I couldn't really stand Season 21 of South Park. I skipped to the last two episodes because I respect the Wisecrack peeps and I wanted to see their take. The have a South Park podcast and many of their writers also hate this past season. It's truly awful.
Now I do understand the everyone will be made fun of at some point when watching South Park. For the past decade they've been pretty equal opportunity offenders, pissing off anyone and everyone. They have shit on my personal views in past episodes, but their overall feel has been pretty god damn funny. And they seem to try to hit every side.
Season 20 was one long cluster fuck. They seriously didn't even consider the idea the election could go the opposite direction. They had no 2nd set of scripts and episodes produced? What short sided fuckwits. You can tell they rehashed a bunch of stuff that should have been in a turd sandwich win, and how it didn't make any sense within the rewrite.
I wish they had stuck to Douche and Turdy instead of placing in the real candidates. They don't do a really good job of mocking all the sides either. Hillary had so few jabs at her, and in the last episode, Mr. White is pretty belittled by a pretty widely held belief that "Hillary would have been just as bad." This character is associated with the Mr. White-style persona (which is most of you Voters), but very few people with that view think Hillary would have been just as bad. That view point is pretty independent of the actual Trump supporter. It's more inline with some x% of the 44% of people who didn't vote at all. It should have been two separate characters.
In this season, Parker and Stone just climb on the 24/7 hate bandwagon. They no longer satire anything. They have totally bought in to the polarization. There is no objectivity and the joke lasts the entire season. Few of the jokes even work work.
I really wish they would have ignored politics this season. Maybe they could have Mr Garrison in an episode or two, but in making him the focus of the entire past two seasons, they've alienated whole segments of their audience. In the past, this was fine, because it was just one episode. If you don't like it. Well tough shit. Get over it. But when you do it for an entire season and push it as religious ideology, you forget that a comedy should be ... well .. funny.
Stories should stand on their own. The Zukerfuck joke was so poorly executed. I didn't even get the Kung Fu reference at all for the entire episode. They could have, at the minimum, had him put on a headband, and use some of their fun 3D stuff to show him deflecting everyone like the old Kung Fu movies (if you got that joke just now, don't worry. No one did. It was terrible writing and execution).
The other problem with Zuckerfuck was it took an event that happened the week before that barely anyone knew or gave a shit about. It's okay to have a 5% joke, but if you make the entire episode about it, you're not funny or edgy, you're an idiot for thinking everyone watches the same 24/7 hate that you do.
I think South Park is pretty much in the same category as The Simpsons. The Simpsons use to satire traditional sitcoms, and people related to them because so many of us related better to the reality of the dysfunctional family. It challenged us and made us laugh at a reality people were afraid to face. It made fun of celebrities (remember insane Michael Jackson?). Homer use to be a not great dad people can relate to. Now, he's a buffoon. The story writing is absurdist with space adventures and Homer taking weird jobs every episode. They now frequently have actual celebrities on the show. They've turned into the very thing they were satirizing in the 90s.
Meanwhile Rick n Morty and BoJack Horseman have engaged that same absurdist view, but in a way that openly mocks and undermines all the sticky tacky bullshit we expect from stories. They have no subtext (I don't really like this but whatever. It's a feature adopted from things like Better Off Ted, Community, Arrested Development, etc. .. I never liked those shows), and they rip things away from you in ways that are dark, funny and horrifying all at the same time. It's a punch in the urethrae.
South Park is now nothing by eyePhones (why the fuck does everyone have only Apple products?), product placement (oh that's why), advertisements (including one for their own fucking video game) and self-critiquing stuff that may elect a giggle, but is ultimately as unsatisfying as Star Wars 7 & 8 ... which they mock a lot somewhat ironically. They play out their Netflix/Hulu drama in the show, which is just .. more fucking product placement. I really hope they're getting paid for that shit by Pandora, Hulu, Spotify because if not, there's like .. no justification for any of those jokes.
It's just not funny anymore. It's fucking stupid. I heard how bad it was and stupidly watched it to see it for myself. I feel dumber for picking it up again and I don't think I'm going to watch any more seasons, or even finish the middle of 21.
view the rest of the comments →
[–] ArchmageMordenkainen 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
I used to defend Parker and Stone by pointing out that Viacom has them by the balls. However, at this point I have to admit that if they've let it happen this often they've decided they're okay with it, and are complicit. After what happened with Cartoon Wars, and the 200/201 special, they should have seen the writing on the wall and left.