'South Park' didn't just skewer Trump -- it exposed the weakness of MAGA edgelords

[Uncle Joe]

If operating under the shallow assumption that "South Park" is a show that exists to mock woke culture, Cartman’s despair could be seen as a meta-commentary.

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Trump’s baby penis and gay relationship with Satan seems to have grabbed the most headlines, but the true insult to South Park’s MAGA fans came in Cartman’s arc. Cartman, realizing that his entire personality was based on triggering liberals and mocking wokeness, finds that his knee-jerk contrarianism is no longer interesting. Without purpose, he decides to kill himself and Butters. (He does this by trying to asphyxiate them both using Butters’ parents’ car, which turns out to be electric and thus an ineffective suicide tool.)

If operating under the shallow assumption that “South Park” is a show that exists to mock woke culture, Cartman’s despair could be seen as a meta-commentary on the program itself, which in the past has frequently satirized liberals by poking fun at activism in favor of trans women in sports, inclusive Hollywood casting, the #MeToo movement and performative antiracism. But with Cartman’s existential crisis happening as the show fires on all cylinders at a new target, it’s clear that it’s the MAGA-fied edgelords in the audience who should, like Cartman, feel useless.

Like Cartman, MAGA media figures who have built their entire careers painting themselves as aggrieved and silenced victims of a cultural “left” must grapple with who they are now. They are the dog that caught the car.

“South Park” is once again making clear that the show’s humor was never about agreeing with its creators (or anyone) ideologically; it was about exposing phoniness, satirizing moral rigidity, poking fun at bullies and mocking unquestioned power. Trump demanded unquestioned power; he got it. MAGA fell in line. Institutions are falling in line. Now it’s their turn to be mocked.

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https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/south-park-trump-maga-jesus-season-27-premiere-rcna220928