Essay on Controversy Behind South Park's Ethics

Sunday nights on Cartoon Network has become fertile ground for some of the most side-spitting, razor-sharp humor on this side of a cable box. The show concepts that constitute the "Adult Swim" block of programming on CN has drawn its fair share of rave reviews and harsh criticism from anybody willing to offer an opinion. For Afro-American viewers, no show represents that aforementioned razor's edge quite like Aaron McGruder's comic strip creation, "The Boondocks". The first season of the weekly series found every way possible to poke humor at many of the events, individuals, and situations we see around ourselves on a daily basis. In some cases, the biting satire that's

As something people tend to hold the most dearly, culture can be a sensitive topic to discuss and engage in. Often, it is made even more difficult due to issues of the past and the way different cultures influence one another. Moreover, the concepts of cultural assimilation and mainstreaming have brought light on problems regarding the treatment of minority cultures within American culture, specifically with the use of stereotyped imagery and hijacking outside cultural ideas. The issues of cultural stereotyping and assimilation, as seen in South Park, have garnered attention due to the nature of offence and its subjective nature.

1. The Mayor of a large city was given a free membership in an exclusive golf club by people who have received several city contracts. He also accepted gifts from organizations that have not done business with the City but might in the future. The gifts ranged from $200 tickets to professional sports events to designer watches and jewelry.

South Park is about four boys and their wild adventures, as they go through elementary school. The main characters are Stan Marsh, Kenny McCormick, Eric Cartman and Kyle Broflovski. In an episode called ‘Big Gay Al’s Big Gay Boat Ride’ South Park is explaining to the audience that we should accept homosexuality and that it is ok to be a homosexual. We should accept homosexuality & homosexuals. Same as we accept heterosexuals, we need to dispel of old convictions.

South Park - it either makes you cringe or grin ear to ear. The latter will most likely be the result for the millennial crowd. With the show closing in on two decades it remains as strong and relevant as it was in 1997. However, it isn't entirely without fault given the amount of time Matt and Trey shrewdly concoct an episode. The one week deadline has on very rare occasions diminished the core viewers expectation. But more often what usually follows are extremely memorable moments that wrapped the remaining season in comedic gold. Even when the internet naysayers give their untimely goodbyes to the show at any point in its existence it still manages to be head and shoulders above anything else in the genre (such a thing?). The show has earned

Saturday Night Live, shortened as SNL, is a sketch-comedy show that has aired since 1975 on NBC. The variety show created by Lorne Michaels have boosted the careers of Bill Murray, Steve Martin, Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Amy Poelher and Jimmy Fallon to name a few. Saturday Night Live is what most comedians aspire to be on and what celebrities want to host. What keeps the show alive is the variety of characters brought on by the cast members and the weekly update segment. As new cast members enter so do new characters and as old cast members leave so do their characters. What keeps the show alive is how it constantly evolves with the times, keeping up with current affairs, making jokes relevant to what is going on in society. An example of keeping

Since its start, the television industry has been criticized for perpetuating myths and stereotypes about African-Americans through characterizations, story lines, and plots. The situation comedy has been the area that has seemed to draw the most criticism, analysis, and disapproval for stereotyping. From Sanford and Son and The Jefferson’s in the 1970s to The Cosby Show (1984) and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in the 1990s, sitcoms featuring black casts and characters have always been controversial. However, their significance upon our American culture cannot be disregarded. During the 1950s and 1960s, 97% of the families were Caucasian. In the first five years of the

The movie The Boondock Saints provides an excellent example of positive deviance through innovation. The Social theory of deviance can easily explain the brothers’ actions. The movie can be used to study deviance as the brothers kill people who are mafia members, breaking the norms of society. Even though the acts they are committing are clearly illegal and deviant, the people of South Boston do not react in a negative way. Since the Social theory is very broad, it will be easier to look at the brother’s acts under three sub theories: Labeling, Conflict and Strain theories.

South Park has been around for a while now. Since it was aired for the first time on 13th August 1997, the show has constantly pushed the boundaries taking on everything, leaving out nothing. The reception among the wider population and the media had a wide range from “shocking” to “excellent”. One of the aspects of this success story is that, because of its provocative tone the show has managed to stay in the limelight. Public debate was evolving around certain episodes, bringing more and more attention to the show. As it was constantly picking up contemporary themes, topics or events, expectations were growing and “ 'How will South Park deal with x ' has become a common catch phrase” (Johnson-Woods 257). Another

One of the most common criticisms of Seinfeld is that the characters and writing of the show are amoral . These critics may point to episodes like “The Marine Biologist,” where Jerry and George a purposefully lie to a woman about George’s career so that George may have a chance of sleeping with her. On one hand it’s tempting to dismiss these critics as nitpicking or misconstruing comic content, but on the other hand I feel that their claims are misguided. In fact, I have observed that there are in fact many ethical themes in Seinfeld, and I am certainly not alone in that observation. That observation is the crux of Robert Epperson’s article “Seinfeld and the Moral Life,” compiled in the 2000 book, Seinfeld and Philosophy. Epperson argues, as I will throughout the essay, that, “Seinfeld is largely about characters attempting to live a moral life.” This view has particularly informed this essay in that I feel that not only is the show largely about its characters attempting to pinpoint and act upon morally correct actions, but that each character has a unique philosophical moral system. As my example, I will demonstrate that Jerry acts with a particularly duty bound ethical system, which I describe as being deontological in nature, which appears to be influenced by the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant in particular. Jerry, throughout the series, acts in a way that could be described as utilizing a somewhat inconsistent, but generally deontological ethical

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,

South Park is a television show that was created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. It circumvents the lives of 4 boys namely Eric Cartmen, Kenny McCormick, Stan Marsh and Kyle Broflovski around the town of Colorado. This show mainly aims at picking up various stereotypes in different societies and making fun of them. It is highly racist and makes fun of different genders and performs the act of gender

The show which the Late Night with Seth Meyers has invited Amy Schumer in his show because Amy Schumer was using fantastic sketch on Friday night parody. He created a question to Amy Schumer; that is, could she be organized on the street or not? And Amy Schumer gives him a very special example to explain how did she has been embarrassingly organized on the street. when she need someone to zip her dress up, she has to go out into the street to find a stranger to do it. Amy Schumer tells a joke about how to wear her dress. In the street, she talks about she has to go out into the street to find a stranger to help her to zip her dress up. According to this joke from Amy Schumer, she just wants to make a sketch, which is really funny, because nobody

The difference between the intended meaning of media texts and what the audience actually perceives can be shockingly different. Producers of media can do everything possible to force audiences to experience their work in the way they want them to, but in the end they still take away many different meanings even within the same audience. Stuart Hall outlines this in his encoding and decoding model. One of the most apparent examples of this is the television show South Park. The television show South Park is a media text with the producers’ preferred meaning of being decoded as joke or as being satire, but many audience members take an oppositional stance of taking it seriously. This is clear from the examples of controversy when South Park aired episodes focused on Scientology, red-headed people, and Islam. Through these examples it is demonstrated that the producers of media have less power compared to the audience in determining the meaning of media.

One of the most well known and most prevalent pop culture satire of our time is Family Guy. Over 15 seasons were made of the show and it is known internationally for its riska