(I liked the new episode, this is not necessarily something negative)
It seems to me, especially lately that the really really try to represent every side of a conversation, by giving every kind of viewer something they can agree with. Like to me it seems that in older episodes, they sometimes just obliterated one side and sometimes were just just offensive for the sake of it and in the later seasons they present more nuanced views.
I don’t think so. In the Pandemic special part 1 they ripped on people not taking the pandemic seriously by wearing their chin diapers and made fun of Florida for floating the idea that the military should fill the empty teaching positions. In the Pandemic special part 2 they again make fun of anti-vaxers and more specifically the QAnon antivaxers. In the Pandemic special part 3 and 4 they made fun of anti-vaxers and made them look like tinfoil hat wearing idiots through Clyde. They gave no credence to any anti-vax legitimacy. All four episodes there wasn’t a “both sides” take.
This episode, I also don’t think they were pandering. As someone who aligns with leftist philosophy, I’m also very frustrated with rainbow capitalism and the other people on the left who support it. I’ve either fallen into either the “yea whatever I don’t care” like with the Little Mermaid, or the “this doesn’t make any sense” camp like with Snow White. Both of these positions were not mocked and in fact were the points of reason in the show. Both with Mrs. Broflovski and Stan respectively. Most people I talk to in real life also seem to fall into these opinions as well.
They’re mocking terminally online culture warriors as a whole. And in true culture warrior fashion, they tend to ignore the criticisms about their positions and latch onto the criticisms of their enemy. I don’t see this as pandering to both sides, I see this as a critique on online culture warriors and rainbow capitalism as a whole. Neither side of the online culture war wants to take responsibility for what they’ve helped create and would rather attempt to convince themselves South Park is on their side, so that’s why it seems like South Park are trying to appeal to both when really they weren’t trying to appeal to either.
Totally. Though it’s an uncomfortable truth to some fans, I’ve come to peace with it.
They never added a Cartman speech where we learn how people who criticize reality tv are partially to blame for reality tv being lazy uncreative pandering, they just shot the Whale Wars guy in the mouth with a harpoon and called it a day.