How the New South Park Exposed An Ideological Rift

Before I begin, let me acknowledge the absolute futility of criticizing South Park fans; to do so is to freak out at the kid at school who pushed you, only to have him say he’s just joking and you should let it go. You look like an idiot. He looks like an idiot. And somewhere a teacher is disdainfully drinking vodka from a coffee mug while regretting every decision she's ever made. With that in mind, I have to admit that I’m part of this fan demographic. I love South Park. A lot. More than is healthy. And, like many young screenwriters, I look up to Trey Parker and Matt Stone. The reasons why could fill an entirely separate post. This is not a critique of South Park fans, though it may seem like it at first.

***Warning: Spoilers Abound!***

For those who are not caught up, Matt Stone and Trey Parker have shaken things up this season, with a move from episodic to serialized stories. Those who watch South Park know that beneath that slick veneer of raunchy dick jokes lies satire at its finest. Despite being incredibly blue, it has never ceased to make poignant commentary on a range of issues—racism, Anti-Semitism, gender inequality, immigration, physical disability, and homophobia. It's no surprise, then, that in season 19, everything from trans-phobia to gentrification is discussed, as Stone and Parker engage in a cleverly crude critique of P.C. Culture, and society's obsession with tolerance.

Yet, despite South Park’s reputation for tea-bagging bigots of all political alignments, its new season has exposed a troubling narrative in the fan world-- unintentionally. Some fans have taken this season as permission to dismiss any critique of society, or demand for social justice. They've taken it as validation for their racist, sexist, and homophobic beliefs. Like the kids who started an actual Kick a Ginger Day (in response to an episode that was ultimately against bullying), many have entirely missed the point of this season. But why? And what does this say about the Millenial audience (South Park's main demographic).

To be fair, it’s not all South Park fans who are using this as an opportunity to bash everyone that says the world is still unjust. In the interest of full disclosure, I only browse one South Park forum: /r/southpark, so this is in no way a broad sample size. To its credit, however, /r/southpark is unarguably popular, attracting over 148,000 subscribers. While I originally liked this online community, its character has changed this season. And I have a feeling that at least one animator might feel the same way (see: Figure 1). Despite what Red-Pillers might tell you, I firmly believe that the new South Park is not a celebration of misogyny and discrimination. It’s a critique of the Tolerance Movement, and the Political Correctness Movement, which are very different from social justice itself. In short, it criticizes what South Park has always criticized: hypocrisy.

**The Tolerance Movement as I describe it here, is an ideological totem that promotes the idea of tolerance. Not acceptance, not understanding. Tolerance. The Political Correctness Movement is one which seeks to affect institutional policy, as well as linguistics in order to create an inoffensive society.**

Figure 1: Leslie wears a shirt with a recognizable mascot. She's
also repeatedly told to stop talking. 

For those who stay off the internet, "Social Justice Warrior" is a bit of a controversial term. While originally SJW's called themselves this to celebrate their passion for equality, the term quickly took on a negative connotation, largely being associated with the Tolerance and Political Correctness Movement. To the audience I'm dealing with in this blog, it generally refers to university-educated middle class white people who blindly impose standards of justice, dogmatically chanting mantras of protest as if they were this year's summer hit. They are quick to correct a person for a politically incorrect term, but fail to explain or understand why certain phrases are so hurtful. And in doing so, they do exactly what they proclaim they’re fighting against—take voices away from marginalized communities, and impose their own standards. They appropriate social action not as a mechanism of change, but as a badge of honour. These are the students who claim to defend the poor, yet fail to see how social activism can sometimes exclude marginalized groups including the working class.* This caricature is best illustrated with the popular image macro meme: College Liberal.

The popular "College Liberal Meme" parodies hypocrisy in activism

Conversely, the "Good Girl College Liberal" reminds us why
we need activism in the first place.

I won't spend too long arguing about this group. I do not believe they represent the entire social justice movement. If anything, they're the product of unsettled youth; of tribalism. In other words: they're just young people being young people, looking for something to believe in, and somewhere to belong. Social justice becomes a commodity used to define identity. There are many young activists who earnestly care about bettering the world, yet are so caught up in the superficial aspects of the movement that they fail to observe how they themselves enforce oppression and shut down conversation. Still, I applaud all eagerness to better the world, especially from young people (if we don’t do it, who will?). But social responsibility requires more than passion and a fair trade t-shirt; it demands understanding, dialogue, and the willingness to really listen to opposing points of view. It comes from recognizing what a privilege an education is, and how this informs class-specific opinions. Society is far too complex for black-and-white; every issue has a context, and every opinion is informed by experience. Yes, some people grasp this by the time they reach university; others don't. I believe that if they have good intentions then that's great; few people understand social nuance at the age of eighteen, and for many this is the start of a journey toward global awareness.

So, yes, Internet, these people exist. However, I find it troubling that the existence of (basically) "social justice n00bs" should somehow justify the dismissal of the many more informed activists who know that without dialogue and understanding, debate becomes about me vs. you, rather than you and I vs. the problem. So perhaps the bigger issue with the "Social Justice Warrior" that the Internet loves to lampoon, is that her prevalence is largely a construction, informed by a small group of people, and perpetuated through confirmation bias. This kind of person exists, yes, but they do not negate the need for social justice, or the need for activism. By implying all activists are empty-headed, spoiled, trouble-making hippies, the Internet's SJW becomes a tool for dominant groups to suppress real issues. Why address sexism when you can laugh at a protestor's Che Guevara t-shirt? Ultimately, SJWs are standing up for equality, for the right for people to be treated fairly, and to have a platform on which to speak. The t-shirt is a distraction to both parties.

Like the stereotypical SJW, the P.C. movement in South Park criticizes "correctness" without understanding. Its members take for granted that biases are formed and enforced over generations, so undoing them takes at least a conversation. This season does an excellent job of exposing the hypocritical threads that mar the social justice movement, contrasting the fervor of the PC Frat House with the actual victims of discrimination: Butters (who is impressionable due to parental emotional abuse), Tweak and Craig (who are outed as gay without their consent), and Kenny (whose poverty makes him an exile in his own neighbourhood). In true South Park style, the social justice warriors are not like any of these boys. In fact, they all have one thing in common:

That’s right. They are all white men. Not just white men, but white college-educated, and assuredly professional men like PC Principal and Randy. Members of PC plague the town of South Park, calling out actions that are deemed offensive, while ignoring the nuance of the situation, the wants of the victims, or even the need to open a dialogue with people about why these things are not okay to say. Parker and Stone have brilliantly made PC Frat morally confusing. They indeed do things many people would applaud them for (defending immigrants, homosexuals, and bullied children), but their defense is consistently superficial-- which is where the critique of their action lies. In 19:1 (Stunning and Brave), Kyle is critical of the pop deification of Caitlyn Jenner, and the implication that she is a hero. Yet, rather than ask why Kyle feels like this, the entire town calls Kyle out for supposedly being transphobic. Kyle finally concedes, accepting a ride from Jenner who immediately runs over a man with her car. Mimicking our own society’s willingness to see Jenner as a hero, a crowd watches on and applauds her, paying little heed to the dead man on the road. This scene is only a taste of things to come; as the season continues, we see South Park’s citizens drink this kool-aid of willful blindness. In 19:2 (Where My Country Gone?), Mr. Garrison goes on a bigoted rant about illegal immigrants “crossing the border with their dirty families, playing their stupid music," only to be interrupted by PC Frat’s Randy, who tells him off for using the politically incorrect term “illegal…” and not for… you know… thinking that immigrants are less than people.

Similarly, 19:3 (The City Part of Town) sees Kenny’s impoverished family stuck in the middle of a gentrification project. Despite their protestations at town council, the McCormicks are told that they don’t know what’s best for them (included in this panel are members of PC, who fail to see their classism). So Kenny and his little sister, Karen, are forced to watch their neighbourhood fill up with condos and yuppies, while they wear curtains, and sleep in parkas. When Karen asks her parents for ice cream, she’s told they can’t afford the ten dollar artisan confection that now dominates their neighbourhood. They've been priced-out. Completely ignoring the McCormick family’s frustration, the town continues to applaud itself for being progressive and seeing the potential in a previously impoverished area.

This pattern continues throughout the season, and it’s fairly clear from the sympathetic portrayal of tolerance’s victims that the issue is not with those who are oppressed, but with those who profit socially from that oppression. Kyle is prevented from speaking his mind, the Canadians are treated so poorly that they flock back to Canada at the first chance they get, and Kenny is forced to get an illegal job at City Wok just to buy his sister ice cream.

So if Parker and Stone’s gripe appears to be with the hypocrites and zealots of the social justice movement, their audience’s must be too, right? Wrong. Unfortunately, those who feel that white, straight males are the real victims of oppression, have interpreted this season as permission to spew out all matter of ignorance, supposedly with the blessings of two creators who have –more often than not- actually held very progressive views despite being political conservatives. Once this season premiered, troubling statements began to appear in /r/SouthPark. Not that the Internet has a reputation for high discussion, but in most cases Reddit is very good about down-voting bigoted statements into oblivion.* These comments were disturbing to me, but I knew that the reality of the internet is that it gives everyone a platform, so there are bound to be vomit-worthy comments at the bottoms of pages. What I didn't expect was to see these comments reach the tops of threads, with people chiming in to reinforce their belief that white privilege didn't exist, that men were the real victims of progress, and that everyone should stop whining. It felt increasingly like I was on a hate sub-- a place where people felt free to voice why they despised everything about me. I'm an Asian woman. I'm just "looking" to get offended. It became clear that my issues were not important, that my experience wasn't important, that it was up to others to tell me what should hurt me.

I hit my limit with this Halloween post.

It mocked LSPIRG’s campaign to spread awareness about racism and Halloween costumes. In my opinion, the campaign was fair: these costumes have been a staple of every discount department store since most of us can remember. The thought that they're hurtful can be completely lost on some who are just used to seeing them. In short, the campaign hopes to make people stop and think, so they aren't accidental assholes. Yet this post on /r/southpark mocked the movement, sarcastically stating: “Everyone better try to be PC this Halloween, no racial sensitivity motherph*ckers!” [sic]. This post could easily have been the forgotten wail of a dude who uses terms like “reverse racism” and “feminist agenda,” but this wasn’t a lone wolf. It received over 270,000 views in a week, and accumulated wonderful comments like this:

This post received 1464 upvotes (likes).

This post received 699 upvotes (likes). 

And some sampled comments from the thread.

You might tell me I should get over this because it's the internet and "what do you expect?" But let me assure you that, while this is the internet, behind all these posts and up-votes are real people. Ask any Redditor and they'll tell you that the anti-social justice sentiment on Reddit has been growing in other popular subs. This is purely anecdotal, but in my experience, Reddit is not a niche site for social outcasts, it's a popular venue for Millenials, and its main subs are often quite tolerant. In fact, Reddit has 4 billion unique visitors every year, and most of these are part of the 18-35 demographic. So these views -while definitely prone to the sample bias of the tech-savvy- depict a troubling trend in the Millenial psyche-- a backlash that insists inequality no longer exists (or that it is supposed to exist), and that dominant groups are being robbed of their rightful place in society.

Quite incidentally, South Park's nineteenth season created a microcosmic phenomena. It made a "Safe Space" (get it?) for people to voice their dismay. Thinking that a popular TV show is validating their racist and sexist views they assume permission to say all the things they feel about minorities, activists, and women.

This suggests that these feelings are borne in secret (after all, they slowly began appearing once it became clear that there was peer-approval). Those who hold these opinions (who I'll call Backlashers) are aware that their opinions are socially unacceptable, yet they hold them all the same, stewing over their ironic feeling of exclusion. Contrary to what you would expect, I feel okay with the existence of this group. Do I like them? No. But everyone has the right to feel, to have an opinion, and every time there is a great shift in society, there is a backlash; this needed to happen. But that's besides the point-- I want to take a closer look at this bitterness and why it is so prevalent in our generation. Why are so many people set on denying that inequality exists? Conversely, why do so many superficially champion a convoluted idea of justice?

(Fair warning: I'm not getting into Nietzsche, because the western disappearance of spiritual totems is an entire blog unto itself).

In Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake discuss the legacy of second-wave feminism. They refer to contemporary women as reapers of...

...the benefits of our mother's struggles and our race class positions, having grown up with a sense of entitlement so strong that... we virulently denied that any form of sexism existed... that we [had] the same opportunities, [could] compete with men equally, man to man. (42)

In other words, Heywood and Drake believe that women who today reap the benefits of the sexual revolution, of suffragettes, of first and second-wave feminists take these benefits for granted. Because our husbands can no longer beat us at whim, our historical closeness to our ancestors who lived that reality is lost to us. But ask anyone whose studied history-- ideology takes centuries to change, and we cannot dismantle systems of oppression in three generations. Our journey toward equality is not yet done; it has merely transformed. Injustice is now swept under the rug, and because of this, its believed not to exist. While your boss can't deny you a promotion for being a woman, he can deny it because you don't seem like a team player (ie: you don't hang out with the guys after work... because you're not invited). Male co-workers can comment on your clothes, on your choice to have children, on inappropriate topics for the workplace (rape jokes anyone?). Unfortunately, when women challenge these micro-aggressions, they are often dismissed as having no sense of humour, or being too uptight. Within this cultural context, feminism is seen as a dirty word.

Today, in North America, groups actually meet to discuss effective ways to rape and abuse women. So why do we say "I don't have it so bad, so why should I care?" Why do we spit in the face of those who, over centuries, gave their lives so we could be seen as people. We say that we are not feminists, yet we don't even know what that word means. We are adrift, in denial of the subtle ways we are put at a disadvantage.

Emma Goldman by Elia Mervy

I believe the evolution of the feminist movement reflects the Millenial understanding of social justice-- our opinions are largely informed by the relative comfort that we experience in contemporary life. Oppression has become willfully invisible, observable often only to those who are on the receiving end of it, or who make the conscious choice to observe it. It is this so-called invisibility that is at the root of our divide. Though we certainly have many moderates, we still host two polarized groups-- those who dogmatically defend an ideal that they do not fully understand because they've never consciously experienced it, and those who are blind to injustice and embittered by the idea that they are privileged at all (because they've never observed oppression). Few in these two groups have first-hand experience of the kind of obvious sexism and racism experienced in generations past; they live in a world of micro-aggressions, of basement rape classes, and anonymous internet discussions about how minorities should feel about cultural appropriation. Intentionally or not, South Park's new season has exposed a small-scale clash of two ideologies that dominate our generation's sense of justice.

The fact is that racism, sexism, homophobia, and classism still exist; they colour our interactions, our governments, our psyche, our Halloween costumes. The desire to eradicate these systems is not about bringing anyone down-- it's about bringing others up. And this fundamental understanding, this common goal is lost in our peers' desire to be smarter, better, more correct than the other group. Like PC Frat, we don't talk to each other. We either shut each other down with ad-hominem accusations of "racist," "bigot" and "shitlord!" Or we declare that racism is dead and we should be able to dress up like "Sexy Indian Princesses" if we want to-- we say that people "just want" to be offended, without stopping to think that "offended" means "hurt." Whether our opinions are objectively right or not, we are responsible for discourse on both sides of this debate.

And isn't this what South Park's new season is really trying to say? That when we shut each other down, when we don't engage in dialogue, we perpetuate oppression, and victimization by forbidding argument. We allow our own ego to supercede the very ideals of reason. We wear our opinions like a costume, without any sense of what harm we are causing, or what martyr we stand on.

To be clear, I am not saying that it's the fault of activists that racism, sexism, and homophobia still exists. Nor do I believe it's the job of the oppressed to fight for person-hood. But the reality is that we need to do things that aren't necessarily fair, or right in order to be social change makers. As activists, and as citizens, we need to stop dismissing each other, and instead talk about why people feel threatened by social progress. And those of you on the other side of this debate, need to engage as well-- tell us why you feel the way you do and let us talk to you about our own experiences. Like each other or not, it is the only way we will be able to create a more just and equal society. So, if I may be so forward, cut this sirening out, and just be real with each other. PC/SJW vs. Backlash is ultimately a fallacy. We are people with diverse and shifting opinions, and ideology is incredibly fluid. In very few cases are we truly complete racists or insincere activists, so we don't need to write each other off as such. We are meant to come together in society, to exchange ideas and opinions-- to work with each other to advance together.

We're supposed to be buddies, guy!



---------------
*I am not referring to ALL college-aged activists, nor all white college-aged activists. This refers only to a particular sub-group whom their peers are often lumped in with.
I know some would disagree with me on both sides of this debate. And I invite you to let me know-- to comment, and to engage in dialogue with me. We might even change each others' minds. Just please keep things constructive. I know you can do it, Internet.
Referenced works for your info!
"50 Amazing Reddit Statistics." DMR. 26 Feb. 2014. Web. 12 Nov. 2015.
"6% of Online Adults Are Reddit Users." Pew Research Center Internet Science Tech RSS. 2 July 2013. Web. 12 Nov. 2015. Heywood, Leslie and Drake, Jennifer. 'We Learn America Like a
http://eliaillustration.com/quiet-resilience.html
Script: Activism in Third Wave; or, enough phantoms of nothing', Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism. Eds. Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2003