I watched South Park for almost 20 years, but stopped about a decade ago. Have the creators ever reconned with their role in normalizing and popularizing.. the current situation?

What I mean is, SP is one of most prominent cultural examples of " both sides are equally bad, everyone and everything sucks", they've had great success with this schtick, ManBearPig, Turd Sandwich, etc. They did a lot of prep work for the current regime, after all, once you but into their mindset, MAGA is the only thing that makes sense.

I think it’s worth watching more recent seasons, at least from the first trump presidency. I agree that they had originally a “both sides bad” approach, but over the last 10 years or so, they have much more clearly come down on the side of “maga is wrong and evil”.

There are still a variety of subjects where I’m sure people on the other side of the aisle would take objection (i think of the ultra PC “pc principal” who demands that everyone honor everyone’s pronouns at the threat of violence). Last couple of years though, the tone has shifted, for example the depiction of trump as the literal duplicate of saddam Hussein and satans new boyfriend, who literally impregnates satan with the Antichrist, and then spends the season trying to abort it.

They have not changed. They still maintain this "enlightened centrist" persona, while claiming "both sides are the same". And their social commentary, if you could call it that, is very tame. They did briefly lean into making politicians out to be evil, but they kind of walked that back and now their story lines read more goofy than anything.

The whole premise of the new season is telling. It's not about the suffering people have gone through due to wars (trade or military) or the food situation (the diarrhea parasite / cancer beef ep writes itself). Nope, it's about how the silly goose in office is renaming stuff.

It's possible to be serious and funny, but the new stuff I've seen has been unserious and unfunny.

Well, in fairness, both sides were bad, and still are -- although, now, one side is spectacularly worse. Dems can't ever agree on a candidate or position or message, and intentionally run candidates the otherside would abhore, and Republicans would happily vote in unison for an old shoe as long as it was sufficiently dog-whistley.

They backtracked on "ManBearPig" (climate change) a long time ago.

I think they're largely making fun of extremes, whether left, right or Kanye West, Disney/China, Scientology etc. (And once in a while apologize when they get it wrong, like Man Bear Pig) Lately the extremes are more extreme and powerful on the right and so more episodes target that

The last season made fun of ICE, Peter Thiel, Trump-gift-based-economy, shitcoins and so on (Labubus, 67, ...)

They also poked fun at themselves that South Park sucks now as it's all about politics, which I don't think they ever really wanted

I'm a big fan though

Yeah! And for that matter, has Jon Stewart atoned for his sin of leaving The Daily Show in 2015? If he had stayed, no way Trump could have won! And why didn't Oprah run in 2024--she could have saved us! It's all their fault!

Get real.

I don't think South Park ever implied both parties are equally bad. Just that they are both bad. And I don't think irreverent satire is prep work or psy-op propaganda for an authoritarian government. If anything, it's the inoculation.

It's quite clear that you haven't watched the series in the past decade. I'm sure you wouldn't be crowing the same tune if you'd watched the Mr. Garrison storyline.

I thought Turd Sandwich fairly accurately captured what was and still is often a common sentiment that hasn't gone away just because the U.S federal government is conducting itself in such an uncommonly (although not that uncommonly) abhorrent way. A similar sort of election plays out every year and many levels of government in many countries. It's usually between some douche and some turd, and things rarely change for the better as a consequence, so people who feel apathetic and forgotten about don't bother, while people who fear what the other side will do try to convince everyone else theirs is correct. Tale as old as any two-party system.

I never felt as though it was a "both sides are equally stupid" sort of perspective, but rather more like "both sides are at least worth making fun of" along with the people who religiously feel that only their side isn't worth mocking. As in, whichever group seems to be trying to be the most pious, most sanctimonious, the most evidently rediculous, is effectively the one most worth mocking.

I think they have a lot of good material to work with going into this next season, and some of it will hit, and some will miss, for varying reasons, as is the way of all previous seasons. I personally worry that it'll be too politically oriented, because as a subject it just gets boring, but as a Canadian I've always got a kick of out the stupidity that is whatever comes out of the U.S. We're facing the side-effects of our own internal misgivings and trusting the U.S too much, but the U.S seems to be burning itself to the ground.

I also watched it in its prime when I was a teenager, but have hardly watched any in the last 10 years. It feels similar to The Simpsons where they're mostly reacting to the latest news and popular culture, which I don't find as enjoyable.

I think it's hard to say how much they are responsible for modern politics vs just a reflection of the attitudes that created it. This piece[1] from 2020 puts it pretty well I think. Either way it's hard for me to look at old episodes like "The Death Camp of Tolerance" without seeing a precursor to "anti-wokism".

>Political correctness is itself a fascinating term. Its elastic, capacious usage has grown to encompass just about anything conservative political culture would prefer not to talk about. Like South Park’s own essential premises, it judges the crime of bringing things up—grand injustices or just hurt feelings—to be worse than any unfairness, inequity, or simple rudeness. It is a sort of singular and universal commandment: Moses gone up the mountain to return with a single tablet that proclaims, “Stop complaining!”

[1]https://newrepublic.com/article/157066/watching-south-park-e...

south park is a product of the 1990's! its origins lean heavily on the still-true left/democratic party's pro-censorship leanings

just because the recent right/republicans were able to more effectively lean into the meme-heavy southpark-type (crude, male-targeted) humor as marketing doesn't really track with your last assertion (for me)

> Have the creators ever reconned with their role in normalizing and popularizing.. the current situation?

For just one of them, ‘it never happened’ :p https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/south-park-gaslights-a...

I love the idea that one side has simply been historically evil in your mind, and that by not spending most of their time explaining carefully to everyone how that group IS in fact evil and despicable, they're somehow part of the extremist group having found a populist president amid a nation that generally has extremely low voter turnout.

Your style of thinking in and of itself could be a SP episode

No; the cruel libertarian streak that has been at the basis of the show since inception is still ever present.

They are still very good about not punching down and I think that is one of the nicer things to say about the show but their shtick got old during the 45th admin and I haven't tuned back since.

This is why I stopped watching as well. They really set the table for conservative populists to feast. I resent them tremendously.

Why would they? They're firmly in the "too rich to care what the peasants think" bucket as well as not being culturally relevant for 20 years. Honestly, the fact that someone even posted here is pretty cringeworthy.