'Sermon on the Mount’ May Be South Park’s Most Defiant Episode to Date
The season 27 premiere of Comedy Central’s subversive cartoon illustrates the power of satire
There are a handful of moments from the show’s history that the South Park season 27 premiere brought to my mind. Some of the callbacks might be obvious for other fans of the show; it’s an episode brimming with returning characters and references to seasons passed. But a few of the parallels that cropped up while watching for me have less to do with nods to its enduring history and more with the role that the show has continually played during fraught times.
The first episode that I can’t help but reflect on is one that went above my head when it first aired. (I was only five at the time — give me a break.)
The title may undersell its cultural importance. But when “Osama bin Laden Has Farty Pants” debuted in November of 2001, less than two months after the terrorist attacks that destroyed the Twin Towers, it played a crucial role. It was released to an American public that still wasn’t sure that it was allowed to laugh again after what had happened.
Few would have conceived of pulling humor from the events of 9/11 when South Park decided to break the silence. Most comedians weren’t even willing to touch the topic with a sixty-foot pole.
The opening scene of the episode features the main cast of characters lined up at the bus stop wearing military-grade gas masks.
“Remember when life used to be simple and cool?” Kyle asks.
“Not really,” Cartman replies.
From the opening seconds of that season-five episode, it sends a clear message to viewers that no subject is off-limits for the show. And in a frayed, post-9/11 America, it stood for many as immediate proof of the therapeutic value that can come from talking about — and laughing at— the issues that are closest to home.
The episode proceeds to portray Osama bin Laden in a slapstick, Looney Tunes-style parody. It’s equipped with many of the ridiculous antics and explosive fart gags that define South Park’s early seasons. But the writers’ incisive wit had begun to poke its head through the show’s irreverent surface.
There were many times throughout the years that South Park broached similarly polarizing subjects with a similarly bullheaded refusal to back down. But the next instance I feel is worth mentioning is an episode that goes by the rather morose name, “Dead Kids.” As with the 9/11 episode that preceded it by more than a decade, what it aims to draw humor from is something many wouldn’t believe is possible: school shootings. Yet it’s in addressing politicians’ unwillingness to do anything to prevent the routine massacres — and shining an ugly light on the public’s numbness to such horrible atrocities — that it ends up serving one of the most integral roles that comedy can.
“There’s truth in satire.”
The episode starts with the students sitting in class and being lectured about fractions as a gunfight breaks out in the hallway. But instead of panicking or hiding under desks, the students have become so utterly desensitized to the sound of bullets ricocheting off lockers that they just continue listening to the lecture. Heavily armed policemen break down the door, guns raised and barking commands, and the kids stare blankly ahead like it’s barely a fire drill.
Later, it’s not even a footnote when Stan reports back the events of the day to his parents at the dinner table.
They ask him what happened at school, certain he should have something to report.
“Oh, the school shooting?”
“Yes, the school shooting!”
“Oh yeah, some kid shot up the school,” Stan replies non-committally as he continues cutting up his steak. The episode provides a pull-no-punches condemnation of one of the most dystopian realities of American life.
The final South Park episode that I’ll reference for context came a few months after the onset of COVID-19. As conspiracies circled the country, social distancing reached its height, and remote working/schooling became our new normal, we’d reached another crossroads that felt too dire to satirize.
Yet, in those frenzied early days of the pandemic, that was when I longed most for South Park’s keen social commentary. I craved to see the way they’d address all the chaos of that never-ending year.
Once they did, it probably goes without saying that they didn’t let viewers down. There was a profound catharsis in seeing the pandemonium of the past few months channeled into humor. It was as riotous as it was necessary.
South Park’s 27th season arrives into the world at a time of tension and disunion comparable to what many of us knew back in 2020. Following CBS’s controversial decision to cancel Stephen Colbert’s show, much of the nation has begun sounding a five-alarm fire. They view his deplatforming as incontrovertible evidence that autocracy has finally come to America.
CBS has mounted a defense over the cancellation, arguing it has more to do with ratings and less to do with threats from the current presidential administration. At best, the move can be seen as one of the most dismally timed decisions in the company’s history; at worst, it’s so cravenly political that it appears to draw South Park’s very future into question. (Comedy Central falls under the same Paramount umbrella as CBS.)
After weeks of behind-the-scenes drama, it seemed that the show might cave into censorship demands, lest it face the same backlash as Colbert. What few expected was that, as ink still dried on a $1.5 billion deal with Paramount to air five more seasons of the show, South Park would turn around and deliver one of the most singularly blistering rebukes of a political figure of any show in history. In addition to all but demanding a response from the White House (which it was happy to fulfill), show creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker directly called out the bias and cowardice of its parent company.
In the season 27 premiere, titled “Sermon on the Mount,’” Cartman wakes up to learn that NPR has just been cancelled by the President. Normally a heedless anti-woke crusader, this inspires an existential crisis for him about his role in a country without gender-inclusive bathrooms to complain about, and devoid of radio shows where he can listen to progressives rant. The physical embodiment of Jesus Christ also appears in South Park Elementary and kickstarts a farcical debate among townspeople about whether or not “Jesus should be allowed in schools.”
Most notably, the episode speaks directly to the Colbert controversy, depicts the president as a Middle Eastern dictator in a romantic relationship with the devil, and even portrays him, unclothed, crawling pathetically across a desert. It’s a flaming middle finger in the face of the deal that Stone and Parker just signed, and an even more defiant message than they managed to impart after 9/11. As people turn inward and institutions buckle from political pressures, South Park’s bravery and unrestrained willingness to laugh in the face of power are more essential than ever.
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Agreed, Ben. I think that people are fearful and anxious. I’m included in that. We look for strength from the typical sources in troubled times, and they are lacking. We are in an authoritarian fascist state, and the collapse of our institutions is happening so easily.
Our Senate Leadership and the House Leadership, Schumer and Jeffries, have shown a willingness to capitulate. The anger of the citizens is foreign to them — they can’t understand it.
South Park, despite all its crudeness, serves to express our anger, speaking truth to power. I think it’s vital to the mental health of the nation.
Great column, Ben.
I missed a couple of these, haven't always kept up with it over the years. Excellent stuff, totally agree that satire is sometimes the best way to shine a light on things. It's hard to satirize current events but glad they haven't given up the crusade!