Pseudo-Satire and Evasion of Ideological Meaning in South Park
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Daniel J. Frim
Pseudo-Satire and Evasion of
Ideological Meaning in South Park
South Park, an animated television show that has aired since 1997,
presents the literary critic with a unique set of problems. Owing to the
show’s apparent crudeness and the satirical orientation of other televised
cartoons, it is tempting to search for a simplistic socio-political or ideolog-
ical niche in which to place South Park and to reduce the show to an ex-
pression of the views associated with this camp. Nevertheless, careful ex-
amination of South Park (created by Matt Stone and Trey Parker) reveals
its resistance to any such reduction. The surprising obstacles hindering
interpretations of South Park as a medium for satirical social commentary
have generated a small but growing body of debate regarding the ways
in which the show does or does not make ideological assertions. Some
scholars argue that South Park comments on social reality using the same
satirical strategies as other cartoons, particularly The Simpsons and Family
Guy.1 Lindsay Coleman, for example, argues that South Park’s inclusion
of offensive material functions as a means of satirically criticizing the
real-life phenomena that this material signifies. She points to the show’s
pervasive use of racial epithets and suggests that South Park’s creators
“satirize the racism that still pervades American social life” (132). Brian
Anderson also reads social criticism into South Park when he argues that
the show represents a media trend that he labels “the new anti-liberalism”
(75), which, as the term suggests, is a set of reactionary socio-political
sentiments. Anderson argues, furthermore, that South Park “exemplifies
the essence of satire,” using this representational technique to express “a
firm moral standpoint” and to target a particular “object of attack” (87-
88). Although Anderson’s approach grants South Park a unique position
among similar cartoons as the only one without a predominantly liberal
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stance, it still treats the show as more or less of an unoriginal medium
for satirically expressing a consistent and coherent ideological message.
Coleman and Anderson echo Carlos Rowe, who writes more generally that
“popular television” since the early 1970’s “has assumed an increasingly
serious air even in its most frivolous productions” along with “a certain
pedagogical mission” (Rowe 231). Coleman and Anderson’s analyses also
resemble, more directly, Matthew Henry’s interpretation of The Simpsons
“as a biting satire on American society and culture” (225), suggesting that
South Park closely adheres to the satirical and ideological conventions of
roughly contemporaneous popular cartoons and that it can be understood
using interpretive approaches first applied to these other programs.
Other critics, on the other hand, argue that South Park explicit-
ly rejects all social and political stances, thereby satirically engaging in
meta-discursive criticism of social criticism. Matt Becker, for example,
argues that the show “has both antiliberal and anticonservative themes”
(146) and that it engages in “equal-opportunity satire” (160). At times,
Becker seems to suggest that the show passively refrains from expressing
socio-political ideology, rather than actively rejecting it. He writes, for
example, that South Park is “deeply politically ambivalent” and that as
a result, it “offers no clear political worldview and therefore no political
solutions” (160, 161). However, Becker describes the show’s “distrust of
institutions” and its simultaneous criticism of multiple political positions
rather than its complete avoidance of sincere commentary on any posi-
tion (158). Becker’s observations regarding South Park are reminiscent of
Dorothy Rabinowitz’s comments on an earlier sitcom, All in the Family:
“Lear [the show’s producer (“Norman Lear”)] is not the first politician of
his age to have read correctly the prevailing winds of the culture and to
have perceived the wisdom in following all of them, though he may well
be the first to have packaged that perception successfully for television”
(70). Like Rabinowitz’s identification of diverse ideological strands in All
in the Family, Becker points to the multiple, conflicting ideological ori-
entations of South Park’s social critiques. However, whereas Rabinowitz
seems to view All in the Family’s ideological inconsistency as an inclusive,
conciliatory strategy, Becker emphasizes South Park’s tendency satirically
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to ridicule and reject various political stances. Stephen Groening, along
roughly similar lines, describes South Park’s satirical “mission to ridicule
everything” and its tendency “to target ideology” from afar. According
to Groening, South Park refuses to allow “ideology to take hold, prefer-
ring a highly mobile and detached approach to satire” in which the show
demonstrates that its “commitment is to be uncommitted” (123). Groening
links South Park to what he terms “the era of postideology” and refers to
the show’s “postideological cynicism” (124), apparently suggesting that
South Park passively avoids ideology instead of attacking or critiquing it.
However, Groening also observes South Park’s aversion to or disdain for
ideology, “ridicul[ing] ideological distortions” and “dismissing any claim
as ideology” (123), and he argues that the show functions as a source of
“validation” for the “cynicism and apathy” of its viewers, particularly
male members of Generation X (123-124). Likewise, Groening comments
on “the hidden danger of the cynicism affirmed by South Park” (124) and
declares that “the real cultural villainy of South Park is not its depictions
of swearing schoolchildren but its espousal of an emergent cynicism that
discourages its viewers from asserting political agency” (125). The word
“espousal” suggests that South Park’s “commitment” to avoid or to reject
ideology is an assertive ideology in and of itself, and a potentially harmful
one at that.2,3
Despite notable differences among the authors whose work I have
reviewed, all of them share a basic approach, arguing that South Park uses
satire in order to make ideologically charged comments on social reality.
In this essay, I will reassess the roles of satire and ideology in South Park,
focusing on the ways in which the show offers alternatives to the satirical
social commentary found in other cartoons. I will argue, first, that although
many episodes of the show use satire meaningfully to critique real-world
referents, other episodes deconstruct satire itself by depicting referents in
inverted, incongruous, or “random” ways. These pseudo-satirical strate-
gies lack the necessary coherence and underlying realism to deliver sin-
cere social criticism. After examining the forms of satire and pseudo-satire
found in South Park, I will respond to Coleman, Anderson, Becker, and
Groening’s interpretations of South Park as ideologically assertive. I will
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focus this portion of my discussion on South Park’s depictions of subur-
bia, and I will argue that in some episodes, the show serves neither as a
medium for socio-political commentary nor as a vehicle for meta-discur-
sive commentary on socio-political commentary. Instead, these episodes
of South Park escape any conclusive interpretation by subverting and jux-
taposing ideologically charged motifs, such as archetypal suburban expe-
riences, in an inextricably contradictory or ambiguous manner.
Satire and Pseudo-Satire in South Park
Some South Park episodes coherently depict social reality using
satire. Usually, the real-world referents that these episodes parody are ce-
lebrities, films, other television shows, and political trends. Satirical epi-
sodes of South Park need not depict their referents realistically; in most
cases, they hyperbolize or distort them severely. What marks an episode
as satirical, though, is the fact that even its distortions derive directly from
real characteristics of the referents to which they are applied. For exam-
ple, in “Trapped in the Closet” (Season 9), Scientologists discover that L.
Ron Hubbard, the founder of their church, has been reincarnated in Stan
Marsh, one of South Park’s fourth-grade protagonists. The night after this
discovery, Stan retires to his bedroom, only to find Tom Cruise eagerly
waiting to meet him there. Stan tells Cruise that he is a mediocre actor.
Tom Cruise, crestfallen, declares, “I’m nothing; I’m a failure in the eyes
of the prophet!,” and locks himself in Stan’s bedroom closet. Stan calls
to his father, in an annoyed tone, “Dad! Tom Cruise won’t come out of
the closet…Tom Cruise locked himself in my closet and he won’t come
out.” Nicole Kidman, John Travolta, and R. Kelly are sent to persuade
Tom Cruise to leave Stan’s closet, but he refuses. This episode distortedly
represents its referent, Tom Cruise, by exaggerating his zeal for Scientol-
ogy and by literalizing rumors of his homosexuality. However, even these
distortions correspond directly to perceived characteristics of the real-life
Tom Cruise. In this sense, satire links the fictional world of “Trapped in
the Closet” meaningfully and recognizably to reality. While this episode’s
depiction of Tom Cruise bears little or no ideological weight, it exempli-
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fies the type of satire that can serve as an effective vehicle for social criti-
cism.4
Other episodes, though, employ pseudo-satirical strategies to de-
pict referents in ways that bear little or no meaningful relation to reali-
ty. For example, in the first episode of South Park’s “Imaginationland”
trilogy (Season 11), a man dressed in vaguely Victorian-looking clothes
approaches Stan and his friends Kyle, Kenny, Jimmy, and Butters at the
school bus stop. The man is from Imaginationland, an alternate dimension
peopled by all the animate beings that the human imagination has ever cre-
ated. He lectures the children on the power of imagination, asking, “Hav-
en’t you boys ever used your imagination? You, young man [Stan]; how
would you like to be a cowboy, or a swashbuckling pirate? . . . all it takes
is a little imagination.” Meanwhile, music plays in the background, remi-
niscent of the music that often accompanies children’s television shows (at
one point, it closely approximates the soundtrack of The Magic Schoolbus
[1994-98]). The man from Imaginationland leads the boys aboard a hot air
balloon shaped like a pirate ship, where he tells them, in rhyming verse,
“Some people feel / imagination isn’t real, / but I tell them that they’re
wrong, / ‘cause whenever I want to play and pretend, I just sing the imag-
ination song.” Then, in a severely off-key voice, the man sings a song
whose only lyric is “imagination.” At this point, the episode coherently
satirizes children’s television programming that extols “imagination.”
However, the “Imaginationland” trilogy ultimately subverts this
satirical critique. Terrorists attack Imaginationland, blowing up the wall
separating evil imaginary creatures from good ones. Fearing, as a result,
that “our imaginations [will] start running wild,” the Pentagon plans a
nuclear attack against Imaginationland and argues that because imaginary
creatures are “not real,” it is not necessary to obtain congressional approv-
al for this assault. At this time, Stan is in Imaginationland, while his friend,
Kyle, is in the human world. Kyle experiences an auditory hallucination in
which Stan urges him to persuade the United States government to call off
its planned nuclear attack. Kyle is also addressed by Jesus, Luke Skywalk-
er, Superman, Hercules, Captain Crunch, and God, all of whom reside in
Imaginationland. Kyle attempts to avert the Pentagon’s planned atomic
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assault by convincing government officials that imaginary creatures are, in
fact, real. In a heartfelt monologue, he declares, “It’s all real. Think about
it: haven’t Luke Skywalker and Santa Claus affected your lives more than
most real people in this room? . . . in a way those things [figments of
the imagination] are more realer than any of us.” Pentagon officials are
moved by Stan’s comments, but Al Gore launches a nuclear bomb into
Imaginationland, completely destroying it. Butters, however, restores
Imaginationland by re-imagining all the creatures that used to inhabit it,
causing them spontaneously to reappear. This prompts Cartman to declare,
“maybe we all have the power to make things a reality.” Up to this point
in the “Imaginationland” trilogy, Cartman has attempted unsuccessfully
to force Kyle to “suck his balls,” and these attempts have been the focus
of a major subplot of the trilogy. Now, as Cartman, Kyle, Stan, Butters,
Pentagon officials, and a host of imaginary creatures stand in the newly
restored Imagionland, Cartman puts his fingers to his head, closes his eyes,
and conjures imaginary duplicates of himself and Kyle. The imaginary
Kyle bends down and grants the desired sexual act to the imaginary Cart-
man, while the real Cartman taunts the real Kyle. Kyle declares, “I’m not
sucking your balls; that’s imaginary,” to which Cartman responds, “No,
Kyle, I believe you said that imaginary things are real.” Cartman continues
taunting Kyle as they observe the imaginary act of fellatio, “Oh, look at
you go, Kyle! Oh, you dirty girl; you love those balls!” After Kyle, again,
protests, “I am not sucking Cartman’s balls,” the Victorian-suited imagi-
nary man, who earlier sang “the imagination song,” declares, “Whatever
you imagine to be real, is real.” At this point, South Park’s satirical repre-
sentation of children’s television shows that promote “imagination” exits
the realm of meaningful distortion or hyperbole. South Park berates these
television programs by linking them to an image of two nine-year-old boys
engaging in a sexual act. Unlike “Trapped in the Closet,” whose distorted,
satirical depiction of Tom Cruise derives directly from perceived char-
acteristics of the real Tom Cruise, “Imaginationland” pseudo-satirically
berates children’s television by incongruously juxtaposing this referent to
an unflattering, highly inappropriate scene. South Park forces the motif of
children’s television to invert or “undo” itself. Cartman is able to conjure
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a “real” image of Kyle “sucking Cartman’s balls” only because in Imag-
inationland, the power of imagination extolled by children’s television is
true in a literal sense and “Whatever you imagine to be real, is real.”
In other South Park episodes, rather than inverting referents, pseu-
do-satire depicts real-world motifs in arbitrary, apparently meaningless
ways. For example, a number of South Park episodes focus on Canada
and Canadians. These occasionally draw on traditional Canadian stereo-
types or poke fun at Canada’s perceived provinciality (e.g. in a Season
13 episode entitled “Eat, Pray, Queef,” the protagonists watch an episode
of a Canadian television show, which is preceded by a voiceover saying,
“You are watching the Canada Channel, the only channel in Canada”). For
the most part, though, South Park’s depictions of Canada are completely
idiosyncratic, bearing no connection to Canada itself or to stereotypes tra-
ditionally associated with it. In the show, Canadians have heads that are
disconnected at the jaw (i.e. when any Canadian character speaks, the top
half of his or her head bounces up and down, completely disconnected
from the bottom half). South Park uses an unusually rectangular animation
style when depicting Canada and Canadians: Canadians’ limbs and torsos
are rectangular, as are most inanimate objects in Canada. Even Canadi-
an car tires are square-shaped, causing cars to bob up and down as they
drive. South Park also frequently draws implicit links between Canada
and Saddam Hussein. Hussein’s high-pitched voice, his accent, and his
habit of addressing people as “guy” and “buddy” are almost identical to
South Park Canadians’ highly distinctive speech patterns (which are, for
the most part, unique South Park creations, unrelated to real Canadian dia-
lects). In addition, Saddam Hussein’s head is disconnected at the jaw, and
on two occasions, he figures as a Canadian head of state: in “Terrance and
Phillip in ‘Not Without My Anus’” (Season 2), Hussein conquers Canada;
and in “It’s Christmas in Canada” (Season 7), Hussein rules the country
by manipulating a large holographic head while standing furtively behind
a curtain in the Canadian Parliament Buildings (following The Wizard
of Oz [1939]). Disconnected heads, rectangularity, and connections with
Saddam Hussein bear no meaningful relationship to Canada as it exists in
reality or as it is stereotypically perceived. In these respects, rather than
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satirizing Canada, South Park uses it as a setting for purely arbitrary, pseu-
do-satirical play.
Suburbia and Ideology in South Park
South Park’s ambiguous depiction of suburbia provides a par-
ticularly clear window into how the show often avoids adhering to any
political position or making ideological assertions. In modern American
literature, particularly film and television, the suburb is both a locale and
a topic deeply fraught with socially critical meaning. Robert Beuka has
described the dichotomous ways in which suburbia is traditionally de-
picted either as the setting for the life of the ideal American family or as
the American dystopia par excellence (4). Relying on Foucauldian spatial
theory, Beuka describes the suburb as a “heterotopic ‘mirror’ to main-
stream American culture,” one which “reflects both an idealized image of
middle-class life and specific cultural anxieties about the very elements of
society that threaten this image” (7). He argues that this literary tradition
of suburbia motifs has a complex developmental history. During the early
post-war years, the nascent suburb was a repository for “utopian ideals”
(5), but these were soon met with socially critical attacks on suburbia in
both scholarly and literary contexts (6). Over time, this critical approach to
the suburban setting itself became a tired stereotype (10). As a result, some
more recent depictions of suburbia have responded to this socially critical
tradition either by abandoning it in favor of a return to the traditional uto-
pian perspective of the 1950’s or by attempting somehow to overcome the
traditionally dichotomous “overdetermination of suburbia” (10-12).
In its depiction of a pseudo-suburban setting and of suburban top-
ics, South Park takes an approach similar to this latter one described by
Beuka. However, rather than attempting to overcome socially idealistic
or socially critical suburban narrative traditions by offering “corrective
responses” (Beuka 14) in their stead, South Park more passively escapes
these traditions without offering any similarly meaningful alternative. One
way in which it does so is by ambiguously defining the geographic loca-
tion of the Coloradan town of South Park (the namesake setting of the
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show), alternatively emphasizing its rural proximity to natural “wilder-
ness,” its suburban proximity to the city of Denver, and at times even hint-
ing that it is an urban center of its own. In this way, the show abandons the
various socially critical meanings traditionally associated with suburbia.
Such ambiguity is first fully developed in the third episode of the series,
entitled “Volcano.” In this episode, Cartman, Kyle, Stan, and Kenny go
on a hunting trip with Stan’s uncle Jimbo and his crippled Vietnam-War
comrade, Ned. The episode begins with a view of Cartman’s house, a
two-story structure accompanied by a separate garage to which the house
is connected by a paved pathway and which leads out to an unseen street
via a paved driveway. Next to the front door of the house is a small pink
object on which the house’s street address is inscribed, and in front of the
garage is a garbage can. This is a classic suburban image, and similar icons
of suburbia repetitiously appear in most episodes of the show. In this way,
South Park insistently and repeatedly raises the topic of suburbia, thereby
setting the stage for its subversive evasion of the suburb’s traditional ideo-
logical meaning.
Cartman gets into Uncle Jimbo’s truck, where he finds his three
friends. They take a very short drive occupying only the time it takes them
to have a brief conversation. As the truck passes through what seems to
be the South Park town center alongside commercial establishments such
as one labeled “Tom’s Rhinoplasty,” Uncle Jimbo says, “It sure will be
nice to get out of the city for a while, away from civilization.” Then the
truck passes beyond the limits of the town center, immediately driving up
a steep, snow-covered hill and then parking atop it, at which point Jimbo
says, “Well, here we are.” As the episode progresses, it becomes clear that
the characters are not merely on a hill, but in the mountains, a true wilder-
ness. Of significance here is the puzzling proximity between Cartman’s
suburban home and the wilderness in which the characters go hunting,
leaving the viewer to wonder whether, perhaps, the show’s setting is not
suburban at all but, rather, strictly rural. The show further conflates rural
and suburban motifs when it identifies the mountain (a volcano, it turns
out) on which the boys are hunting as “Mt. Evanston,” presumably an al-
lusion to the famous suburb north of Chicago.
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However, there are also reverse indications precluding the possi-
bility that South Park is a rural town. Toward the end of “Volcano,” Stan’s
father saves South Park by diverting lava from a volcanic eruption using
an extended ditch. This scene is followed by an image of a city replete
with skyscrapers and accompanied by a sign that reads, “Denver, Popu-
lation 509,000.” Lava then flows over the mountains in the background,
and it spreads into the city, whose skyscrapers catch fire and whose cit-
izens run screaming. This suggests that South Park is in close proximi-
ty to Denver and that it is, indeed, a suburb. In these respects, the show
ambiguously defines its geographic setting in a manner that prevents any
consistent characterization of the town of South Park and that allows the
show passively to avoid the socially critical themes typically associated
with suburbia.
In other episodes, the show plays with the suburbia motif not by
focusing on the ambiguous suburban status of South Park, but by depict-
ing immigration into suburbia and the locals’ conflicted responses ranging
from racist, classist xenophobia to self-conscious, politically correct toler-
ance. This theme is significant, because, as Beuka has noted, suburbia has
come to represent social issues pertaining to race and class (8). In these
episodes, South Park avoids social or ideological commentary through
ambiguous, multi-layered subversion of the suburban immigration theme.
For example, in “Jackovasaurs” (Season 3), the boys discover a nearly
extinct humanoid creature in the woods known as a “jackovasaur.” The
people of South Park encourage the jackovasaur to breed with her mate,
Jackov, only to find that these new pseudo-immigrants multiply rapidly,
that they are “stupid” and “annoying,” and that they “piss off” the towns-
people. Ultimately, the residents of South Park develop a ploy to deport
the jackovasaurs to Paris.
This episode is extremely vague in its treatment of the suburban
immigration motif, initially prompting viewers to ask, “who are the jacko-
vasaurs, and what do they represent?” In some respects, these creatures
seem to represent nothing at all, certainly not minority-race immigrants
to suburbia symbolically pregnant with tense socio-political meaning.
Jackovasaurs partly evade an immigration-centered interpretation owing
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to their ambiguous status as ecological oddities. Although bipedal, the
jackovasaurs have beaks, and they are overseen by three suited men from
the Department of the Interior, one of whom explains to the townspeople,
“The noble jackovasaur is on the brink of extinction. And now, you as a
community have a chance to bring them back.” The phrase “the noble
jackovasaur” is reminiscent of televised documentaries on zoology and
detracts from the jackovasaurs’ representation of immigrants or racial mi-
norities in the suburbs by characterizing them as an exotic animal species.
At the same time, though, the episode provides vague indications that the
jackovasaurs do, indeed, represent immigrants to suburbia. For example,
in one iconic scene, the show’s protagonists sit in classroom surrounded
by a large group of young jackovasaurs. When the teacher asks a question,
one of the jackovasaurs raises his hand and enthusiastically answers, “I
don’t know!” After a series of similar responses from the jackovasaurs,
one of them spontaneously yells, “Ooh, fight, fight!,” at which point two
stand on a desk and begin rhythmically bumping their heads while several
others chant, “School, school, I like school; school, school, I like school.”
The jackovasaurs’ unruliness prevents the teacher, Mr. Garrison, from con-
tinuing to teach his class. This scene evokes conflict-fraught immigration
into suburbia, as hostile class and race relations often become particularly
pronounced in suburban schools, where debates rage over policies such as
detracking and primary instruction in languages other than English. This
politically charged use of the elementary school setting is typical of South
Park, whose representation of socio-political conflicts between minority
and majority groups often “begins in the children’s school yard, percolates
through their families, and eventually reaches the Mayor’s office” (Cole-
man 136).
Perhaps even more tellingly, toward the end of the episode, a fam-
ily of jackovasaurs appears in a sitcom entitled “Jackovasaurs,” which
seems to be an allusion to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. This allusion is
highlighted when Cartman unexpectedly walks into the living room in
which the sitcom is set and is met by enthusiastic applause from a recorded
studio audience, to which Cartman calls the viewer’s attention by respond-
ing, “what the hell is that?” (a classic example of what Weinstock terms
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“South Park’s curious self-referentiality—its hyperawareness of itself as
an animated program” in relation to other television shows [88] which
here functions as a way of calling the audience’s attention to an essential
allusion that is otherwise vague or easily overlooked). This is reminiscent
of the recorded applause that meets the entrance of charismatic characters,
particularly Jazz, in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990-96). In addition,
when the young jackovasaur in the sitcom tells his father that “something
really strange happened” to him that day, the father replies, “What, you
mean MTV played a video that wasn’t Will Smith?” Will Smith is the star
of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and this comment signals to the viewer
that Jackovasaurs is an allusion to the popular sitcom. The allusion is rel-
evant because Fresh Prince focuses on the life of a wealthy and highly
educated black family in an affluent suburb and frequently addresses local
interracial dynamics, which are usually lightheartedly idiosyncratic but at
times serious and problematic.5 As Coleman has demonstrated, wealth and
talent are closely associated with marginalized, minority status in South
Park, and these characteristics are often essential in arousing “nativist”
hostility against minority newcomers in the show (135-140). Although the
jackovasaurs are anything but wealthy and talented, the episode’s allusion
to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air relates the jackovasaurs to Coleman’s ob-
servations regarding wealth, talent, and minority status in South Park, par-
ticularly given that these motifs are all prominently linked to Will Smith
in the fifth-season episode “Here Comes the Neighborhood,” in which a
group of wealthy, polo-playing blacks moves into South Park, led by Will
Smith.6 Therefore by using the jackovasaurs as stand-ins for Will Smith’s
family in Fresh Prince, this episode offers a deeply complex, albeit vague
indication that it is, on some level, representing suburban immigration and
racial diversity.
But if the jackovasaurs are truly new immigrants to a suburban
South Park, what are we to make of the show’s depiction of them? Upon
recognizing that the jackovasaurs vaguely represent immigrants or racial
minorities, the viewer realizes that the episode may have profoundly racist
undertones. It seems to compare immigrants and minorities to an irritating,
unintelligent, pseudo-human exotic species. And what is more, the episode
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appears, on some level, to side with the townspeople who try to deport
the jackovasaurs, equivalent to racist suburbanites who do all within their
power to prevent the immigration of minority groups. For example, when
the first jackovasaur gives birth to a litter of children (forcefully and hast-
ily expelling them, prompting the mayor to compare her to “a cannon”),
Stan, who often stands in as a voice of reason in South Park, observes the
enormous size of the litter and thoughtfully remarks, “I’m not so sure this
is a good thing.” When the citizens of South Park meet with the mayor
to discuss problems posed by the jackovasaurs, they lodge what sound
like reasonable complaints. Mr. Garrison, for example, says, “Mayor, the
little jackovasaurs are ruining my classroom. I can’t teach our kids any-
thing.” The viewer sympathizes with Mr. Garrison, as this scene immedi-
ately follows the classroom scene in which the jackovasaurs rudely disrupt
Garrison’s class. Cartman is the only character who likes and defends the
jackovasaurs, which comes as somewhat of a shock since he is usually
portrayed as an ardent conservative and as the show’s least sympathetic
character. Thus, if we read the jackovasaurs as symbols for minority im-
migrants, the episode seems to put forth the thematic message that white
suburbanites ought to exclude all others from their suburbs.
In this surprising way, rather than presenting one of two tradition-
al depictions of suburbia as a secure utopia unthreatened by immigration
or as a dystopian vehicle for social commentary against American racism
and xenophobia (traditional approaches described by Beuka), the episode
seems to do something altogether different by using the suburb as a setting
for racist social commentary. Brian Anderson, who, as mentioned above,
believes South Park to be “anti-liberal,” would argue that my interpreta-
tion of “Jackovasaurs” should stop here, and that the episode’s racist social
commentary is its deepest, most conclusive level of thematic meaning.
This is not the case, however. At the end of the episode, when Cartman
mourns the loss of his jackovasaur friends immediately after they are de-
ported, the mayor stoops down on her knee and addresses the boy, say-
ing, “I know it’s hard Eric, but I’ve learned something today. See, animal
species come and go; it’s all part of natural evolution” (emphasis added).
The mayor speaks in a deeply empathic tone as she justifies the deporta-
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tion of the jackovasaurs, while sentimental, uplifting music plays in the
background, ostensibly implying that the episode sympathizes with the
mayor’s thematic monologue. However, this monologue and its setting are
far too formulaic and overblown to be taken seriously. Many South Park
episodes end with Stan, one of the show’s protagonists, delivering a heart-
felt monologue in front of his community, accompanied by similar senti-
mental music, and formulaically beginning with the words, “You know,
I’ve learned something today.” These monologues, like the one the mayor
addresses to Cartman, tend to express pseudo-thematic messages. Howev-
er, they are not to be taken seriously, as the uniform, exaggeratedly senti-
mental context in which they are delivered reveals that they are objects of
cynical ridicule, leaving the viewer to conclude that even when episodes
seem to have thematic messages (as expressed in the monologues), these
messages are not sincerely intended.7 The mayor’s comments at the end of
“Jackovasaurs” are akin to Stan’s formulaic conclusions, and they reveal
that, in fact, the episode’s vague but at times undeniably racist message is
not a conclusive reflection of the episode’s viewpoint.
Nevertheless, for several reasons, we would be wrong to conclude
that, all along, the episode has ostensibly sympathized with anti-jackova-
saur sentiments only in order ultimately to reverse its position. First, the
mayor’s final monologue, along with other similar, equally eloquent ones
delivered by Ned and Uncle Jimbo, is far too removed from the themes
of suburban immigration and diversity to constitute an outright rejection
of the episode’s racist undertones. These monologues focus entirely on
ecological topics. In her statement quoted above, the mayor refers to evo-
lution, while Ned and Jimbo state that one ought to “let nature run its
course” in determining species’ fates. This ecological discussion has no
apparent connection with underlying themes of immigration and diver-
sity, so the episode’s cynical rejection of these concluding monologues
does not sufficiently clarify its thematic position. In fact, by reintroducing
and emphasizing the zoological status of the jackovasaurs, the episode
makes the viewer doubt, again, whether the jackovasaurs really do repre-
sent minority immigrants. Furthermore, after the concluding monologues,
Cartman continues to mourn the loss of his jackovasaur friends, and sad
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solo-piano music plays. This music is much more sincere than the over-
ly sentimental music that precedes it, leading the viewer momentarily to
sympathize with Cartman and to take seriously the idea that the show is
rejecting the symbolically racist deportation of the jackovasaurs. Howev-
er, Kyle comments to Stan, “Dude, I’ve never seen Cartman care so much
about something,” to which Stan replies, “Yeah, I guess he finally found
something that’s as annoying as he is.” This is a reminder that Cartman
is a deeply selfish, unsympathetic character, who usually embodies the
conservatism that he seems symbolically to reject in this episode by pro-
testing against the deportation of “immigrants.” This inexplicable reversal
indicates that the show’s ostensible, temporary sympathy toward Cartman
and the jackovasaurs at the end of the episode is not to be taken seriously,
just as the episode’s previous sympathy for the townspeople and the racist
deportation of the jackovasaurs cannot be taken seriously either. In what
ideological camp, then, has the episode ultimately landed? It has landed in
none at all, as its sustained ambiguity, contradictions, and reversals defy
any consistent interpretation.
There is another, later episode that treats the theme of suburban
immigration less ambiguously. Rather than using vague symbols, such as
jackovasaurs, to hint at ideologically charged subtexts, it clearly depicts
political motifs, but it subverts them contradictorily in order to evade
ideological meaning. In this eighth-season episode entitled “Goobacks,”
immigrants from the future invade South Park in an attempt to escape
unemployment in the severely overpopulated world of the year 3045. As
South Park residents are quickly booted from their jobs in favor of the
much cheaper labor of these “Goobacks,” a highly charged debate ensues
over how to respond to this wave of immigration. While local liberals urge
tolerance toward the immigrants, conservatives are determined to protect
their own jobs. After South Park’s congressman rejects the conservatives’
suggestion that all immigrants from the future be shot, the conservatives
come up with another plan to prevent further time-immigration: “If we can
get everyone to turn queer then there won’t be no children to have no chil-
dren and the people from the future won’t exist to take our jobs!” There-
upon all of South Park’s reactionary conservatives undress and engage in
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homosexual relations in the streets (with the resulting “pile” of nude men
graphically depicted). However, Stan addresses the pile of conservatives
and says, “if we all commit right now to working towards a better future
then, then the future won’t be so bad and the immigrants won’t need to
come back here looking for work.” The conservatives are swayed by this
rhetoric, whereupon a montage shows South Park residents engaging in
various activities stereotypically associated with liberal social activism,
such as planting trees, recycling, feeding African tribesmen, establishing a
windmill power plant, etc. These images are accompanied by an absurdly
caricatured song about how “we’ve got to work for a better future,” whose
stanzas end with the verse, “the future begins with you and me.” Suddenly,
though, the montage and the accompanying music are interrupted when
Stan abruptly states, “Dude wait wait hold on, wait a second. This is gay,”
to which Cartman replies, “yah, this is even gayer than the men getting in
a big pile and having sex with each other.” The conservatives then begin
to undress and run “back to the pile.”
Unlike “Jackovasaurs,” “Goobacks” clearly identifies liberal and
conservative viewpoints, labeling its archetypal liberal character an “ag-
ing hippie liberal douche” and the leader of the conservatives a “pissed
off white trash redneck conservative”. Similarly, while “Jackovasaurs”
is always vague in its representation of immigration (hiding behind the
veil of an ostensible ecological theme), there is no such ambiguity in
“Goobacks.” The immigrants from the future enter the present through
a time portal located in a Southwestern desert, an allusion to Southwest-
ern border crossings from Mexico. Similarly, even the term “Gooback” is
reminiscent of a similar-sounding racist slur against Hispanic-American
immigrants and laborers, and the suburban context of this episode’s immi-
gration theme is presented with remarkable clarity. For example, the boys
attempt to make pocket money by shoveling snow from neighbors’ drive-
ways, but no one will hire them because the immigrants are willing to do
the same work for only twenty-five cents. The boys look down a street of
houses placed one after another and see immigrants from the future shov-
eling every driveway. This scene indubitably associates the episode and its
motifs with suburbia, as the youthful custom of shoveling driveways is a
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suburban phenomenon, and the long, dense line-up of identical houses is
an iconic suburban image.
However, despite this clarity of representation, it is impossible to
determine with which of the represented political viewpoints the episode
sympathizes, because it constantly subverts each one. For example, when
Stan comes home from a conservative rally protesting against the “Goo-
backs,” his parents, in good liberal fashion, exhort him to be more toler-
ant of these immigrants from the future and call the term “Goobacks” “a
time-bashing slur.” However, even while expressing characteristically lib-
eral views, Stan’s father says, “next time you think about calling them [the
immigrants] Goobacks, you might wanna just stop for a second and think
about how crappy the future really is.” This pessimistic pronouncement on
the future, although delivered with liberalistic, tolerant intentions, is at the
same time contrary to liberal progressivism. Similarly, the conservatives’
resolution to “take off all our clothes, scramble into a big pile and start
gettin’ gay with each other” is at once conservative in its attempt to pre-
vent immigration and save American jobs, while it is also blaringly count-
er-conservative in its support of homosexuality. Most significant, though,
is the subversion of socio-political viewpoints at the show’s conclusion.
When Stan delivers his ethical pronouncement to the piled conservatives,
urging them not to prevent the future but to make it better, the episode os-
tensibly sides with this liberal proposal. However, excessively sentimental
music accompanies Stan’s revelation, demonstrating that the show is only
cynically feigning sympathy toward it. Similarly, even during the ensu-
ing montage depicting liberal activism, Cartman elatedly shouts, “look,
it’s working!” and points at a group of “Goobacks” fading into oblivion.
The most stereotypically liberal actions depicted in the episode are moti-
vated by the counter-liberal, discriminatory goal of making immigrants
disappear. When Stan subsequently declares that this outpouring of liberal
generosity is “gay,” one may at first conclude that the episode sympathizes
with his final, conservative pronouncement. However, the conservatives’
immediate return to “the pile” is a subversion of this viewpoint as well,
precluding the possibility that the show is delivering a conservative mes-
sage.
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Along similar lines as “Jackovasaurs,” “Goobacks” makes several
alternations between opposing ideological positions. None of these alter-
nations, though, is sincere, and the episode thoroughly subverts each of
its ostensible socio-political perspectives, ultimately leaving the viewer to
wonder in what ideological territory the episode has landed. The answer is
simply that it has avoided conclusive ideological meaning altogether. This
avoidance does not take the form of active, critical rejection (itself inextri-
cable from the realm of ideology), since the episode’s farcical subversion
of socio-political viewpoints ought not to be confused with serious criti-
cism of these perspectives. Like South Park’s pairing of children’s tele-
vision with an image of two nine-year-old boys performing a sexual act
in “Imaginationland,” “Goobacks” forces liberalism and conservatism to
“undo” or invert themselves, but this strategy of inversion is not ideolog-
ically meaningful or coherent. The episode’s graphic depiction of staunch
conservatives publicly performing homosexual acts is absurd and is not
meant to imply anything about conservatism, just as its subversions of
liberalism are ridiculous and do not meaningfully critique liberal ideology.
Likewise, South Park’s unyieldingly ambiguous depiction of socio-polit-
ical themes in “Jackovasaurs” does not amount to critical commentary
on these themes. These techniques of subversion and ambiguity are not
means of rejecting or critiquing socio-political meaning but, rather, of es-
caping it altogether. Episodes that employ these strategies successfully re-
frain from promoting any particular ideology, and they also avoid the sort
of anti-ideological ideology that Groening and Becker identify in South
Park.
Conclusion
While some episodes of South Park use satire as a vehicle for so-
cial commentary, other episodes subvert traditional satire by pseudo-satir-
ically depicting real-world referents in inverted, incongruous, or arbitrary
ways. In addition, South Park often refrains from making, supporting, or
critiquing ideological assertions by ambiguously subverting ideologically
charged motifs. In these respects, the show offers a unique alternative to
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the satirical and social-critical conventions of other animated television
programs. South Park is best understood as a remarkably complex, ab-
stract, and playful exercise in imaginative signification freely removed
from the pragmatic world of socio-political reality.
Daniel J. Frim
Harvard University
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Notes
Weinstock has argued that South Park’s relationship with these two
1
shows is of particular significance (88).
2
In my interpretation of Groening, I am guided by Dr. Tess O’Toole.
3
It is also worth noting, at this point, David Janssen’s analysis of South
Park, which, in some respects, synthesizes the approaches I have outlined. Like
Coleman, Janssen suggests that “Parker and Stone [the creators of South Park] do
set out to satirize specific topics,” such as admiration of celebrities, and in doing
so believe that their “‘high moral purpose’ is to cure this social ill by harshly at-
tacking it” (31). Also, along similar lines as Becker and Groening, Janssen notes
that South Park engages in “moral undercutting” and expresses a general “lack of
faith in humanity” (ibid.). However, Janssen adds to these approaches by pointing
out the “tragic” valence of satire in South Park (32) as well as the ways in which
the show allows viewers to experience solidarity with the targets of its satire (34-
35).
4
Many thanks to Gunsagar Gulati for helping me identify some of this
episode’s allusions to popular culture and to Paul Lisker for directing me to this
episode as a particularly clear example of traditional satire in South Park. I would
also like to acknowledge, at this point, my reliance throughout this paper on the
advice of the following colleagues, mentors, and fellow students of South Park:
Jose Bengochea, Thomas Draganski, Adam G. Frim, Michael J. Frim, Nick Lash,
David Sackstein, Preston So, and Tian Zeng.
5
Many thanks to Dr. Tamara M. Claman for calling my attention to these
aspects of the show.
6
For further discussion of “Here Comes the Neighborhood,” see Cole-
man (135-137).
7
For further discussion of monologues prefaced by “I’ve learned some-
thing today,” see Rennie (205), who writes, “South Park mocks this act of sum-
marizing a lesson learned.” Groening views Stan’s monologues as a means of
satirizing and critiquing “the modern notion of intellectual and emotional working
through and working out,” and he agrees that “The depth of Stan’s transforma-
tion…is open to question” (119).
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Daniel J. Frim is a student in Harvard University’s Folklore and Mythology
program. His work has focused on folkloric aspects of the Hebrew Bible and
late antique Jewish literature, and he is currently completing a study regarding a
sixth-century collection of nautical tall tales written in Jewish Babylonian Ara-
maic. He is also interested more broadly in folkloristic theory and its application
to the oral and literary narrative traditions of various cultures. He has conducted
folkloristic field research among Athapascan elders in Canada’s Yukon Territory
as well as among Cape Cod fishermen.
171
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