i despise discussions about media on this site sometimes. so much nonsense like 'it's just a game' 'it's just a cartoon' 'it's just a joke' to shutdown any and all discussions about cultural influence whenever it comes up.
this is more a response to the thread as a whole but here we go
no one is claiming that a cartoon
invented certain behaviours. South Park didn't invent nihilistic centrism, or casual racism, or casual transphobia, or whatever. but it absolutely can influence and reinforce views on said subjects - just like any piece of media not created in a vacuum - especially when the show is as openly god damn political as South Park.
also, acknowledging that it could be an influence on culture isn't accusing it of being the sole influence!! the tweets in the OP and the posts in here aren't saying that, heck
this also isn't saying that you can't enjoy media with problematic elements, which is another bullshit hand-wringing deflection that comes up in threads like these (like, for example, when a thread popped up discussing asia-phobic undertones in early cyberpunk media had people crying 'you're not allowed to enjoy anything anymore!' in response). criticising elements from a piece of media doesn't mean you're not allowed to enjoy it anymore, just that said media has elements worth criticising. and understanding that, as well as where those elements came from - the creator's views, their culture and the time it was created in - helps us better understand the media as a whole and reflect on our own inherited views so as to not passively take some of this shit for granted.
some occasionally shitty and harmful messaging doesn't stop South Park from having some great moments and humour that you can enjoy. i used to love South Park, and i'd be lying if i don't find some of it still pretty funny. but that doesn't mean you also can't criticise it's more problematic and bigoted content for what it is.
in general i just think people get so personally attached to media that they become extremely defensive and things become one or the other - criticism becomes censorship, some influence becomes all the influence. or shit suddenly becomes a personal attack - oh youre not allowed to enjoy anything anymore! well i didn't turn out bad so surely there's nothing bad about it!!
but that shit's rarely what anyone's saying, or a complete over-exaggeration.
It's possible there is truth to this.
on the other hand, i know of plenty of passionate, earnest, empathetic people who used to watch the show. I include myself.
maybe it's telling that i no longer watch it, maybe it's just been genuinely shitty for a long time.
Maybe it was always shit!
but I don't think it damaged my worldview.
this isn't how influence works. just because you weren't affected doesn't mean others haven't been. just because you or me or your friends didn't turn out to be bad eggs in the end after we all watched South Park at some point in our lives doesn't mean that it's messages didn't affect the world view of people out there - nor that people couldn't perhaps reflect on those views inherited by said media as they mature, and outgrow them.
personally, as a teen, i was all into the centrist 'why does anyone give a shit either way', 'the answer is always in the middle' nonsense without ever actually knowing much about anything, in part because how i viewed and understood culture - including a lot of politics and political figures - was filtered thru shows like South Park, and i can guarantee a lot of my other school classmates were largely the same.
on the other hand, we literally have posters in this very thread explaining that they've been subject to racial and discriminatory abuse based on jokes from this show. there's a chance that the people who did this to them were always shitty and bigoted, but the specific ammo they had came directly from the show. and perhaps the notion that that sort of joke could be appropriate could have possibly came from the fact that one of the most popular tv comedy series throws some of that shit out non-critically and you're supposed to laugh along with it.
I don't think it's wild to say that a tv show that was one of the most popular pieces of cultural critique for an era had some effect on the way people act today. Pointing out that other things probably had an effect too isn't really a counterpoint to that.
thank you!!
