Philosophers and 'South Park'

http://www.townhall.com/ ^ | Wednesday, March 28, 2007 | Brent Bozell III

[chasio649]

From time to time, we hear about zany professors of popular culture using their academic credentials to elevate the most aggressively offensive and potty-mouthed TV shows into the Great Works of Western Civilization. What causes these bookworms in academe to slither around trying to intellectualize our cultural rubbish? It's like getting a master's degree in restroom graffiti. Can you really compare "South Park" to Socrates?

That's exactly what happens in a new book titled "South Park and Philosophy." I have no idea who would read all the way through this laughable exercise in excuse-making. The first essay is a riot all by itself. William W. Young III, listed as an associate professor of humanities at Endicott College in Beverly, Mass., has titled his essay "Flatulence and Philosophy." The title fits.

Maybe this fellow also delivers lectures on the subject. That's some bang for the buck for parents forking over $31,628 annually to send their child to this sorry excuse for a college.

Young mocks those who find "danger" in "South Park." The only danger, he asserts, is its "depiction of dialogue and free thinking." He believes the perpetually profane Comedy Central cartoon, like Socrates, "harms no one," but provides an education, to "instruct people and provide them with the intellectual tools they need to become wise, free and good."

Citing Socrates, Young says those uptight people who find harm in this television show are inherently opposed to questioning, and questioning things is the source of all wisdom. Many powerful people in Athens found Socrates dangerous because his questioning would "undermine their bases for power."

Young praises the "nonconformist, reflective virtue" of the questioning children of "South Park," and then conflates the chronically clueless parent characters with parents in real life: "The parents of 'South Park' corrupt the children far more than a television show ever could. Like the Athenians, the adults don't know as much as they think they know." In the show, when adults address the children, "the adult usually sounds like a bumbling idiot."

The good professor seems to have no concept that it's the writers of "South Park" who make a living from putting bumbling idiocy on television.

How do professors like this stoop to the bizarre idea that children can be enlightened by a show that labors to fit 160 uses of the S-bomb into a half-hour? A show that delights in having Jesus Christ defecate on President Bush with his "yummy, yummy crap"? How can you elevate that into the idea that watching "South Park" should really be seen as a correspondence course, like Newt Gingrich's "Renewing American Civilization" series?

Young insists we're supposed to be wiser than what's obvious, what's staring at us and screaming at us from the TV set. We're supposed to be swept along by the siren song of Sigmund Freud, who argued that the use of vulgarity is merely verbalizing the drives and desires that we often repress, and that laughter at crude jokes allows us to release our harmful inhibitions.

"This is what makes the show's crudeness so essential," Young argues. It creates a "space" for discussion that keeps us from transforming our repression into violence or social exclusion. "South Park" is, in his estimation, as one of his headings declares, the "Talking Cure for Our Culture." It's much more like a communicable disease.

Young then attempts to argue that "Terrance and Philip," an infantile cartoon within the infantile cartoon, is really one of the better offerings in television: "Is 'Terrance and Philip' really more vapid, crude and pointless than 'Jerry Springer' or 'Wife Swap'? Is it more mindless than Fox News, 'The 700 Club' or 'Law and Order'? The answer is no." He then claims what offends South Park critics is "not that the show is vulgar and pointless, but that it highlights the mindlessness that is television in general."

This is where Young really makes a joke out of himself. Everything on television is mindless in general, and he can make no fine distinctions? To be charitable, comparing "Law and Order" to "South Park" is roughly equivalent to comparing Einstein to your garden-variety grade-school class clown. Or your favorite professor to this walking insult to academe.

There is an ocean of difference between the entertaining and enlightening excellence that the discriminating viewer can find occasionally on television and the mindless drivel that often airs on Comedy Central. But some philosophy professors are too lost in an academic hall of mirrors to notice.

[Rembrandt_fan]

Admittedly, teaching the philosophy of South Park sounds like a gleeful scam by a particularly lazy academic. Bozell clearly, obviously misses the point, but then, he's always missing the point. The man's cultural criticisms are all of a kind: superficial, without depth or insight, and utterly, completely humorless. Being disgusted and outraged all the time must feel like something akin to perpetual constipation. There's a lowbrow euphemism for that sort of attitude and outlook, but I won't use it here--'stuffed shirt' would be the family-friendly version, I suppose.

[Pajamajan]

Brent should watch Team America . It's pretty easy to see what they (SP creators) were getting at.
(Except for the vomit scene- an example of over-the-top grossness IMO, .. EWWWWWW! YUK!)
But, otherwise, a brillant example of SP's genius.

[GSlob]

Diagnosis: sense of humor atrophy. Treatment: large enemas every 30 minutes around the clock, till improvement.

[burzum]

Diagnosis: sense of humor atrophy. Treatment: large enemas every 30 minutes around the clock, till improvement.

I don't know if we know enough about his problems to suggest a treatment at this time. Perhaps we should just continue to probe him until we know for sure.

[GSlob]

Well, as it is already painfully evident what he's thinking with, the enema treatment is both straightforward and entirely appropriate.

[DISCO]

Shees, it's a cartoon. How about the cartoon on SNL with the laugh track because it ain't funny.

[conserveababe]

In a logical mind, it would feel like perpetual constipation. Coming from a twisted mind like Bozo's, however, he probably gets pleasure out of it.

[conserveababe]

I have never seen any show with a laugh track that was truly funny.

[driftless2]

"lighten up"

I agree. I generally like Bozell's columns. but he is a little too straitlaced. I'm not a great fan of crudeness for crudeness sake, but SP can be hilarious. Maybe that reflects on me. I'm not a huge fan of potty humor, but if you're having a comedy show children are the main characters, humor involving potty-mouthed statements is hardly atypical of kids. I'll take SP over Law and Order any day.

[ReignOfError]

Actually, SP reminds me a great deal of Aristophanes' work, in several ways: It's social satire, it requires one to suspend disbelief, it's vulgar and offensive, and it skewers authority and the prevailing wisdom of of the day. And I love it.

Is Brent going to tell us Aristophanes' plays aren't really great works of Western Civ?

Once again, Aristophanes, that miserable excuse for a "playwright" (whatever that word is supposed to mean) drags his audience into the gutter with a parade of oversized erections -- mocking our Athenian fighting men even while we are at war.

If this is depth of decadence and corruption to which Hellenic culture has fallen, no wonder the Persians hate us.

-- Brennus Bozellus, c. 400 B.C.

[Cincinna]

South Park can be irreverent, insightful, and funny, but comparing it to Socrates? Just another gay cowboy eating pudding.

[FreedomPoster]

>>This column is a perfect example of not getting the joke, but writing about it, anyway.

I was waiting for the post that quickly summarizes this column, while trying to do it myself.

That nails it, right there. He's absolutely clueless about South Park, and is arrogantly proud of it.

[MacDorcha]

"The first essay is a riot all by itself. William W. Young III, listed as an associate professor of humanities at Endicott College in Beverly, Mass., has titled his essay "Flatulence and Philosophy." The title fits."

Interestingly enough, this reminds me of documents about the San Hedrin. They were so "enlightend" philisofically, that they refused to eat beans and meats to the point of their own ill-health. The reason for this refusal to such significant sources of protiens?

They believed farting was releasing ones soul from the body.

I'm sorry, but if such an influencial group on our learning these days can be shown to have such a flaw in their thinking, I tend to find that a little potty humor may not hurt us either. South Park shouldnt be so reviled by these "philosophy" people. Of course, many of them ARE teachers in colleges... Hmmm, when's the last time you met a conservative/republican (or hell, even libertarian) philosophy teacher in any college?

Just a little bit of Empirical thought. ;)

[carton253]

I am probably going to get a whole lot of grief for this post, but I don't care.

Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God and does not belong in anyone's cartoon doing anything remotely what your post has Him doing.

He is not a figure for Hollywood to use to make a point.

I'm sorry - but HE simply is not.

If your humor includes blasphemy than it would behoove you to find another way to make your point.

Am I talking censureship when it comes to Jesus. You betcha. To have Him demeaned this way is horrible.

Now, I will be told to lighten up... there is nothing wrong, etc.

Don't want to hear it.

Jesus is my God and my Savior. I do not want Him to the punch line of any joke.

Sorry, if this rant goes against all principles of conservatism, or shows I do not have a sense of humor, or I'm not "hip" and just don't get it.

Jesus should never be treated in such a undignified manner.

Rant off.

[Rembrandt_fan]

Whenever I read Bozell's columns, I always get the sense of a man repressed to the point of bursting--or, as a buddy of mine used to say when encountering someone prissy or painstakingly, meticulously obsessive--someone 'potty-trained at gunpoint'. Another thing, too: those people who complain so loudly about those things they consider vile and dirty and vulgar seem to be complaining a bit too much. The French have a phrase, 'la nostalgie de la boue', which translates to 'longing for the muck of the gutter.' Generally, it means those people who like to wallow either in carnality or depravity--or, like Bozell, who like to talk or write about it. In detail. Constantly.

As for me, I'm drawn to people who are comfortable in their own skin, with a strong sense of identity, their place in the world, their worth. I always get that feel from Mark Steyn , the columnist and pundit at steynonline.com, even though I often disagree with his conclusions. Another strong, clear-headed sort is Pamela Gellar at the 'Atlas Shrugs' website. I'm no big fan of Ayn Rand's writing or philosophy, as Pamela is, but her confident, no-nonsense approach to issues is a breath of fresh air after reading someone as downright creepy as Bozell.

[MacDorcha]

I don't care how heavy-handed it sounds. That should be an episode!

Kyle's Mom getting in such an uproar about someone's behavior that she wants them dead, and convinces the masses of the same, and so they try to kill, oh, i dunno, Terrance and Phillip.

It would be great! The could even make a movie on such an epic idea!

---

The above is part sarcasm, part realization- these guys (Matt and Trey) know their stuff. I really, honestly wouldnt be suprised if this kind of talk is exactly what made SP the Moive. Maybe they kinda do see themselves as bringing wisdom to us in Socratic methods?...

[chasio649]

That's why Stan Marsh is the lead character and moral center of the show...he's a little kid that is pragmatic and comfortable being just Stan....Brent could never get the genius of South Park.

[WestVirginiaRebel]

He sacrificed Himself so that Santa could live...

[Rembrandt_fan]

You wrote, "I am probably going to get a whole lot of grief for this post, but I don't care."

No grief from me, and I understand your hurt--blasphemy hurts, and I love Him, too, but there was a point to the blasphemy in that particular episode--which, in my view, was probably the most important piece of television to hit the screen in a long time. It was the first time I saw radical Islam directly confronted on anything approaching mainstream media. The irony, of course, is that this bold (and scatological) challenge to fatwa-crazed Islamic fascists was made on Comedy Central and not any of the major news networks. Ironic, and very American.

[carton253]

Well, I knew that my post would be the object of such jokes, but I do not care. Joke away.

I stand by what I posted.