South Park and Stereotypes

One of the most successful TV shows of this decade is South Park.  While the show is often criticized for crossing the line and being offensive, it often has serious undertones and raises some real issues to people’s attention.  One aspect of the show that makes it so interesting to watch is the interactions between all of the diverse social groups within the show.  Much of the comedic force that drives the show has to do with enforcing stereotypes (even if it is in a sarcastic fashion), but the show also does a good job of debunking stereotypes as well.

One of the most obvious examples of stereotyping in South Park is one of the secondary characters of the show, “Token Black”.  Token is the only African American character that appears regularly in the show, and finds himself constantly fighting stereotypes.  In one episode, the gang decides to form a band.  They approach Token, and tell him that they want him to play the bass guitar for the band.  When Token defensively asks them why they would think that he would be able to play the bass guitar, they say “We thought that all black people could play bass guitar.”  After staring blankly at the group, Token proceeds to pick up the bass guitar and play it like a pro.  Another recurring stereotype is that Token is good at sports.  Throughout the show, if sports are shown, Token is always participating and excelling.  In reality, Token is much like the rest of the boys, but they always alienate him by associating him with typical African American stereotypes

Another character who is frequently stereotyped is Kyle Broflovski.  Kyle is of the Jewish faith, and is always being stereotyped by the rest of the gang.  His friends often alienate him for being of a different faith, and they commonly use religion based slurs directed at him.  Kyle is constantly being tempted by Cartman for him to eat bacon, which he cannot do, as he must only eat Kosher foods.

Finally, South Park shamelessly stereotypes nerds in the episode “Make Love, Not Warcraft.”  In this episode, the boys decide to start playing the infamous MMORPG, World of Warcraft, and quickly get addicted to the game.  They begin to live off of solely Hot Pockets, and start to gain weight quickly and display pimples and blemishes on their faces.  As the boys get more and more addicted to the game, they start to fall deeper into the stereotype of the nerd, and begin to talk much like the overly dedicated players do in the viral video, Leeroy Jenkins.  Once the boys face off in the game against their arch rival, they begin to face a battle against carpal tunnel, and clearly begin to lose their grasp of what is in the game and what is reality.  When one of the gang's characters dies, the player yells a series of what sound like death throes over his headset, and proceeds to collapse on the floor.

I think that overall, South Park actually does a great job of breaking common stereotypes.  While almost every episode shows some form of stereotyping directly, the writers do a fantastic job of breaking each stereotype down.  First, they bring the issue to the viewer’s attention, and then they show how unrealistic the stereotypes are through the use of hyperbole and satire.  Many people despise South Park for its racy material, but in reality, they bring issues to light that many people try not to talk about and show the viewer how ridiculous stereotyping truly can be.  In a culture that shows a lot of media imperialism, it is nice to see a show like South Park break through the subtle stereotyping that the media often does and show how outlandish that way of thinking is.

Sources

Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2010). Intercultural communication in contexts (6th ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill M