It’s Official: ‘South Park’ Duo Has Trump Derangement Syndrome
Matt Stone, Trey Parker share absurd reasons for show's hard-Left pivot
If anyone deserved the benefit of the doubt, it’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
The rebels behind “South Park” have spent decades putting comedy first. Silly, raunchy, outrageous and crass comedy, to be exact.
But comedy always mattered most. And that meant “South Park” punched up and down, Right and Left sans apology.
That seemingly ended a few months ago, roughly 28 years after the show’s 1997 Comedy Central debut. Suddenly, Cartman and co. attacked President Trump and various GOP figures nonstop.
Fair and balanced? Not even close. They contracted Trump Derangement Syndrome, or TDS.
Even more peculiar? The shift came after “South Park” ignored a dementia-addled President Joe Biden for four long years, and a Democratic party that has lost its classical liberal moorings. And where were the skits mocking Kamala “Word Salad” Harris in South Park, Colorado?
We’re waiting. Still.
Were Parker and Stone trolling their fans with their Hollywood-approved anti-Trump shtick? Was it a commentary on claims that it’s suddenly problematic to mock President Trump, and he might take you off the air like he did to Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel (or so the fever swamp Left insisted without a shred of evidence)?
Now, we have some answers straight from the source. And it’s even more depressing than hardcore fans feared.
Parker and Stone opened up to The New York Times (strike one!) about the show’s new direction. Here’s Parker on the sudden shift.
“It’s not that we got all political…It’s that politics became pop culture.”
Really? This just happened? Was it yesterday, the day before yesterday, or the past decade when politics became pop culture? Surely, you can’t be serious. But it gets worse.
The duo also swallowed the lie that it’s suddenly “taboo” to mock President Trump. As if Hollywood, Inc. hasn’t done just that for a full decade, both when he was in and out of office.
Remember this?
And this?
No one has yet to step foot in a gulag as a result.
Instead, any anti-Trump voice is immediately praised throughout Hollywood. Remember how Colbert finally won his first Emmy for “The Late Show” after CBS canceled the long-running series?
Pure coincidence. Not to Team “South Park.”
“Trey and I are attracted to that like flies to honey,” Stone said. “Oh, that’s where the taboo is? Over there? OK, then we’re over there … we just had to show our independence somehow.”
Independence? No show has been more independent over the past three decades.
Plus, Parker and Stone just landed a billion-dollar deal while mocking President Trump. Would a mega company like Skydance do that if artists weren’t able to mock President Trump? Would the company risk Hitler 2.0’s wrath if that was a real threat in play?
Do they even hear themselves?
It’s actually “taboo” to mock Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez … because no late-night show or “Saturday Night Live” skit will come close to doing just that.
What about DEI policies? Taboo! The “banned books” farce? Taboo, too!
Perhaps the worst part? This new, improved “South Park” isn’t funny. Satire stings when there’s a kernel of truth at its core. Mocking President Trump’s penis size and staging an affair with Satan just doesn’t cut it.
Sorry.
It’s embarrassing, but maybe not as unexpected as one would assume. At some point most artists sell out. Think Bruce Springsteen, the so-called blue-collar hero who now scoffs at high concert ticket prices and pals around with presidents.
Or Howard Stern, the radio rebel now seen as a softball interview for politicos with the “correct” party affiliations.
Parker and Stone are following that sad, predictable trajectory. It just took longer than expected. Sadly, they’re misleading fans in the process.
“We’re just very down-the-middle guys,” Parker said. “Any extremists of any kind, we make fun of. We did it for years with the woke thing. That was hilarious to us. And this is hilarious to us.”
The modern Left demands trans women compete against biological females. “South Park” mocked that insanity years ago. Now, it could double down and torch the Left for its “extremist” views. Yet, we’ve seen nothing of the kind.
The modern Left supports open borders and doesn’t want illegal immigrants with lengthy rap sheets to be booted out of the country. Remember all the love shown for the so-called “Maryland Man?”
The modern Left burned Tesla dealerships because they didn’t like CEO Elon Musk reducing government waste.
The modern Left lets criminals run wild in major cities, supports failed socialist policies and cheered on the death of Charlie Kirk.
Nuthin’, Trey and Matt? Not extremist enough for you?
RELATED: MEDIA SHAME ‘SOUTH PARK’ FOR IGNORING TRUMP JOKES
It’s no accident that the media, which has been mostly kind to Parker and Stone over the years, is suddenly fawning all over “South Park.” Journalists breathlessly share details of each new episode like it’s a major event.
That’s a coincidence, too, of course. Zero connection to the show’s sudden anti-Trump fervor. Why, it’s like there’s a financial incentive to embrace TDS.
Naturally, no president should be off limits. President Trump may be larger than life, but he poses a real challenge to humorists. He’s almost too easy to superficially mock, and many comedians go for the lowest hanging fruit.
The hair. The mannerisms. The jargon.
The best of the best dig deeper. The rest let their TDS shine through in every gag.
Parker capped the interview by suggesting more is yet to come. In doing so, he summoned the true TDS spirit. Call it, the “now more than ever!” syndrome.
“If there’s one thing we know, it is that our show will be a lot longer than theirs [the Trump administration].
“So,” he continued, “we just got to do this for now.”
Weird.
The show didn’t tackle the Biden administration’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. What about clear evidence that Team Biden was censoring voices in the digital landscape? Targeting every day Moms and Dads (AKA “terrorists“) for daring to speak up at school board meetings?
No? Nothing? Now, we get the tired, “We just got to do this now” canard?
Even Cartman would agree that TDS is a terrible thing to behold.
Editor’s Note: It’s a brutal time to be an independent journalist, but it’s never been more necessary given the sorry state of the corporate press. If you’re enjoying Hollywood in Toto, I hope you’ll consider leaving a coin (or two) in our Tip Jar.
hahahahahahaha
I keep waiting for them to do another show starring Mohammad. And\or do reruns of the ones they did.
I just don’t get it, grown people watching cartoons. I stopped watching them when I turned 10.
Quit watching any episodes after the election. No interest. Once they took the mask off, I was done. Ta Ta!
People I know have reveled in how edgy and unbiased these two idiots are. The show and moreover the creators have no balls, they seek low hanging fruit, and revel in complacency for as they avoid even bigger issues that are easy to address. The show sucks!
In 2016 SP expected Hillary’s election. Like a chicken running around headless, somehow the trans science reacher becomes president??? It stopped making sense. Cartman becomes nice, memberberries…totally lost it. Questioning Trump’s penis size isn’t funny, episode after episode. I loved SP, but won’t even subscribe to Paramount because of it, just like years ago I dumped Sirius after they signed the nitwit “show me your titties”, talent-less Howard Stern.
Voted for Trump 3 times and have laugh through all South Park episodes since it’s inception. Politicians come and go, stop putting so much value into them. Trump’s latest turn AGAINST America First policies that I personally voted for opens him to criticism, even if it’s a tiny dick meme. Lighten up! Don’t take yourself so seriously.
Let’s face it, Matt and Trey are not the libertarians they once claimed to be, if they ever were. The first president to start cleaning up the behemoth of government spending and they can’t even find a moment to be happy about that? No. Never libertarians.
Trey used to say that he hated Republicans, but he ****ing HATES Liberals. But he used to say that back when they didn’t live in L.A. Whatever their politics are, everyone else in that writing room, in the animation dept, they are California liberals. There’s a reason Matt and Trey finally went back on their “Man-Bear-Pig” concept, claiming it was real. (Delightfully, though, it was a two-parter. The left praised them exuberantly for part 1. Then Part 2 comes out and says, “Fine, it exists. Are you willing to give up luxuries to stop it, or do you want to kick this can down the road to the next generation?”)
The leftiness of the two was always there. Note the “They Terk Er Jerbs!” joke. At least when it first appeared, in the Goo-Backs episode, they gave voice to the fact that people really do lose employment to the illegals, against whose rock-bottom wages they can’t compete. Now it’s just a running gag and they call everyone concerned about their jobs a bunch of racists. Matt and Trey are now entirely pro-illegal immigrant. Other episodes like “World War Zimmerman” showed just how uninformed they are outside of a lefty information bubble.
Trump has really sent them over the bend. It was true in 2016, when his election made their already-mediocre season go off the rails. Their decision to make Trump leader of Canada, then kill him off, and put Garrison in his place, sabotaged their whole show when he won. They’ve lost all ability to evaluate Trump or his policies, which is why none of the comedy is about that. It’s just hatred. “I hate this person and he’s a stinky poo-poo” is not comedy.
You would think that, with their once-infamous ability to respond to the news of the week and turn around an episode in days, that they could at least have reacted to the assassination of Charlie Kirk who was killed a month after they made fun of him. (Charlie, who was so young that South Park had always existed, was tickled to be so famous, and delighted that they clearly watched his stuff in order to get his mannerisms.) But if South Park turned a mirror on the society of the following weeks, that would involve criticizing the Left. I don’t think they can do that anymore.
Parker and Stone are dead to me. They put a target on Charlie Kirk. They should be giving 10s of millions of dollars to Turning Point instead they work for fascists and paint yet more targets on more MAGA figures. TDS and cowardice turned theme into little Musolinis.
Pops (and Mavis) Staples said all you need to know about CK’s killing in Respect Yourself:
If you don’t give a heck about the man
With the Bible in his hand, yo
Just get out the way
And let the gentleman do his thing………….Democrats just ‘get out of the way’ when they can shoot their political enemies? not likely
YEAH. It’s been a decade of decline for SP.
The bizarre humorlessness of the new season has focused this conclusion for all to see, buttressing their lack of confrontation during the fascist Bribe’ em-Biden and censorship years.
Too much low hanging fruit going unpicked marks their decline. Thanks for sharing the NYTimes interview, Christian. I would have missed it otherwise.
On to edgier stuff!
So disappointing! Here’s hoping FreedomToon’s Twisted Plots series makes its fundraising goal!
https://freedomtoons.com/twistedplots/
South Park is edgy for 12 year boys, the rest of us have moved on years ago. Since it uses current events for all its episodes it’s also not timely. If you don’t know what they are mocking, it’s pretty pointless. So most old episodes don’t hold up. They need to put it out to pasture, along with The Simpsons.
I think we can all agree how sad the entertainment industry has become when a show like South Park is not only still making new episodes, but somehow still relevant after 30 years. Is this really the best we can do? Can you imagine if Seinfeld was still on today. Tonight’s episode has a very special guest Cousin Oliver giving Jerry his yearly colonoscopy. It’s not that South Park is still on, it’s the fact we don’t demand better for our entertainment.
Amazing how a billion bucks will impact your outlook.
The Machine bought them for a purpose, and they’re gladly serving that purpose.
Money talks. always has.
This! Just what I was going to say.