I've been watching South Park since I was a little kid, sneaking VHS cassettes of recorded episodes behind my parents' backs. Even as I grew up, the show grew up with me. Jokes that I didn't fully understand revealed themselves as highly intelligent and insightful commentary, despite being dressed in fart gags and curse words.
When something big would happen, or a celebrity got too full of themselves, I would wait with bated breath to see what South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker would say about it through the show, and oftentimes, I wasn't disappointed. I loved the no-holds-barred, everybody gets hit style that spared no one. No sacred cow was safe.
As I became a cultural/political writer, I often referred to South Park as something society desperately needed, especially as the social justice movement really kicked into gear and we became far too serious as a society. Stone and Parker made our civilization healthier by pointing out that the emperor rarely, if ever, had any clothes.
But it wasn't just their social commentary that I loved. Between episodes that made fun of the wussification of the NFL, like "Sarcastaball" and episodes that made fun of fake environmentalists like "Whale Whores," were fun episodes that just featured the world's absurdity through the lens of the boys, Eric, Stan, Kyle, and Kenny. Episodes like "Make Love, Not Warcraft," and "Awesome-O" had me belly laughing and still do on rewatches.
In fact, when I feel like I need to relax and get my mind off things, I still run to old episodes of South Park for a little bit of, ironically, normalcy.
But in 2018, the show started to wobble. Gone was the old "Six Days to Air" strategy, and the show became a bit more story-driven. It was hit or miss, with some episodes still containing that South Park magic and others that were so forgettable due to their overly try-hard feel. Still, I had faith in Stone and Parker, not just because of their talent, but also their philosophy toward artistic creation. If they stumbled, they'd make fun of themselves and get back to what they did best.
But the improvements never came. Shows didn't just become hit or miss; they often had too much of a mix of bad moments and good moments, and as episodes went on, the bad moments became more common than the good.
After South Park signed their mega-billion-dollar deal with CBS, I had some hope left. Even as the season began with jokes about Trump having a tiny penis and being Satan's lover, I still held faith that there was a punchline coming... but it never came. There were still moments of hilarity, like ICE raiding heaven to get the illegals out and Cartman being a representation of Charlie Kirk debating with the kids at his school. Still, there was a serious lack of balance to it. Stone and Parker didn't seem to want to remotely touch the people they claimed to despise more than anyone. It was all pointed rightward.
Read: An Honest Review of South Park's Latest Season (So Far) From a Loyal South Park Fan
That, in itself, wouldn't have bothered me if the jokes were funny, but they increasingly weren't. Their jokes against Trump became so over-the-top and on the nose that it started reminding me of Saturday Night Live. Stone and Parker were relying on an already tired formula of "Orange Man Bad, now laugh." It's a writing strategy that hasn't worked for years, and is one that cost Stephen Colbert his show. Even SNL is balancing out its comedy more nowadays, and you'd figure that Stone and Parker would've figured out that blind hatred of Trump isn't a good sell before everyone else.
I really held out hope that the duo would pull out of the nosedive with a killer turnaround. A joke that would reveal the greater joke, but I think, at this point, it's safe to say that the turn isn't coming. Stone and Parker seem to believe that "Trump has a tiny penis and has gay sex with Satan" is the punchline. Now, as Mediaite notes, Trump is having sex with JD Vance on the show:
In the latest season, the cartoon Trump is in a toxic relationship with Satan and the two are expecting a baby. The cartoon Vance has been working behind the scenes to have the baby aborted. On Wednesday’s episode, he revealed his betrayal to Trump.
The cartoon Trump ignored the Satan question, and a thong-wearing Vance then told him, “Oh boss, it’s so big.” A running gag this season has been depicting the president with a micropenis.
The two are then shown having intercourse with Parker and Stone getting close-ups of both of their faces, as well as a painting of Abraham Lincoln looking on.
This is boring. I'm bored now.
It's not that Stone and Parker are making fun of the Trump administration and MAGA. I think being made fun of is healthy for every group, especially on a societal level, lest they start taking themselves too seriously. Stone and Parker taught me the value of slaughtering sacred cows.
But what bothers me is that Stone and Parker seemed to have made making fun of Trump and his administration their own sacred cow. They can't stop doing it, even though the jokes clearly aren't landing, and the concept of anti-Trump jokes was tired before they ever signed their deal with CBS. They have a million different directions to go, all of which could involve the show's core strength — the boys and their antics, which are still the best part of the show — but they keep cutting to where they're weakest: their political commentary.
If I had a time machine, I'd go back and get the Stone and Parker of 2005 or 2006 and bring them to 2025 to show them their present selves, and I can't help but think they'd have the same reaction I would.
"Who the hell are these guys?"
That's my core issue with South Park today. It doesn't feel like Matt Stone and Trey Parker. I don't know who the writers of the show are, but it's not the same dudes who wrote "Guitar Queer-o," or "Good Times with Weapons." This isn't the same duo who knew how to make a joke, then move on to the next.
In fact, this new Stone and Parker are recycling their own jokes while relying on a genre of jokes that officially died when Biden took office. We are officially at a point where originality has clearly died.
I'll forever love South Park, and it's because I love the show that I think it's time for it to die. There's nothing left in the tank. The writers are clearly tired and disconnected. Maybe it was the money, maybe it was the environment they found themselves in over the years of show business, or maybe they're just huffing their own gas at this point, like the people in San Francisco in the episode "Smug Alert!"
Either way, I think South Park has run its course if this is all Stone and Parker have left. The show is no longer telling us jokes; it is the joke.
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