The South Park writers pride themselves on their special brand of potty-mouthed commentary on the current social climate.
So, while everyone else looses their minds over the state of global politics – whoever said we hit rock bottom in 2016 clearly lived in a pre-2017 society – we could’ve expected South Park to keep up on our behalf.
Unfortunately, even the award-winning comedy writers and modern-day prophets who predicted President Donald Trump’s rise to power didn’t actually think the billionaire businessman would be elected as Leader of the Free World.
But, come election day, it was announced that Trump would indeed take up position in the Oval Office.
After the election results were announced, the South Park creators – Trey Parker and Matt Stone – were forced, like the rest of us, to scramble around on the floor for a foothold in reality and a fresh, relevant script for their post-Election Day episode.
Of course, that threw the rest of the season’s script out of kilter and that is why we have seen very little parody featuring The Donald.
Instead, South Park turned Mr. Garrison into a Trump stand-in, endowing him with Trump’s trademark perma-tan and sexist remarks.
Parker and Stone initially explained this away by saying they ‘didn’t really want to service Trump as a character’ or ‘give him the satisfaction’.
But it seem, with hindsight, the creators have reflected on their satirical brand of comedy alongside the current climate and seen disturbing parallels.
Parker and Stone told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:
It’s tricky now because satire has become reality. It’s really hard to make fun of and in the last season of South Park…
We were really trying to make fun of what was going on, but we couldn’t keep up and what was actually happening was much funnier than anything we could come up with.
So we decided to kind of back off and let them do their comedy and we’ll do ours.
Essentially, the creators have think the Donald Trump administration is too difficult to satirise because it is funny enough on its own.
Read into that what you will.
A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.