South Park Conservatives?
I know the South Park Conservative meme has been around for a long time, but on National Review’s Phi Beta Cons blog, there’s been a recent uptick of interest in trying to recast the most transgressive, crude and immature show on television as something conservatives can sorta call their own. Robert VerBruggen – who, as a former Northwestern Wildcat is necessarily the best contributor – makes the case:
But I think it’s unfair to call it liberal: One of my favorite quotes from the creators is, “I hate conservatives, but I really f***ing hate liberals.”
The show’s creators take at least as much joy in slaughtering lefties’ sacred cows as they do conservatives’. A cloud of “smug” emanates from hybrid-car drivers. Jesse Jackson has a character “apologize” by kissing his rear end. A big coffee chain puts a small java shop out of business, the message being that that’s the way the economy works. Hippies find themselves the targets of countless gags. Al Gore gets skewered. Etc.
Also, South Park is a show that covers political topics fairly frequently and as of 2006 had 3.1 million viewers an episode. I’m already on the record saying there shouldn’t be a South Park college course, but why on earth should conservatives opt out of the conversation entirely and pretend they don’t watch it?
I think VerBruggen is making both a hard and soft case here, and only one of them seems to make sense. The hard case is that South Park, in some essential way, a conservative show. The evidence is that they constantly satirize liberals and do-gooders who take themselves too seriously. So, their targeting of Barbara Streisand, Tim Robbins, Al Gore and Jesse Jackson isn’t just equal opportunity insulting of puffed up celebrities, but instead a focused criticism of a certain type of PC, holier-than-thou liberalism. The soft case is that South Park is a purely negative show, aimed only at tearing down people who have an elevated opinion of their own importance, and that in the course of taking pot shots at Mormons, Scientologists, educators, the Catholic Church, parents, law enforcement officers and moralists of all stripes, they get a few shots in at liberals.
To me, a devoted South Park watcher, it seems obvious that Parker and Stone are almost nihilistic in their desire to tear down anything and everything. So, liberals get caught in this all inclusive dragnet of satirization and mockery. VerBruggen and other South Park watching conservatives have had a better case to make recently, as South Park has taken a turn towards episodes centered around politics and current events as opposed to the simple, yet hilarious, crudeness that has always been their mainstay.
As long as we’re talking about South Park and politics, it should be noted that season’s 12 “The China Problem” presents a very good case against China threat mongering.
