South Park

George Clooney has been a fan of theirs since the beginning(he even helped spread awareness of their 1995 short video "The Spirit of Christmas"), and has been a good sport about being made fun of on SP and Team America: World Police.

Side note: did anyone else think the "Strong Woman" song sounded like "Godzilla" by Blue Öyster Cult?

My guess is they couldn’t think of a way to make the divorce more funny than weighty.

Though of course, now they do. Everybody in the family hates Randy, so there’s no need to have the plot emotionally effect Stan or his sister, or really anybody except Randy, whose hypocritical feelings we’re already trained to laugh at.

Well they kind of had an idea of making divorce funny in their first go with the Treehouse episode.

Yeah, first. Basically that makes three times where the idea of Randy and Sharon divorcing was brought up. I’m amazed Season Finale wasn’t the final straw really since Randy’s flanderization reached to a boiling point with the family being miserable.

Any way the Treehouse episode, being off course an early episode of South Park, attempt at funny stereotypical look at divorce from Randy living up the bachelors life given the very short visitation rights he doesn’t seem too focus on to Sharon seeing another man whom Stan does not get along with. The punchline in all this is that Stan doesn’t really seems to care as he is focused on making a treehouse so he can kiss Wendy:

What episode was that?

I should note that the Whites have shown up before. Jason the son who died has been around since season 1. Normally in minor or background roles, but has spoke and stuff.

My favorite joke in "Board Girls" was how the PC Babies totally missed the point of Mulan.

Mulan wasn't trans-gender. She dressed as a man to take her father's place in the army. There was no chance in heck the elderly man would get out of the war alive.

Edited by amadeussyracuse on Nov 17th 2019 at 2:53:14 PM

Some people love to see causes to fight for and hills to die on where there are none.

Board Girls

Well, we are done with Tegridy, so now it's time for the... PC Babies show. I'm not sure if this will be better. I mean, how much can you possibly get out of literal liberal crybabies whining at everything non-PC?

So this is the second time this season that the show has deliberately moved away from the central cast in some way. Is this a sign that Matt and Trey are getting a little bored with the four kids?

Strong Woman and PC Principal (these names are getting really unsubtle, by the way) are working out, but are interrupted by their babies crying at Mulan. Apparently they cry because Mulan "is a woman that identifies as male, and yet the movie doesn't take the time to address real trans issues". Of course that's not quite correct. Mulan doesn't identify as male, she just crossdresses as one to enter the army. It has nothing to do with trans identity, and, rather irnoically, it is rather sexist to assume that all crossdressers are automatically trans. And that's not even going into whether or not a cartoon needs to drop everything to address hot button social issues that may crop up. That would turn into Author Filibuster very quickly.

Instead they watch Anderson Cooper. These babies have some weird tastes in entertainment.

Strong Woman is going to compete in the strong woman competition. Can you tell this show is written by men who seem to think that "strong female characters" means that they have to be physically strong? It's hard to tell if they are embracing or mocking the idea, honestly.

All the kids at school seem to be rather unimpressed by this show of feminism, even the girls. Though I can't really blame them, seeing as they are blasted by messaging day in day out by these two.

The boys have a board game club, and of course two girls are introduced to the club, Tammy and Nicole. I'm not sure if they are new characters. Of course the boys are portrayed as chauvinist pigs here, while the girls are fully prepared to join their D&D game.

Man, this plot feels outdated. It feels just as outdated as the sexist stereotypes it is depicting. Matt and Trey are not exactly breaking brave new ground here with their inclusive school club.

Meanwhile, at the strong woman competition, it is the first year a trans woman is competing. I can already tell where this is going.

Of course Strong Woman is very supportive of trans women competing, claiming that she has a lot of trans friends herself (which sounds a lot like "I have black friends!" to me, but oh well), but is shocked to find that the trans athlete in question is an incredibly buff, beard-sporting hulk of a woman, aaand there we go. A trans woman who doesn't look or act like a stereotypical woman.

Oh, and the woman talks like a WWE wrestler too, so there is lots of flexing and talk of smashing the competition.

It is also revealed that the trans woman only started identifying as trans two weeks ago, which sounds... suspicious, to say the least. Yeah, in this case, there would be some serious and legitimate questions about whether this person is really trans, or just an opportunistic man claiming to be one to compete against women.

Well, whatever he/she is, it is the perfect foil for Strong Woman, who is clearly conflicted about the whole thing.

Another thing to notice, by the way, is that none of these female athletes look all that muscular, and half of them wear midriff-bearing clothing. Compare that to the trans woman, who is clearly depicted as a stereotypically male muscle bound athlete. For all this episode's professing of inclusivity and feminism, the portrayal of female athletes is rather revealing of how the creators view women.

One of the competitions is arm wrestling? That's not exactly an athletic sport.

Of course Heather Swanson has a massive advantage over the female competitors, but that's hardly a wonder given that these women don't seem to be all that athletic. Of course, the way athletic men have been portrayed in comics and cartoons over the years is partly to blame for that, giving men overexagerated musculature that would hinder rather than help in competitions in real life. When you compare real male and female athletes, you'll notice they all look like the female athletes depicted in this episode, not like the overexaggerated trans woman.

Holy shit, third place was beaten to a bloody mess. Surely THAT would be a disqualifier, trans or not.

Of course Strong Woman is not happy with getting second place to this Hulkette, and they can't even discuss it because it will upset the babies. Talk about living under the thumb of your own kids.

Meanwhile, predictably, the boys are whining about girls joining the board games club. Yawn.

The main complaint seems to be that these girls are smarter than them and beating them at all the board games. They decide to play "harder stuff". I'm curious to see what that would be. I think most people would put D&D pretty high on the list of difficult games.

They propose a Euro-game, but they reject it because it has math. Well, yeah, you want a hard game, you pretty much can't avoid doing math. So they select a tabletop miniature game: Blood and Plunder, which is an actual board game. Of course this raises the question of how they would pay for all those miniatures, which tends to get expensive rather fast.

Meanwhile, Heather visits the PC family, and is rather... pushy about inviting himself into their home. Of course she is just there to gloat over Strong Woman, and PC Principal calls her out on it and tries to kick her out, under accusations of transphobia. Of course, that is rubbish, since she basically hustled her way into their home to get to rub his victory in Strong's face. PC tries to threaten Heather, but of course can't exactly back it up.

Meanwhile, the girls came to the board game club prepared with their own Blood and Plunder collections. It kinda raises the question of why they didn't join the club earlier, seeing as they are apparently so into board games already.

Meanwhile, Heather continues to win every female sport she's entering. That seems a bit unlikely, though, given that it is still two weeks since she identified as a woman. Where did she find the time? How come all these sports have their competitions within days of each other?

Also, Heather seems to have it in for Strong Woman in particular, which seems... odd. That's a very specific personal rivalry, which raises the question of whether they know each other. And of course they do: it's Blade Jagger, Strong Woman's ex-boyfriend.

Apparently Blade is a he-man woman hater, who has vowed vengeance on Strong for leaving him.

"I didn't even know people like that existed." Really? That seems rather naive for someone like PC Principal.

Meanwhile, the boys have somehow made it into the US senate to argue against girls entering board game clubs, or rather, their board game club. These kids can just go where they please, it seems. Of course, no one seems all that impressed.

Meanwhile, Blade (I think it is safe to assume now he IS faking it) is bragging about beating up and scaring women on tv, when PC shows up and tries to add some "nuance" to his views, basically by arguing that men and women are different, and thus that it is not fair for Blade to compete against women, trans or not. Okay... not sure that that is the best argument here. It seems that exposing Blade for the vengeful ex that he is would be a much better approach.

Of course PC ends up slapping Blade, who makes a dramatic throw, making PC look like the agressor.

Meanwhile, apparently the boys have succeeded in banning the girls from their club (why? how?), but they start their own club instead. This plot thread is just jumping from plot point to plot point without really connecting them very well. It is very clear the writers just want to hit their plot beats without too much consideration for how the characters or events get there. It is poor writing.

Of course the girls club has something like 40 members immediately (which again begs the question of where all these game afficiados were before this girls club got started, and why they didn't just join the first games club to start with). Of course this girls club is much cooler, high tech, and successful than the boys' club, and on top of that, it is girls only. Um... didn't Mackey say earlier that all clubs are inclusive? Or are we supposed to infer that the boys got that rule lifted? Would have been nice if the episode had clarified that.

Also, this episode is starting to lean pretty hard into "girls are much cooler and better and smarter than boys". Not sure if that is a particularly feminist message to have. Feminism is about equality, not about one gender being superior to the other.

Meanwhile, PC is in hot water over his foolish actions. PC is scared to face his babies over his actions, but Strong assures him he shouldn't be afraid of that.

Of course the whole issue is that they are afraid to call out minorities for bad behaviour.

They try to solve this by inviting Blade as a motivational speaker, where he of course acts like a complete asshole. The girls challenge him to a board game, though, and they are not afraid of this bitch, either.

Cool montage, but I doubt you'd be allowed to have a cell phone present during an official match.

Blade is of course pissy about losing to the girls, and joins Cartman in a new boys only club.

Meanwhile, PC confronts the babies, and they accept him, because apparently they can see nuance now. Okay. That seems like a rather sudden swerve from their previous behaviour. Would have been nice if we had gotten to see that character development directly, instead of having it magically happen on it's own.

So, uh, the lesson is... nuance is important! Sure am glad South Park was here to teach us that!

WAS it nuanced, though? Heather/Blade clearly was just an obnoxious sexist bully who used trans identity to bully women into submission. His claims of trans identity are highly suspect, and even though the episode never outright unmasks him as a fraud (which is perhaps saved for a later episode), it is pretty clear we are supposed to take it as a fraud.

I think the message would have been much stronger if Heather really had been a genuine trans woman, without the whole sexist ex backstory. That backstory really muddles the issue the episode is trying to bring up here, namely: is it fair for trans women to compete in women's sports? The episode doesn't really seem prepared to answer that question at all, instead opting for depicting the trans woman in question as an obvious fraud.

This also holds the rather Unfortunate Implications that trans women who consistently outperform biological women are automatically suspect as frauds. Not the greatest impression to leave.

The board games plot was okay, if rather trite. We've seen this plot a thousand times. If Matt and Trey think this is cutting edge feminism, it is rather revealing of their own biases.

> There was no chance in heck the elderly man would get out of the war alive.

Well (excuse my French) fucking dur

Also,literal PC babies,they really went there and resorted to calling people babies

I'm rather behind on South Park (though I'm not okay with Randy choking Pooh to death), but I need to ask:

"PC Principal" and "Strong Woman" are the actual names of those characters?

Does the show at least acknowledge how bizarre these two don't have normal names like "Patrick" and "Erica" or something?

Are you really that shocked that they went there? Insulting people is pretty much par for the course on this show.

Yes, those are their names. PC, at least, is an acronym of Principal's first two names. But yeah, those names are pretty on the nose. This is because they were originally created to mock a particular group (the PC crowd) or personality type (feminists obsessed with being "strong women").

Edited by Redmess on Nov 21st 2019 at 7:12:07 PM

Its so childish,even for south park

"People who whine about issues are babies waaaaaah"

Really? South Park has never been all that mature, or all that nuanced, for that matter. When the show has it out for someone, no gag is too vulgar or immature to make, and when someone is perceived as doing wrong, or just even personally disliked by Matt and Trey (like Barbra Streissand), they get shredded by the show, with little or no nuance given to the situation.

This makes all the posturing about nuance rather ironic, of course.

The exception to this is when the show refuses to take a stance on a social issue, falling squarely into "both sides" fallacies.

Edited by Redmess on Nov 21st 2019 at 7:31:15 PM

> South Park has never been all that mature, or all that nuanced, for that matter.

No but they are least try most of the time compared to other shows,PC babies is just..lame and unfunny to me

"PC Babies" is the kind of gag I expect in the deepest pits of Reddit.

You give Reddit too much credit. This is the You Tube child troll level of the barrel in terms of laughs.

This article goes more in depth with the problems this episode has, centring on how it ends up marginalizing black trans women rather than nuancing a discussion about their rights in sports. It also notes the irony of two cis white men barging in on a discussion concerning minorities they have zero experience with.

In this context, note also that the episode shifts the conflict from Strong Woman, who is the main victim of Heather/Blade, to PC Principal, a white cis male. Suddenly the story is about the guys problem with trans women, rather than the woman. This makes it a rather sexist episode, on top of coming off as rather transphobic.

Yes.

Anything to do with Winnie the Pooh is hallowed ground. Fight me.

His problem is with a clearly white cis male, using trans issues to beat up and mistreat women.

The fact he explicitly shows off his bulge to a bunch of schoolchildren just reinforces how Heather uses trans issues. Or flaunting how he's the real "Strong Woman" by flaunting a trophy before PC Babies.

Strong Woman was also trying to avoid doing anything precisely because of her history with Heather. I had no doubt if it wasn't for their past she'd be more inclined to be involved. But she's suffered abuse from her in their relationship and I'm sure she fears being involved for that reason.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Nov 21st 2019 at 1:34:27 AM

Oh, I agree with that, that was definitely a bit too far.

But even then they still could have focussed more on her dealing with this issue. Heather being her ex, this was definitely HER story, not PC's. Yet by shifting the story to PC Principal, the episode denies Strong any agency in the story. She effectively becomes an object that the men have their fight over.

Just like with the trans rights, writing an actual feminist story is quite beyond Trey and Matt's league. To them, a strong female character means a literally strong woman, complete with a character-defining name bluntly deliminating her as a feminist character, without much of a clue about actual feminist issues. To them, trans issues are about men appropriating female identities to take advantage of weaker (note again, physically weaker) women, not about the abuse and death threats (and even murders) that actual trans women get, especially black ones like Heather. To them, the problem of trans athletes in women's sports boils down to men abusing their superiority over women. The more they try to take a stance on these particular issues, the more they reveal their own prejudices and privileges.

And it looks like we will be getting several more weeks of this. It is going to be painful, I'm afraid.

Strong Woman's never been as pushy as PC Principal is with being PC. We see this from the moment they met, where he interrupts her and she makes it clear she can talk for herself. With what we see is pretty consistent with her, especially with her embarrassment at her relationship with PC Principal.

Same for PC Principal fighting for issues for others, since they've been pretty clear fighting causes for others is what PC do, and they're pretty clear Heather's been torturing women nonstop with his partaking in sports.

That's why he's the one to stand up, because he's willing to try to argue about something he doesn't agree with even if it involves PC issues that could get him in hot water(see any situation with him involving Jimmy about the newspaper).

Everything about it pretty much reads exactly in character for both, and how they handle it. If that's not satisfying, well that sucks, but it is consistent.

Edit: Also being worried about men being physically stronger because they transitioned long after puberty is something people have taken issue with in regards to female sports, South Park simply exaggerates it as per South Park by making it someone who doesn't really identify as a woman but uses trans rights to protect "herself" and to abuse women. The ideas do exist, and the worries about such things happening likewise exist.

Heather is even the Toxic Masculinity that mocks the idea of intelligence no matter the gender, like Cartman, and so she beaten gets by girls because they do something as simple as reading the damn rules. Something neither of those two do.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Nov 21st 2019 at 3:17:42 AM

Before this week: Thank God Tegridy Farm is gone.

After this week: Y'know what, let's go back to Tegridy Farm, that's much better.

Edited by Weirdguy149 on Nov 21st 2019 at 6:58:59 AM

I'm also not sure why Heather is a caricature of Randy Savage. Was he someone that needed taking down? Has the plot anything at all to do with him? Given that Randy died recently, it seems a bit tasteless to use his image this way.

They used Randy Savage so people would joke about him being transgender,and yeah it is tasteless when he's dead but South Park does not care

They could have used Hulk Hogan in same role too

An interesting quote from the Forbes review:

This reviewer makes an interesting point. The episode seems to argue that gender exclusion is sometimes necessary, in a certain context, but is rather hamfisted and clueless about delivering that point.

And that second paragraph touches on something that is closely related to how the Me Too movement is treated sometimes, with the argument that some women might fake being abused. Tobias Drake made a good point on this:

I think that argument is similarly applicable to the idea of men faking being trans to enter competitions. To do so would mean opening oneself up to a torrent of abuse, especially when done so as publicly as Heather does here, and with so obvious a motive as simply beating up on women. In real life, such people would be subject to many death threats and violence, implied and actual. And that violence would not come from conflicted liberals, either: it would come from actual transphobes, who would have little compunctions about verbally and physically attacking a man pretending to be trans, especially a black one.

It bears repeating: no real man would do this, especially not a black man. As that Forbes reviewer noted as well, we are well into TERF strawman territory here.