South Park’S Influence On Television

South Park, the animated TV series aired on Comedy Central was created by Matt Stone and Trey Parker and is one of the many new shows that involve animation with high-level adult comedy that parodies current events going on across the United States and throughout the world. South Park is just one of many new shows that involve this sort of high end entertainment and they are taking the television ratings by storm. This show, along with others of its nature such as Family Guy, The Simpsons, and King of the Hill are all extremely controversial in nature and in regards to the situations portrayed on the television screen. These shows have become consistently more obnoxious, racial, and detrimental in content that it has caused major concern with viewers of all statures, whether it is a mother's concern with their 10-year-olds viewing habits or the concern in the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). In light of all the controversy and vulgar content, South Park continues to push the limits of what is acceptable for television viewing, continually going over the edge in many viewers' eyes. Like it or not South Park is extremely inventive in nature and on many levels has been more successful than anyone could have ever dreamed. In this paper we will explore the many different aspects, criticisms, and accomplishments this heavily controversial cable television cartoon has touched upon.

South Park is an animated series that was created by Matt Stone and Trey Parker in the mid 90's featuring four boys who live in the Colorado town of South Park, which is often beset by frequent odd occurrences that prove mysteriously similar to current events going on in our world. The show grew out of a short film that Trey Parker and Matt Stone created called "Frosty" or also known as "The Spirit of Christmas". "Frosty", also known as "A Christmas Story," was shot on an old, rough and tumble 16mm Arriflex camera that was on an animation stand at the University of Colorado film department in Boulder (The Spirit of Christmas, August 16, 2006). The video was very primitive stuff in nature and the style of cinematography used to create the show is much more simplistic than traditional hand-drawn animation; but it is also very tedious and very labour intensive (The Spirit of Christmas, August 16,2006). The use of computers has made it more efficient because things don't have to be cut out and glued together by hand as was done for the pilot. Today the scripts for South Park episodes are written only days before a show actually airs, allowing the content of the show to stay up to date and topical (The Spirit of Christmas, August 16, 2006).

The make-up of the show is very nuclear in nature, as there are four boys whose lives and random run-ins with society are elaborated on. The four main characters are Eric Cartman, who is the short, obnoxious, loud mouthed, fat kid whom the others constantly make fun of for being stupid and overweight. Then there is Stan Marsh, who is your normal run of the mill kid who has the sanest viewpoint of the entire bunch, when things go wrong Stan usually has the defining voice of reason. Stan often “summarizes the message or moral of the episode” (South Park, August 19, 2006). Next there is Kyle Broflovski who is the overtly smart one who also happens to be Jewish and lives a very stereotypical Jewish life in the way his parents, especially his mother, treat him. Kyle is always being made fun of for his intellectual skills and his religious affiliation, and is often depicted as “the most moral member of the four” (South Park, August 19, 2006). Last but not least there is Kenny McCormick, who rarely ever takes off his hooded jacket or speaks, and when he does, his voice is muffled. Kenny lives in your stereotypical poor family as he lives in a broken down shack of a house and has drunken and abusive parents that rarely care what happens. Kenny is extremely unlucky by nature and in some way shape or form is killed in every episode by something paralleling the point being made in each episode.

Most parents do not approve of the “bleepable” expletives that fly out of the kids' mouths on 'South Park' or the fact that Kenny dies violently in every episode. A lot of people want shows like this to be censored or taken off of the air. However, the problem “may not be television as a medium, but the way in which many have chosen to use it, particularly within the family” (Crotty, 1995, p. 4). Many parents have allowed their children to watch television extensively, thus cutting down on communication among family members. They should let their children experience life in the real world and not censor everything that they disagree with.

Some of the past show topics have included anal probes and the alien abduction of Ike, Stan's younger brother. Parents do not care for the show, thinking that it will corrupt their child's innocence. Kids on the other hand take the show's content in a completely different way that parents would not expect. They know that they shouldn't follow in the footsteps of the four vulgar children of 'South Park.' In the show, Cartman dressed up as Hitler for Halloween. This may have alarmed some parents, but New York seventh grader Nick Ferrar says, "With Catman, you know he's a complete idiot and you should do the opposite of everything he does" (South Park, August 19, 2006). As for the language that flies out of the third graders mouths, an eight year old boy from Larchmont, New York says that they weren't new to him, "My daddy says them every single day" (South Park, August 19, 2006).

Parents are going about sheltering their children the wrong way. While they are blaming television and the violence in the world, they don't realize that the person that the child will take after most is themselves. What parents mostly don't realize is who is watching the show the most. Almost 60% of the show's hard core viewers are ages 18 to 34 while only 23% of the audience is under 18 (Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children, 1999). South Park is viewed in over 47 million households when it is shown on Comedy Central once a week (South Park, August 19, 2006).

Many people have said that 'South Park' is the reason that they made the V-chip. V-chips are devices that can block out whole television programs. It lets parents have more control over the programs they do not want their children to watch. Television networks should not be able to prohibit the viewing of certain shows, especially South Park, which target audience is not children. Parents should be the ones making the decision of how and how much