Yeah, I was just about to ask, “which one?” but both work.

Is there an alternate source for this video (whatever it is)?  Hulu is unavailable outside the US ...

Am I the only one who can’t wait for South Park to do an episode on Palin?

Am I the only one who can’t wait for South Park to do an episode on Palin?

Don’t get your hopes too high.  They’ve slammed Al Gore and Hillary Clinton but I con’t recall any shots against Republicans.

Notorious-

They hate the religious right-type Republicans, though.

They went after Pat Robertson, 700 Club and Christian missionaries in the episode “Starvin’ Marvin in Space.”  Also look for a delightful cameo of Sally Struthers as Jabba the Hutt.

Right. They’re Republicans pretty clearly, but not the religious right variety.

Am I the only one who can’t wait for South Park to do an episode on Palin?

Sigh. Unfortunately I’m quite certain they’ll attack her because of her sex, rather than her politics. A Serena Joy Palin might be, but nevertheless she is a female politician and that makes her fair game for the frat-boys who overrun the entertainment industry and pop-culture, with their manchild-ish contempt for any woman who “dares” to influence public-policy, regardless of her political persuasion. Yay, bipartisanship at last! (eye-roll)

Maybe not.

I’m hearing so much stuff about skeletons in her closet, I’m beginning to wonder firstly if McCain really vetted her and, secondly, if she will make it past mid-October.

Pseudo-Adrienne, you do know what blog you’re at, right?  I’m guessing we’re nearing the tipping point for that here, too.  Just a matter of time.

My favorite animated analogue to the Republican ticket is King of the Hill, if you haven’t yet seen the comparison.  Yes, Cotton and Peggy Hill are wearing the red jersey in ‘08.

My understanding is that Trey Parker, at least, is a left-leaning libertarian, and I’ve always gotten the impression that Matt Stone doesn’t pay attention to politics.  The Al Gore episode, according to the DVD commentary, was written not so much in response to Al Gore’s politics, but by an aesthetic frustration with An Inconvenient Truth.  That episode was still one of the weakest in the show’s history (it suggests—contrary to what they’ve expressed in other episodes of the series—that global warming is no more a threat than a mythical “Manbearpig”), but I seem to recall both of them expressing (can’t remember if it was on a DVD commentary or in an interview) a lot of frustration with the entire “South Park Republican” phenomenon.

If there’s a guiding philosophy behind South Park, it seems to be that sanctimonious people—social conservatives and liberal academics alike—need to be taken down a peg.  As a liberal academic, I tend to disagree, sometimes, with who Parker and Stone label as sanctimonious, but I think they strive to be pretty even-handed with their insults.  And the show’s still better-written than any other sitcom I can think of on television at the moment (faint praise, I know).

As a liberal academic, I tend to disagree, sometimes, with who Parker and Stone label as sanctimonious, but I think they strive to be pretty even-handed with their insults.

Except that most Democrats they insult are named and actual people, but most Republicans/conservatives are generic and fictional.

Sorry, but I cannot and will not get over the bomb in Hillary Clinton’s vagina.  Can you picture them for one second writing that episode about Laura Bush or Nancy Reagan?  How about Elizabeth Dole?  And yet they wouldn’t hesitate for a second to sub in Nancy Pelosi.

If they were at least even-handed about naming and bashing Republicans, it wouldn’t bother me as much, but they aren’t and they never have been.  That’s why the show attracts so many South Park Republicans—they rarely have to see their own politicians named and mocked.

I think the problem is not that they are republicans, but that they are jerks. I don’t think you could find a coherent position that they actually take on the show - they just mock anyone who feels strongly about anything. I get annoyed when they attack people I like, but I don’t think they are doing it out of a sense of advocacy for an opposing cause. And when they focus on the characters, rather than politics, the show can have some good moments.

Besides, they get a lifetime pass for Team America: World Police.

Are we forgetting the Golden PSP episode which directly mocked Bush and the Republicans as brainless puppets of the Devil?

eh, what Henry said.

The episode where Oprah’s Minge gets sick of years of neglect and starts taking hostages is bizarrely hilarious to me. Especially due to the british gangster accents.