South Park Satire
Screw you guys, I’m going home
Ever since 1997, South Park has revolutionized the cable TV scene as a profane and obscene program that isn’t afraid to mock religious, political, and cultural topics and not get away with at least offending somebody. Throughout its twelve seasons, some of the most prominent events in pop culture have suffered the wrath of ridicule from the show’s creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, and succeeded in making millions of Americans laugh until they cry. The creative genius behind these cultural and controversial statements has exalted the series to iconic status in our entertainment industry for its satirical voice in each episode. Throughout its ten years on air, South Park has broken multiple political, religious, and racial boundaries while constantly battling negative criticism with its controversial themes, but it maintains a moderate political bias.
Dawning in the early 1990’s, two young University of Colorado students created a short video animation using construction paper and stop-action animation. It was simply titled “Jesus versus Frosty” and it depicted four young boys building a snowman, the snow coming to life causing destruction, and baby Jesus coming to the rescue by decapitating the snowman by throwing his halo at him. At first this was a makeshift project with no intentions of moving further until a network executive at the FOX Network saw the short and asked the animators to reconstruct the rough draft into another film. The new animation was renamed “Jesus versus Santa” and portrayed a death match arguing the true meaning of Christmas. It was now “Fox versus Comedy Central” battling to see about who would produce a series from the crude short and an overnight sensation that would overtake animation history and incite controversy among the “intolerant” antics of the lives of four young Colorado elementary students.
South Park has been the cornerstone of controversy in...
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