A Tiny Act of Huge Defiance
South Park has entered the chat.
Content warning: Suicide, religion, and nudity
When it comes to comedic push back on America’s current regime, we’re used to monologues full of sly digs, comically exasperated rants or smart takedowns based on the day’s news cycle. This was not that. This was something much, much more vicious.
This was satire.
After a year off, South Park returned with the most important half-hour of television so far this year. The episode, titled Sermon on the ‘Mount, is a gleefully brutal and humiliating slaughter of MAGA’s sacred cow and a timely realisation of George Orwell’s famous quote about satire; “Every joke is a tiny revolution.”.
Here, the emphasis is on the word ‘tiny’.
The episode opens with Cartman’s fury over the president's decision to defund public broadcaster NPR because it deprives him of the woke tears he finds hilarious. It spirals him into a C-plot where he forlornly declares “Woke is dead,” before attempting suicide. The unexpected pay-off is satisfyingly woke.
The episode’s B-plot sees the arrival of Jesus at the kids’ primary school. This forced adoption of Christianity riles up the parents who decide to sue the government, crying out, “I didn’t vote for this!” as they gather their pitchforks and Tiki torches.
Which is how we arrive at the main event.
By now, you’ve most likely seen the clips of South Park’s depiction of President Donald J. Trump. They went viral immediately. Crudely animated using actual photos of his face, he’s shown as a cheerful tyrant, jovially bouncing around the White House and threatening to sue everybody while simultaneously commanding them to “Relaaaaax, guy”.
It’s the exact treatment they’ve used once before. For fallen dictator Saddam Hussein.
This alone wouldn’t have been enough to send the White House into what has been reported as “a rage”. Well, with the thin orange skin of this administration, maybe it would have.
But the real fury would have come when Trump was shown getting full frontal naked and cuddling up in bed beside his gay lover, Satan. Something that happened multiple times in the episode.
“I’m not in the mood,” a disgruntled Satan says, rebuffing the persistent advances of his lover. “I can’t even see anything, it’s so small.”
This was an attack on Trump’s manhood and his self-styled image as a successful playboy — an image, it must be stated, that has been thoroughly debunked and stands in stark, disturbing contrast to the reality of the numerous sexual misconduct allegations against him, the civil liability for sexual abuse, and whatever he’s fighting for dear life to prevent coming out in the Epstein files.
For a self-styled tough guy, it wasn’t just a punch in the nose, it was repeated kicks to his tiny nuts.
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Only a couple of days earlier, the White House had been gloating about having Stephen Colbert’s late-night talk show cancelled and revelling in the power they believed they now possessed to silence their television critics. Finding this to be deeply untrue would have made each of South Park’s kicks sting that much more.
With the townsfolk in rebellion, Jesus attempts to calm the masses by delivering the titular sermon while a jittery 60 Minutes newscrew reports. With his back to the cameras, and in a hushed voice, he implores the crowd to “shut up or we’re going to be cancelled”.
“It’s the fucken’ President, dude! He can do anything to anyone,” Jesus hisses in manic desperation. “All of you shut the fuck up or South Park is over.“
The only way to stop a bully is to stand up to them. After seeing multiple networks acquiesce to the administration, it was glorious to see someone ditch the high road to also get down and dirty. It was way past time someone stood up, fought back and knocked the bully down onto his fat, flabby ass.
There’s also a delicious irony in the fact that South Park’s parent network, Paramount, recently paid Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit many considered frivolous and tantamount to a bribe. Just last week, Paramount cancelled Colbert to prevent the government scuttling a corporate sale deal while at the same time handing South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone a $1.5 billion cheque for exclusive rights to the series for five years.
How they didn’t see that giving two professional provocateurs ‘Fuck You Money’ might not be a great corporate strategy is beyond me, but hey, I guess that’s why I’m not the CEO of an international entertainment company. Whatever the case, Sermon on the ‘Mount has swung into their plans like a wrecking ball.
If that had been all, it would have been plenty. But South Park still had to deliver their knockout blow.
Heeding Jesus’ advice, the residents agree to pay Trump millions of dollars and produce 50 items of pro-Trump messaging. The first of which, “South Park Pro-Trump PSA, 01 of 50”, closed the episode.
Hot on the heels of Trump’s sharing of an AI video of former President Obama being arrested in the White House, this fake electoral ad showed a photorealistic deep fake of Trump, stumbling naked through the desert, talking to his tiny penis.
“I’m Donald J. Trump,” it squeaked. “And I approve this message.”
It was hilarious. It was horrific. There are 49 more of these to go.
Statements “slamming” South Park were quickly issued from the White House, but only sounded like so much hot air. Through the words of Jesus himself, South Park has dared Trump to come after them. This was just the opening round. It’s clear they believe Trump doesn’t have the cards.
Every joke may have been a tiny revolution, but it was a huge act of defiance. And it all centred around a tiny penis.
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