Adult cartoon “South Park” is perhaps best known for two things:
- An intentionally crude animation style meant to mimic paper cutouts
- An irreverent attitude that aims to skewer ideas and people all across the ideological spectrum — from former President Donald Trump and immigration policies to Harry and Meghan, and trangenderism.
The show, which first aired in 1997, has been running strong for some time now and has made it clear it will continue on taking a gleeful hatchet to all of society’s most divisive topics and the show’s latest teaser makes it clear that will continue.
In a new trailer for a “South Park” “exclusive event” (more on this terminology later) slated to air Oct. 27, the show makes it clear what it will be lampooning this go-around: identity politics and race or gender swaps in established fictitious characters.
You can watch the “official teaser” for the Paramount+ exclusive event below:
WARNING: The following video contains content the viewer may find offensive
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In the clip, the core cast of characters, all of whom are young white boys, have all been “re-cast” as various women of color, with the exception of Kyle.
The joke, presumably, is that Kyle, a Jewish character, already fulfills the “minority” requirement. The rest of the show’s main characters, however, were drastically changed.
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Cartman became a black woman, Stan became a Hispanic woman, Butters became a black woman, and Kenny became an Asian woman to round out the dramatic changes.
When Kyle complained about these re-casts not making any sense, the show’s “P.C. Principal” character (“politically correct” principal) told him that he was the problem — an oft-cited retort to many complaints about race or gender swaps in established fiction.
The trailer was largely met with enthusiasm from fans, based on the YouTube responses, but others were less than enamored with this latest teaser from “South Park.”
One example of that comes from the far-left leaning AV Club, which ripped the trailer right out of the gate with their article title: “There’s a new South Park ‘event’ teaser and god, we’re already so tired.”
The content of the article matched the tenor of the title, and a swift glance at the comments on that article show a number of people upset with South Park’s latest parody.
But whatever drama the show’s latest teaser may have triggered pales in comparison to the drama behind the scenes of the long-running adult cartoon.
The reason that this new trailer is touting an “exclusive event” and not a new episode, season or movie, is because of an ugly (and still unresolved) $50 million lawsuit surrounding the show.
The complicated legal battle largely stems from streaming rights issues, with Paramount, South Park Digital Studios and Warner Bros. all involved in the ongoing litigious controversies.
In grossly simplified terms, “South Park” creating new episodes or a new season, or a new movie, could potentially violate the streaming rights deal they signed.
The current workaround are these “exclusive events.”
