How Media Presents Gender And Gender Issues

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.

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 is a fictionalized animated account of a group of grade school friends who live in Colorado. The show is what’s known as an equal opportunity offender. It takes no prisoners when it comes to stereotypes of religion, sex, race and gender. An abundance of sociological concepts and social issues are present. Since its start in 1989 it has taken on social issues with unparalleled bravery, one of them gender. Many episodes pit the guys against the girls and the battle of the sexes and break-ups ensue. In the episode “Marjorine,” a male character named Butters infiltrates a girl’s sleepover to retrieve a device that tells the future (it’s really just a paper fortune teller) and hilarity and social high jinks ensue. He has to endure

He realizes he won’t be able to use the men’s restroom so instead he puts a bow on his head and uses the women’s restroom. The girls are disgusted and Cartman has to meet with the principal to address the situation. Cartman lies and claims he’s “transginger”, meaning transgender, and for that reason he is allowed to use the women’s restroom. The school realizes they are unable to win this battle and solve the problem by creating a transgender restroom. Wendy, one of the girls upset with Cartman’s lie, then claims to also be transgender and starts to use the transgender restroom. An angry Cartman then tells Wendy’s boyfriend Stan he is a girl since Wendy claims to be a guy. Stan goes to his father Randy for answers unaware that Randy is going through a gender crisis of his own. In this particular instance, the dynamic between girls and boys is much different. The boys try to gain power, namely Cartman over everyone else, including girls, and the principal herself by threatening to sue the school because of a false claim that he is transgender. Or as he calls it “transginger”.

The show almost makes it a point to go above and beyond what is considered socially acceptable by most other TV shows. Offensive and distasteful humor is the norm and there is virtually no limit, offending everyone and everything in its path. However, what many fail to realize is that the show is not offensive for the sake of being offensive, but because it centralizes around satire. While rude and offensive, South Park stays current with what is happening in the world.

The creators of the comedic South Park television series are often overzealous in their stereotypical portrayals of characters and commentary on social issues. However, in doing so they provide a great basis to which these issues can be analyzed and critiqued. In the “Mr. Garrison’s Fancy New Vagina” episode and “The Cissy” episode of South Park, issues of gender identity, sexuality and sexual identity are explored. “The Cissy” provided commentary on the recent cases allowing trans children to use the washroom of the gender they identify with, and how schools handled and societies handled it. On the other hand, “Mr. Garrison’s Fancy New Vagina” revolved around the issues of undergoing gender transition. However, both episodes provide commentary

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

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,

Through an absurdist lens, the series uses irony, self-deprecation, brutal honesty and humor to highlight issues that still plague today's"post-racial" society. Connecting the series with our theme of

If this episode was a slice of cake, it would be delicious. It begins with all of the children of South Park in Cartman’s living room telling Alexa to add various vulgarities to their shopping list. Alexa dutifully complies sending the boys into raucous laughter. From here, there is a cut scene to a town pub where a group of disgruntled camouflage clad confederate flag wielding white men are complaining about Alexa and other automated request devices stealing their jobs. There is another cutscene as the audience is placed into the filming of an episode of a brand new show “ White People Renovating Houses”. The show’s host and creator is Stan, Kyle’s father. The show’s theme and name is a spoof on HGTV’s abundance of home flipping shows. While

Over the past 70 years, there has been great change in comedy especially for African-Americans and other Non-American races. During the early days of comedy, many of these people were considered to be minorities during that era. This influenced many comedic stints of that time which over the years have evolved to catch up with the modern day society. Some of these include the humor, the topics discussed and also epithets. Over the years many comedians have emerged from ‘this’ group of minorities and have played a major factor in the evolution of comedy itself and how the different minorities have evolved from being quiet to playing a great part in show casing their lifestyle. Compared to the past, there has been a great change in comedy from the old times of Dick Gregory to the modern times of Aziz Ansari.

South park censorship controversy

South Park have always received mixed response from it’s audiences. Famous for the use of foul language, dark humour which satirizes a wide range of topics (such as politics, racism, gender equality e.t.c.) and portrayal of religion for comic effect, the show generated countless debates and controversy over the course of it’s run. The debate over censorship of some episodes, and the show as a whole continues nowadays, and both sides seem to have truth behind their words. Pro-censorship group states that South Park is harmful for young minds, that religion is not the right thing to joke about and that show has to know it’s limits.

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

South Park turns important political ideologies regarding race, gender and sexuality into a spectacle, desensitizing its viewers to the social injustices the show raises, marginalizing and trivializing minorities and ultimately, contributing to outrage culture. But before the viewer has time to process the political incorrectness of the show, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the writers of South Park have made a mockery of the scene dousing the potential outrage and placating the viewer’s opposition. Yet although a handful of viewers observe South Park intellectually the remaining majority does not. In theory South Park is a cleverly planned out show meant to raise awareness to the ignorance of people through satire. However, South Park deconstructs satire, and in turn employs the use of pseudo-satire. Further

William Young and South Park In a society that is always changing and trends that affect our community, South Park reflects