civil War reenactments. In short, if some group out there finds an idea sacrosanct, the creators of the show will crap on it. And they've been doing it well for years.

Unfortunately, at least one liberal has bought the argument (see link above, to the normally interesting Flak Magazine), and utterly missed the point of the show. In short, the author of the piece is just the sort of fretting, uptight commentator who worries about the creators' "sometimes socially conservative ideology." Ideology? That's the one thing South Park isn't promoting.

In fact, the show is pretty apolitical even when it's being overtly political. Consider a hilarious episode from last fall that was riffing on the presidential election. South Park elementary needed a new school mascot, and the selection came down to two candidates: a giant douche, and a turd sandwich. It was pretty obvious who the douche was, and in fact Kerry's frequent bumbling attempts at image-crafting make it a fairly appropriate putdown. On the other hand, I can't think of a bigger turd sandwich than Bush. But that's irrelevant. The punchline of the show came when a character expressed his dismay at choosing between the two mascots, and a well-meaning grownup gives him the following nugget of wisdom: "As you get older, you'll realize that all elections are between a douche and a turd." The episode was hilarious. And the author of "South Park Conservatives" is a turd sandwich.