I hate Trey Parker and Matt Stone

I realize that if you find Trey Parker and Matt Stone's offensive gross out humor funny, or their cartooning somehow visually compelling, than I guess there's nothing a critic can say to stop this feeling, and I respect that. I'm sure there's tons of funny movies that I liked and people hated and like a coworker said (is that PC?), 'some people just like chocolate, and some like vanilla,' (I don't think he was even aware of the pun, and it's racial 'South Parkesque' overtones, even though he loves the show.) Let me also say that I hate the liberal PC deconstruction of the English language as much as Trey Parker and Matt Stone, I'm sure, and think that the Boomers are just pathetic to think that they could give up on the actual change required for a more equal society by masking it in an overly careful, overly preened language, that only took whatever street thug poetry existed in our polyglot called 'American,' our unique tongue, free of the King of England. I miss how people used to talk in the movies when women were girls, servers were waiters, flight attendants were stewardesses, African Americans were Blacks, etc. (I was taught that 'Black,' was a liberated word as in the 'Black power movement,' and James Brown singing "Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud.") The changes have done nothing to make our society better in the least, only masking the real racial/gender problems that we face, so here's to Trey Parker and Matt Stone for jumping on the Gen X Anti-PC bandwagon, and I guess leading us into the blinding Sun; but political correctness became such a joke in our culture because of the failed revolution of the Sixties when political consciousness was at a peak in the wake of the Nazi atrocities in World War II, and the hope that the world would never go down such an awful path again. Sure, the boomers sold out and started driving BMW's (beautifully lampooned by Sarah Silverman in 'Why do Jews drive German cars'), but that doesn't mean the original impulse of their failed revolution for a more moral America was wrong in the least.

I know it's a Gen X bummer that we only got to catch the end of this dream so we've reveled in its failure as a kind of reaction against our parents and that's only natural. It's the well spring of punk, grunge, and lots of great sitcoms that dismantle the PC language much better than Trey Parker or Matt Stone ever did ("The Office," "30 Rock," "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," to name a few) but at the bottom of these shows there is a sense that a wounded tortured liberal FDR/Kennedy inspired soul, is lying beneath the surface of the writing, and mocking contemporary liberal culture as a sort of reaction against the Democratic Party that the Clinton's best represent, and that did little for core Democratic Party beliefs, but offered a lot of PC lip service as some kind of substitute, in the hopes that neutralizing the language would make for a more equal America, a ludicrous lazy idea. The problem with "South Park" and reactionary PC humor in general is that it's only funny if you see it as a reaction against the 'sell-out' of your culture, through some pretty wishy washy leftover ideas from the Sixties, missing the spark of revolution. It sort of relies on a 'wink-wink' with it's generally liberal arts educated audience that went through college and had to struggle with the PC language in term papers, and introductory courses on everything from race relations, to economics, and on this 'wink-wink' level it is funny.... maybe even "South Park," gets a point or two for this (God, does it pain me to say that), but if you take the 'wink-wink' out of this humor, I'm afraid something very dangerous can happen very quickly. Let's face it 'anti-PC' humor revels in making fun of minorities of every stripe (the real accidental victims of the PC takeover of the language), and it gives incredible cover to real racists, misogynists, anti-semites, and bigots. Less egregiously, or more, depending on your point of view, this new form of comedy gives a sort of window to let bigots have their say in the public discourse, and this might've started with Rush Limbaugh's 'Fem Nazi's,' that made a point, but I doubt anyone from Oakwood would be caught dead saying they were a fan of his, and I'd say Trey Parker and Matt Stone, aren't that far off from him, save they aren't LITERALLY propagandizing for a political party.

Clearly, these two 'nihilists,' of a sort of remedial sort, were clever enough to pass the laugh test and trick people (my friends) into thinking that because they make fun of EVERYONE that somehow they are free of criticism, existing on a kind of island of their own, but that's bullshit. Sure, their comedy is reactionary, just like Sarah Silverman's, but beneath the reaction I see a couple of right wing guys that figured out a great way to make fun of liberals of every stripe, without taking any political heat for it. I get the idea that the religious right probably hates them, but they don't like anything that doesn't adhere to a pretty strict and consistent message, so they weren't really trying to win them to their side anyway, and I'd argue that a lot of kids with Evangelical parents that voted Republican in the Nineties and 2000's, were big "South Park" fans thinking they were watching a very subversive show because they made fun of organized religion, and were probably very comfortable with "South Park," because they could flip the bird at their parents, while at the same time maintaining their core Republican beliefs of a 'White America' that they were probably too young to realize they had inculcated in them, killing two birds with one (Matt) Stone. I guess it's easy for me to go off on these two because I don't think they present a very complicated picture for a critic, or at least not this one, because I just don't think they are comically talented. I'm sure we could make arguments that the timing of the show was perfect, but once you get past that and their luck, neither Parker or Stone are as interesting to think about as, say, that schmuck Larry David, or Woody Allen, who I've lost all respect for, or many others, whose comic gift is just kind of unquestionable, even if their politics bug the shit out of me, or I hate what their movies or shows are about. There are some comics like athletes that you just have to concede are great, even if you hate them on a personal level, just like you have to do with some politicians; I'd say Reagan and Clinton are perfect examples of this to me, two men that I find just detestable regarding policy, but have to admit they had real political chops, and were just likable, like that guy at a party that you want to punch in the face if he just wasn't so damn charming, but I don't get this from the guys behind "South Park" in the least, and don't see anything particularly brilliant about them, save that they had perfect timing. They are no funnier than a couple of kids telling fart jokes, and not even joking on the 'fart joke,' just letting it rip, and going for laughs.