Question 12; South Park

Aesthetic: In the opening credits, the show acknowledges that it is a text, demonstrating self-awareness. Randy saying “nigger” and being labeled as the “nigger guy” serves as a symbol of race relations and sensitivity in the United States, and serves no relation to the real. Token’s offended attitude particularly serves as signifier to black sensitivity. Whiteness is thus constructed around blackness. For example, Randy is identified by the basis that he said “nigger” on TV. South Park also demonstrates intertextuality by drawing from various shows such as Wheel of Fortune and Seinfeld and by identifying people such as Mark Fuhrman from the O.J. Simpson trial. The show does little critiquing of these shows and characters, keeping it within the aesthetic realm. By referencing various genres of TV shows, such as drama, South Park acknowledges that it too is a TV show.

Critical: South Park wants you to understand its popular culture references, such as the reference regaurding Mark Fuhrman. The problems of racial tensions and other social injustice (for example, involving midgets) are contemporary social issues. Because the opening of the show is offensive (it is obvious that the word on wheel of fortune is “nigger” even though it turns out to be “nagger”) South Park acknowledges this problem on a critical level. Also, when the midget tries to keep his cool and then looses it, the problem of social criticism is further addressed. The concept of white trash is addressed when balding men with facial hair show up with shotguns, in a pick up truck, wearing clothes with holes, talking slang and saying things such as “you got trouble.” Censorship is also addressed when Randy seeks to make the term “nigger-guy” illegal. It is critiqued because the word is not even a legitimate term, thus mocking the idea of censorship in the U.S. Significantly, the only politician who opposed the banning of “nigger-guy” was a black man.

Ontological: This show demonstrates the ontological because it makes us rethink what we consider about race, and therefore disrupts the way in which we think about the world in terms in race. By showing blacks such as Tokin who are over sensitive about Randy saying “nigger” on TV and by showing whites who are “socially ignorant” (such as Eric when he won’t stop laughing at the midget, and how Eric says his dad isn’t stupid—he’s just racist, and how Randy believed that Jesse Jackson was the emporer of black people) both races are critiqued in order to challenge the dominant constructions of race. This disruption makes us consider the process of discourse and causes us to consider the alternative and adopt different ontologies involving race categories. South Park, like the Chappelle Show, uses humor to change the way we think about whiteness. Additionally, the concept of “white trash” must be reconsidered. Their role is reversed in this episode of South Park. Instead of being bigoted and ignorant, the men claim that they “don’t take kingly to social ignorance.”