#South Park Meta

[kennytheworkingclasshero]

Kenny had to grow up fast. He’s a 9 year old kid who doesn’t have the luxury of being 9 years old because of his circumstances. He’s the middle child of the poorest family in South Park and while his parents being addicts isn’t their fault, given the fact that drugs and alcohol are placed in working class communities on purpose in order to keep them there, that doesn’t negate the fact that they aren’t great to their children or each other. They’re violent, they fight and they’re often inebriated.

Their children have to witness this and have the potential to soak it up like a sponge. We see this with the eldest McCormick child, Kevin. He’s a heavy drinker (as can be seen in “The Poor Kid”) who finds domestic violence funny and goes to participate (as can be seen in “Chickenlover”). He doesn’t seem to step up as the eldest, and we see Kenny take on that role much more frequently.

In “The Poor Kid”, we see Kenny try and warn his parents that the police are outside and they could be in trouble. We see his younger sister, Karen, lean on Kenny rather than Kevin as they are taken away from their parents, both physically (holding his hand, leaning into his side) and emotionally “I’ll see you at recess, right?” “I’ll be there, Karen.” This can be taken as proof that at home, Kenny is usually the one making sensible decisions and looking out for his sister. We see the care he has for his sister carry on in “The City Part of Town”, where he spends the salary he’s earned on his sister, buying her a doll they couldn’t usually afford in order to make her happy and feel like a normal child.

This carries on when we see him operate as Mysterion, where he has a very Spider-Man feel, in a sense that like Spider-Man, he has grown up in a working class community and seen the struggles that his people go through everyday and that makes him want to inact change in the city. However, his priority still seems to be to his sister, checking up on her regularly and comforting her “I was wondering when you’d appear, you always come when I’m sad,” “You are going to be okay, Karen. You have to keep believing that.” He protects her against bullies, as well as getting the message across to his parents to treat their children right. “Hey look, we did what you told us. We treat our kids better and we don't beat each other up as much.” “And we gave our sons allowances and stopped gettin' high every night.”

However, he tries to find balance between having to grow up faster than the people around him and his childhood. We see this when he uses Mysterion to play superheros with his friends, despite the fact he developed Mysterion as a coping mechanism in order to better the lives of him and his siblings. He still tries to find some joy in it, even though his friends take it as nothing more than a game, even when Kenny is in the midst of making deep discoveries about his parents choices that had major ramifications on him, particularly. He participates in bake sales, he cracks jokes and he comes to terms with the fact that his friends will never know him fully or take him seriously because they always forget the trauma they should have shared by witnessing him dying again and again. He wakes up again in the same bed, with the same orange parka and he’s ready to face the day.

[chaoticreivingu]

Compare & Contrast: Pip Pirrup & Butters Stotch

There’s a story that’s been spread around the South Park fandom for a very long time, in which it’s argued that due to Pip’s unpopularity among the audience and creators alike, Butters replaced Pip and his role in the show. But did he really take over his role or is this just one fanon game of telephone?

Pip’s role, ever since the beginning of the show, was to be severely abused and hated by everyone, adults and strangers alike. He’s well-spoken and emotionally mature for his age, but at the same time too awkward to even be seen in public with, and whenever he speaks his “punchable” personality is enough to cause a scene. His submissiveness and passive ways aren’t seen as endearing, and seemingly every aspect of him, from his mismatched clothes to his voice was designed to induce a cringeworthy reaction from the cast. His only usefulness is that everybody can take his anger out on him however they want with no consequences at all. No adult cares about him and he’s an orphan, so he can’t snitch to anyone.

Butters on the other hand, isn’t universally hated. Sure he’s seen as lame by the rest, but Kyle likes him enough to invite him to Casa Bonita and even in Awesome-O Cartman was the only one dead set on pranking him.

That’s not to say he’s not bullied at all during this era, he did start out as a Melvin at first and does get picked on a lot in seasons 3-7, but he’s not as low on the social ladder as Pip is, since he practically has his own level at the bottom of the barrel.

An example of this is in Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub, where Stan, Dougie and Butters all visibly interact with the media and police in some way, but Pip is delegated to doing behind the scenes work, once again highlighting how much of a stigma everyone has around him, that even around others like himself, it’s best to not have him talk or else the plan might backfire from the possible awkwardness that might ensue.

Even if he was called a “Melvin” by Stan, it’s clear that his bullying is never as severe as Pip’s. While Pip’s abuse relies on social isolation, physical beatings, humiliation and life risking situations, Butters’ bullying is more about manipulating, drifting, pranking and taking advantage of his gullibility to make him go along with a plan, even if he’s initially cautious about it.

To put it into perspective, the first time Butters bled was 5 seasons after his debut. The first time Pip bled was in his first appearance.

These scenes almost serve as parallels to each other to highlight how different these two are in terms of their roles, personality and how the rest view them.

In the former, the main 4 convince Pip to go down the slide, he cracks his head open and bleeds profusely. They proceed to laugh at him and even tell him to do it again to get hurt more for their entertainment while Pip runs to the nurse’s office.

In the latter, Butters convinces the main 4 to play with him, Kenny accidentally throws a ninja star into his eye and he bleeds profusely. They instantly stop their playtime to check on Butters’ wellbeing while Butters pleads to go to the hospital.

It’s clear from this how unaccustomed Butters is to such an injury and how much the main 4 value Butters as a person and friend, even if they don’t want to admit it. On the flipside it’s evident that Pip is seen as nothing more than entertainment for the boys and how much he’s used to being treated this way since he barely reacts to the injury.

Other scenes that serve to differentiate the two is in Hooked on Monkey Phonics and Cartman’s Silly Hate Crime. Both Butters and Pip are featured in the episodes, and in the latter act like a matching set but react differently, like at the thought of the boys losing the match against the girls(Butters’ focuses on losing to women while Pip’s is a more general statement).

In both episodes Pip is given the usual physical abuse treatment even when he imitates the others to fit in or tries standing up for himself, while Butters isn’t mocked at all and is more antagonistic, strapping Mark to a bench and calling Clyde the second fattest kid. Unlike Pip, Butters rotates from being bullied to doing the bullying since that’s how South Park Elementary School’s society functions.

For the last scene to compare and contrast, in Professor Chaos Butters and Pip are both featured and devalued by the boys.

Butters’ scene is set in the privacy of Cartman’s room, nobody else is there except for the Stan,Kyle, Cartman and Butters. The Scamps fire Butters for being too lame, but still apologize for things going this way as Butters sadly leaves, with the punchline being his outlandish reaction afterwards.

Pip’s scene is set publicly, in Denver no less. While it already starts awkwardly by Pip clapping instead of cheering like the rest, it’s when he asks for tea at a baseball game that all eyes lock on to him in anger or shock. After Pip doubles down asking for crumpets Cartman angrily tells him to go away with some people still looking at him, while he leaves in confusion at what he did wrong. Coincidentally, immediately after Pip leaves, Butters shows up to hijack the game.

In all these examples, Butters and Pip both act and react in separate ways and even in bullying scenes the punchlines aren’t the same. By late season 8 Butters starts to grow more and more to the point that by season 14 the nerdiness is just a quirk that’s slowly fading, while Pip gets his last appearance by being Barbra Streisand’s punching bag and dying in the process.

So if Pip is superficially similar but inwardly different than Butters, why did Trey and Matt stop using him? Simple, they just got bored of him like they did with Dr. Mephesto and Mrs. Crabtree.

In the creator commentary for Two Guys Naked in a Hot tub they say they enjoy writing Butters more but that’s understandable, one is an original character they created while the other is a direct parody that’s more creatively limited, not due to being “empty” but his lack of parents and inability to make fun of others limit a lot of potential that could be done in later South Park episodes that focus more on the parents or aren’t afraid of making characters mean spirited for the sake of the plot.

As a bonus, here's some minor details that are worth mentioning:

While they’re both blond, geeky and voiced by Matt Stone, Pip and Butters’ jackets are dark red and turquoise respectively, which are direct opposites on the color wheel.

Their hairstyles also indicate their different personality traits as Pip’s long and straight hair emphasizes his lameness and softness compared to the rest while Butters’ short and spiky hair indicates he has more of a backbone compared to his fellow Melvin.

Finally, while(in earlier seasons) Butters’ accent is stereotypically southern and his speech is drawn out, Pip’s accent is stereotypically British and his speech is concise.

[fayoftheforest]

human kite & antisemitism

In the notes of my recent meta on Vampire Kyle AUs, a user reflected on how similar antisemitic stereotypes might overlap with his TFBW character as well. Since I also have some thoughts on this and enjoyed putting together the last lil post I thought I’d do another on this subject too :) 

South Park Fandom Wiki states that Human Kite is heavily inspired by Superman, “being a faraway alien with the ability to fly and to shoot lasers out of his eyes, even wearing a costume with the color red, yellow, and blue and a symbol in his chest to match.”  I think this is pretty cool! Superman was created by Jewish immigrants and is very Jewish-coded in his origin story, being “a refugee with the Hebrew-inspired name ‘Kal-El’ who escaped a dying world and fought Nazis during World War II” (JewishUnpacked). I don’t know if Tratt were aware of these roots, but either way, I think it’s pretty neat :)

South Park Fandom Wiki also claims that Kyle playing an alien character “may be a reference to how Adolf Hitler did not consider Jews ‘human.’" This is. Uh. Less neat.

Similarly upsetting is the name itself, Human Kite, which is a play on words with the horrific ethnic slur “kike.” American Jewish Committee posits that the term “is derived from the Yiddish word for circle, ‘kikel,’ a reference to how Jewish immigrants at Ellis Island signed their entry forms: a circle as opposed to an X, which Jews associated with the cross of Christianity. Immigration officers described those who signed forms with a circle as ‘kikel,’ eventually being shortened to ‘kike.’”

Did Matt and Trey really create his entire character just so that Cartman could call him Human Kike that one time? I can’t say for certain, just in the same way I don’t have a direct quote from them confirming the reasoning behind their selections of names for Kyle and Ike. But I can tell you that if you put ‘em together and you get… yeah. Yep. “Kike” again. Thank you, Tratt, very cool 👍Get a new joke maybe :/

Now, let’s talk specifically about his laser powers. Up until researching for this meta, I had presumed that Kyle’s ability to shoot lasers from his eyes was a direct reference to the Jewish Space Laser conspiracy popularised to the public by terrifyingly influential political figure Marjorie Taylor Greene. In 2018, Greene wrote a Facebook rant speculating that the California wildfires were caused by a giant laser floating in space, owned by the Jews. Very normal thing to believe :|

However, during my research, I realised that these timelines did not match up. As mentioned, Greene’s rant was shared in 2018, but didn’t go viral until 2021. Meanwhile, South Park’s The Fractured But Whole was released way back in 2017! What I had initially assumed was another antisemitic reference is in fact just a dreadful and ridiculous coincidence. Nonetheless, It’s still a commonality that’s worth pointing out, I think.

Just as an aside, I’d like to take this opportunity to give a shoutout to cousin Kyle’s version of Human Kite. Everything about him is an egregious Jewish caricature, from his irritating, snivelling voice to his long list of health issues. It’s not my fault that the limited Jewish gene pool has fucked me over, Tratt! Leave me alone! A meta about antisemitism within Cousin’s Kyle characterisation would be a mile long, so I’ll spare you that for now.

Anyway, what does this all mean when we’re creating fan content around TFBW? Must we just chuck the Human Kite persona into a blender and never speak of it again? Not necessarily. Speaking as a Jewish fandom member, I quite enjoy reading and writing Human Kite. It’s a fun character to play around with! Despite his unfortunate roots, I don’t believe including him is innately antisemitic. It just depends on how you go about doing it! If he’s not secretly running the world, controlling the banks and Hollywood, or consuming the blood of innocent Christians, you’re on the right track. 

You could even go for a little meta-commentary and acknowledge the antisemitic coding within the text! Here’s an example of how I did that in my upcoming TFBW reality swap fic (don’t question why there’s two of everyone, it makes sense within the text lmao)

“Wait, you’re telling me in an alternate reality we’re all aliens?” Kyle gawks at this funhouse-mirror version of himself, who’s busy gawking right back. “No, Kyle, just—just you,” Kenny says. “Oh.” Kyle narrows his eyes. “You know, it’s difficult not to interpret this with antisemitic undertones.” “What, like the Jewish Space Laser conspiracy?” Cartman asks. Mysterion frowns. “Jewish people have space lasers in your universe?” “No,” Cartman sighs and shakes his head forlornly, before muttering, “it’s a made-up rumour to perpetuate mistrust and hatred towards the Jewish community.” “Alright, don’t sound so disappointed,” Kyle huffs. “Guys!” Stan says. “Can we not start this argument again?” “I never said it was a cool rumour, Kyle!” Cartman snaps defensively. “Obviously it’s super harmful and whatever. All I meant was that it would have been cool if it were real. Because, like, space lasers are awesome! Right?” He looks to Kite, apparently presuming that they’re an authority on the matter. “Um.” Kite blinks, then says hesitantly, “I can shoot lasers… from my eyes. And once I did sort of fly up into space and magnify the lasers to destroy Chaos’s tin foil factory. So, uh. Does that help?” Cartman’s face lights up and is split in half by an enthusiastic grin. “It helps a lot, actually.” Kyle groans and pinches his nose. “You have no idea how much education you’ve just undone, dude.” He opens his eyes to glower at Kite. Kenny glances at Chaos. “Tin foil factory?” Chaos waves a hand dismissively. “Outsourcing proved more efficient.”

There we go! A lighthearted little nod, which acknowledges potential antisemitic readings of Human Kite, without justifying or excusing it. It’s not at all necessary when creating fan content around Human Kite, but just know that that’s an option to you, if you so choose. Just make sure antisemites are the butt of your joke, and not Jewish people, lmao.

I’ll finish up by returning to my general sentiment that I held in my Vamp!Kyle post. If you conduct your creations with a basic level of awareness and self-reflection, you’ll probably be alright. Just stay in the know, and you’re all good to go 😎

[rx-aysgl]

On Kyle's Side: My Personal Take on Cartman And Kyle's Dynamic From Kyle's Point Of View

This is a four part essay in which i explore Cartman and Kyle's relationship, focusing primarily on Kyle's perspective. As said, i have broken it down into four different parts titled:

Sense of Identity

Martyr Complex and Competitiveness

Cartman

Their Relationship

There will be an extra chapter where i will make some additional commentary.

Hope you guys enjoy.

1. Sense of Identity and Selfishness

In the show Kyle is always concerned about “doing the right thing”, at least that's what he likes to tell himself. Though in reality, he is extremely selfish when push comes to shove and the reason for that stems from his constant questioning of his own identity and his stance in things. This makes him come off as rather inconsistent in a lot of ways. As a result, Kyle feels very lost. So what does he do? He decides to base his opinions and feelings and thoughts off of his environment because his own existance overwhelms him so much (eg. the "Tooth Fairy Tats 2000" episode). This puts him into this vicious cycle where he keeps getting lost even more due to not being able to pinpoint his own frame of thought and latching onto the external world that consists of many different people who have found their own way in life who also keep changing constantly and thus leaving all kinds of contradicting impressions on him. Throughout the series we see him try to change his apparence, religion, even his personality for the sake of fitting in (this also correlates to his martyr complex which i will get to). He creates this moral code for himself that he conditions himself to stick to in order to find his own identity and feel a sense of belonging but the sheer inconsistency of said moral code causes him to come off as indecisive, sometimes as a people pleaser and sometimes a hypocrite.

His defiance of a stable frame of mind pushes him to act on instinct and his momentary emotions while his refusal of self-acceptance causes him to distance his true self from others he considers close to him (Stan), hence the selfishness. It makes sense because how could someone get close to another when he can't even make peace with his own identity?

The reason i am mentioning this is to point out that since Cartman is so extreme in his beliefs and deliberately commits so many evil and selfish deeds, Kyle is obsessively drawn to him because it is so easy to call out and oppose him. Their polarity makes Kyle feel a sense of self he doesnt allow himself to truly make peace with and sugarcoat how fucked up he can be just like all the people in South Park that have wronged him but not enough to channel these feelings into. Cartman keeps Kyle grounded. Just like basically every other kid in the show, Kyle has done terrible things but he is so concerned about being right that he has to have Cartman by his side to make him escape from his own inner conflicts by reflecting it directly onto Cartman, the one person he is actually much more similar to more than he likes to think but he can only subconsciously acknowledge it.

2. Martyr Complex and Competitiveness

Another very essential aspect we need to pay attention to is Kyle's martyr complex. Kyle feels the need to not only to do the right thing but also to “sacrifice himself” for it. He is so self righteous to the point that not only does he not acknowledge his own flaws he also thinks he has to be and is some kind of heroic figure to others (eg. "Ginger Cow"), though this is more subtle compared to the other aspects of his personality.

The martyr complex causes Cartman to be seen as an even easier target than he already is and Cartman is more than willing to exploit Kyle for it hence feeding his very own complexes. They mutually feed off of each other to the point they are obsessed with each other and need each other. I would also like to point out that Kyle often shares some of his most vulnerable moments when Cartman is by his side in a suprising way (eg. choosing to stay by Cartman's side in the "You're Getting Old" and "Ass Burgers" episodes as an escape from Stan's depression at the time, crying with Cartman in "Kenny Dies" etc.) and vice versa. Though this is hard to notice on Cartman's side because Kyle conveys his vulnerability via confusion, sadness and desparation whereas Cartman does so via anger, jealousy and revenge.

3. Cartman

Cartman chastising Kyle like this most likely stems from how he believes Kyle was the catalyst to how fucked up he turned out to be due to his constant agression and bullying towards him in the earlier seasons, where he was mostly just a spoiled brat and nowhere near as bad as he is now. His pent up fury leads Cartman to also feel an extreme amount of envy towards Kyle with the reason of Cartman being a little more capable than Kyle at recognizing how him and Kyle share many similarities (being very emotionally driven, selfishness, neuroticism, stubbornnes, a habit of denying their own mistakes) who is in full denial of it on a conscious level. Cartman does try to get closer to Kyle and also the rest of his friends and seek their validation in the earlier seasons but as time goes by he realizes more and more that Kyle does not get the same treatment as him regardless.

Therefore, Cartman blames Kyle for his suffering and takes it all out on him in various disgusting ways because he thinks that Kyle deserves all the terrbile things happening to him.

It is very important to take into consideration how abhorrent Cartman's upbringing was and how influential it is to the way he feels towards Kyle. All of his childhood; he was raised with all kinds of abuse, neglect, extensive bullying and was depraved of almost all positive emotions. The result of this is Cartman ending up percieving positive emotions in a very traumatized, distorted and disturbing way. With this gradual build-up and "Scott Tennorman Must Die" being his breaking point by spreading fear to all of South Park and feeling an overwhelming amout of attention on him that he craved so much, Cartman ultimately comes to the conclusion that he can only and only validate himself by inflicting negativity on others. Independent from being conventionally "positive" or "negative" emotions, post-Scott Tennorman Cartman correlates all of his emotions to seeking attention and asserting himself as much as he can in means of a defense mechanism and in means of validating his own existance. His real feelings are filtered through a broken perspective, of which are conveyed intensely to the people he feels strongly about like Kyle or Liane.

How this all comes back to Kyle lies in the fact that Cartman also "benefits" from the way Kyle caters to his own problems via their seemingly very polarized relationship, not only does Cartman keep Kyle grounded as mentioned but Kyle does keep Cartman grounded as well.

At this point, their individual vicious cycles have become one, a constant play of cat and mouse; with both of them unable to differentiate which one is which, ever chasing.

4. Their Relationship

Describing their feelings towards each other as solely hate wouldn’t do justice to the times they tried so hard to keep the other in their lives (eg. the "Smug Alert" and "Skank Hunt" episodes) not only for the sake of just existing in each others lives or keeping in touch etc. but also to keep each other in their individual loops they are in, of which they cannot maintain with anyone else.

As a consequence Kyle and Cartman’s mutual obsession with each other leads them to go such lengths as saving each other multiple times. However, since there is a perpetual competitiveness between them due to Cartman's evny towards Kyle and Kyle's insatiable need to prove himself to be better than Cartman, they simply cannot stand each other’s happiness, especially if it involves someone really close to them, like a partner. Cartman ruining Kyle's potential romantic relationship with Nicole in "Cartman Finds Love" and Kyle trying to ruin Cartman's relationship with Heidi in "Doubling Down" and Kyle being unable to appreciate Cartman finally changing his ways for good and having a loving relationship and family in the Post Covid specials are all examples of both of them selfishly trying to involve the other in their own issues they should be able to deal with on their own, only have they not been such self absorbed people.

Their rivalry brings out the best and the worst in each other and they both know deep down that they are just like each other and they both hate it and feel an odd sense of comfort in it. That is exactly the reason why they simply cannot stand when the one of them goes on to have a happier life than the other. Not only do they feel as if they have lost some kind of battle but they also feel abandoned when it happens.

Extra Thoughts:

I find their relationship to be extremely complex and honest to god it has my multi media overthinker ass climbing up the walls and shitting furnitures. They are my favorite characters in the show and analyzing both of them was such treat to me. Due to some things i have mentioned in this essay especially on the last chapter, you can interpret some of them in the same vein as some kind of shipping subtext, even though this essay is essentially written in means of sheerly exploring this dynamic as it is. I honestly like keeping things really ambigious without necessarily categorizing relationships as romantic or platonic but if written properly i can enjoy both renditions of this relationship.

In order to clarify some things, i can enjoy romantic kyman ONLY AND ONLY in the condition of Cartman bettering himself over the years. I know it would be really difficult and may seem impossible to most of you but i find it an interesting and challenging story to think about and create content for. I believe that Eric is forever gonna stay as an asshole and i do not expect him to become an angel in the future. However I also think of him to be a really traumatized 8 year old, who is a really fucked up product of his really fucked up environment, a child who is smart enough to learn to be a better person, especially to those he values as his friends if given the proper opportunity. I do not think that their relationship will ever be a conventionally and classically an ideal one, especially from an outsider's perspective but Kyle and Cartman (and the entirety of South Park's cast) are both very far from being ideal human beings in the first place. At the end of the day, relationships can be very complex and unhealthy in real life, they always come in different colors and shapes. It is okay to explore a relationship in fiction without thinking it is the ideal relationship or the relationship you want to have in your own lives. It is okay to explore a relationship because it is interesting and well-written. This is what media literacy is all about.

As a disclaimer before some dumbass ship discourse happens, there are ofc some lines not to cross like the romanticization of inc*st, p*dophilia, r*pe and things like ww2 aus and shit btw. That being said, if you cannot separate fiction and reality to the extent i talked about in the previous chapter, this is your stupidity. Stop making it everybody's fucking problem.

anyways im gonna be extra deadass rn if someone gave me a 100k word long collage au that is written properly i would eat that shit up like theres no tomorrow. it doesnt even have to be romantic i just want more of them they are so interesting 😭😭😭 they also funny as fuck so the 2012 yaoi becomes even funnier. what a great dynamic godzamn 😭😭😭😭

Thanks for reading!!!

[voncel]

Production for South Park seems so unserious but like in a funny way. Not just the “six days to air” thing, but how the show’s supervising producer can just ask Trey Parker for a voice role and they give her a character who gets a predominant background role for the rest of the show. I’ll always have Jennifer Howell to thank for Bebe Stevens.

Same thing goes with Jennifer and Bruce’s child, Jesse Howell; one of the first of many voice actors for Ike.

Then we have creating Butters inspired by Eric Stough or the naming of Cartman after their fat obnoxious college friend. Idc how parasocial this sounds but working on early South Park just seemed like so much fun, these two friends just making whatever they think is funny by breaking every Hay Code they can think of.

[iammissingautumn]

Princess Kenny and Mysterion; Expression from the Expressless

Kenny McCormick is known for being a more silent character. His hood obstructs his words and his deaths go largely ignored by others. What we get in show is a boy who’s ready to participate in goofs and has the most knowledge towards lewd jokes. And he uses that knowledge often! In jokes and in regular conversation. On top of this he is often made fun of and poked at for being poor, and when he’s not being made fun of in that way he’s mostly being ignored. And in a directly meta sense, he’s discarded and under developed! But when you look at things like Stick of Truth and The Fractured But Whole and Kenny’s personas we get suddenly a lot of content from him and the characters he plays. Princess Kenny and Mysterion being a view into his morals and what he wants as a person. And these two personas compare and contrast each other so nicely !

Princess Kenny is the fairest maiden of all the land! At the start of SOT we get Cartman telling us “he just wants to be a chick, we just roll with it.”. And throughout the game we see she’s desired by many, using her charm to get around obstacles and often surprise attack. Princess Kenny being one of the only royalty we see in SOT says a lot. She ostensibly has the highest status in the land, especially among her faction. Everyone wants to appease her, they want to charm her. They want her and they want to be her. She’s praised for being rich, being born into status, and for existing. She is a princess.

This all speaks very basically to something that Kenny desires deeply but doesn’t have. Kenny is from the poorest family in the town, he’s made fun of for being poor and often discarded and ostracized for this. He yearns to be wanted without providing something special, to not have less meaning because of how he was born. He’s so connected to how he grew up and this experience he has and he doesn’t want to fully part from it. He still keeps the rats that help him fight in battle. On top of that she’s a way to directly express gender, to express herself openly. As a direct opposite to Kenny normally, she wears a more revealing dress with a wig, she dances around, she puts her all into it. It’s allowing Kenny to be everything he isn’t yet still wants to be so badly.

Meanwhile Mysterion isn’t the hero South Park deserves but he is the hero South Park needs. Natural leader with nerves of steel he could do about anything. He’s one of the most powerful characters in game and full of small quips that make him feel dorkishly sharp. He’s got a lot of guts and courage. Definite morals for what’s right even if that goes against the law. Savior and martyr complex out the wazoo here. And for once, he actually gets some recognition.

Kenny on the other hand dies endlessly without his death being cared about a minute later. He tries to fight for what he thinks is right and is ready to sacrifice himself in a second. And when given the power he uses it to help. It’s his ultimate want that’s elevated to the point where he’s able to do it consistently and mostly successfully.

Princess Kenny allows Kenny to explore everything he doesn’t have right now but in a freer space. Mysterion allows Kenny to present his core values and wants and how he sees himself in a freer space. In a place he’s not going to be insulted constantly for things outside of his control. They’re integral to Kenny’s inner conflicts towards his class, his immortal complexes, and developing wants and preferences.

[roostertuftart]

I saw someone say the other day that style would never work because Kyle needs someone that challenges him and

1. Idk where you got the idea Stan doesn’t challenge Kyle because oh boy does he

2. Also like. Idk? Challenge him how? Fight with him? It’s fine if you like kyman or whatever but Kyle is a really insecure character who CRAVES having people stand by him and support him. If anything, having Stan support him more (and vice versa Kyle supporting Stan) is what their relationship needs to work, not someone who’s gonna fight with Kyle and give him a hard time constantly/leave him to fend for himself more

[kymantruther]

cupid ye was more kyman than it was style

seeing as south park episodes aren’t gonna come until march, this gives me the time to talk about cupid ye…which i’ve wanted to after the episode came out but i figured i wouldn’t have enough time to. so i really planned this analysis to be after all the episodes were made for s26…but again seeing as they’re on break, i took my chances.

so this is the perfect time for me to talk about cupid ye and how the episode always read more kyman than style to me. this may sound absurd considering the episode phrases stan and kyle’s relationship in a romantic way, but i find that’s all it extends to. let’s review the episode for a bit so i can elaborate. sure, the phrasing implies some sort of romance between stan and kyle, and there’s even a scene where stan is stammering and love struck when kyle talks to him. But we don’t ever see stan act upon this. notice how throughout the entire episode stan NEVER confronts kyle about how he misses hanging out with him? i see people call kyle a bad friend for “ditching” him, but it’s a notion i never got. stan never said anything to kyle about it, kyle’s not a bad friend for wanting to have fun with someone else, it’s not ditching in the slightest (unless you’re going to try and actually imply kyle belongs to stan and should only be around him 24/7). how was kyle supposed to know stan felt this way? he was having fun with tolkien, kyle’s suddenly villain for having fucking fun??? i can only blame stan in this situation because all he did was avoid the problem and act like it didn’t affect him (when it did).

even at the end of the episode, he only confronts tolkien not kyle. this just signifies to me there’s a clear communication problem in stan and kyle’s friendship. for an unknown reason, stan doesn’t want to address things with kyle. with this fact in mind, that scene where stan is nervous to talk to kyle at lunch suddenly doesn’t look so cute anymore, in fact, it demonstrates a legitimately problem of stan’s.

it’s no wonder stan and kyle’s friendship is breaking off, stan can’t even discuss his feelings with kyle. he does nothing but mope around and feel sorry for himself when he could literally fix the problem if he talked to his super best friend.

but opposed that to cartman in this episode. what does cartman do in the episode when he realizes he did something wrong? he acts. he realizes he’s gone way too far with the rumor about kyle running hollywood and he actually does something about it. sure, stan can stand in front of kyle to protect him (which tolkien did too so even that’s not a style moment lol) but cartman’s the one who forced cupid ye (arguably himself) to take his meds to save kyle.

cartman got kyle in this mess but he got kyle out of it.

and let’s talk about the initial synopsis for the episode too.

the synopsis says cartman is jealous. watching the ep, it appears stan is jealous, and he is. so why would it say cartman is jealous? because cartman is projecting. cartman ordinarily doesn’t care if stan and kyle have a fallout, actually he typically relishes in them. but that’s only because he gets kyle to himself (ex: assburgers, cbaa). but this time, tolkien and kyle hang out. so cartman takes stan’s jealousy and acts like he’s doing it for stan and his friendship with kyle, but in reality he’s doing it because he’s jealousy. just as the synopsis says.

and i don’t think it’s a coincidence cupid me, cartman’s gay conscious, is in this episode about cartman being jealous of tolkien and kyle’s friendship. in their valentine’s day episode at that ;).

so to summarize, it’s incredibly surface level to say this episode was style. this episode was kyman to the core and just furthers the theory that cartman is in love with kyle.

[amporella]

KYLE BROFLOVSKI, STAN MARSH, AND THE FEMININE/MASCULINE QUESTION

(Or; In defense of feminine Kyle and masculine Stan)

(OR or; how Matt and Trey's outdated views prove their intentions for their characters...

...part 1.)

Normally, I would kick off the part of an essay like this above the ‘read more’ with a short summary, but given the complexity of this topic, I don’t think I can summarize it in the way it deserves in just a paragraph. Instead, I’ll start with this: it’s been a little over a year since I was freed from Tumblr shadowban hell, and nearly as long since I made my first original post on South Park tumblr. Since then, I’ve developed a pretty obvious brand in support of feminine Kyle, but I’ve never actually posted a meta justifying it. As such, consider this not a response to any discourse related to it, or a way of undermining the valid opinions that are being and have been shared, but instead as a long-overdue explanation as to why I see Kyle the way that I see him, and why I believe that interpretation is equally valid and equally progressive.

Thanks to everyone who’s shared their time and thoughts with me over the past year, regardless of how long I’ve known you, and let’s get into it!

INTRODUCTION:

Okay, HERE’s the introduction! As I type this from top to bottom, I expect it to turn out fairly long, so bear with me here: we’re going to need some exposition to explain the way I plan on going about this. I’m going to try and be concise!

i. A Bit of Background

Feminine Kyle has been a controversial topic within the South Park fandom for well over a decade, cementing itself as arguably one of the oldest ‘fanon vs canon’ debates within the fandom. Supporters, a wide group consisting of some of the most notable artists and writers in the fandom, insist the evidence is there; naysayers argue that not only is it not there, but that the mere existence of feminine Kyle reinforces old yaoi tropes, homophobia within fandoms, and most recently, antisemitic stereotypes. 

For better or worse, such a portrayal has dwindled in popularity within recent years, with fanart and portrayals from the earlier fandom days becoming the subject of ridicule. Several other portrayals accompany feminine Kyle into forced obscurity - jock Stan and edgy Craig, to name a few - but only the former has drawn such politically charged discussion. Needless to say, there is plenty to discuss when examining its validity. I intend to try and cover all my bases, but first, some clarification:

This is not an unbiased analysis: this is a meta in staunch support of feminine Kyle. As such, not every single moment for or against such a portrayal will be mentioned here: I intend here to establish why feminine Kyle is a reasonable interpretation, not why the opposite may also be true. I also do not intend to prove that feminine Kyle is absolute fact, or the only valid interpretation; while I personally choose to base my portrayal off of what I’ve listed here, choosing to disregard it is also a perfectly fine conclusion. These characters are ten, after all; there is no objectively correct way to portray them!

Secondly; this is a Kyle-centric meta, but it’s also going to include a fair bit of Stan. Declaring Kyle feminine has no point if we have no character to contrast him against; femininity requires masculinity to mean anything, and vice versa. There has to be some point of reference. As a result, this meta will unintentionally make a declaration on Stan’s femininity as well; just like above, accept and reject it as you wish! ‘Correct’ characterization in the South Park fandom is understandably murky.

Speaking of characterization, we first need to discuss why a long-winded meta like this one is even necessary. Why can’t we decide whether Kyle’s feminine? Surely that should be pretty obvious, right?

ii. Why can’t we come to an agreement?

Well… not really. That’s the problem!

Nearly everybody in this little section of the South Park fandom (by which I mean the non-dudebro section) is progressive, which is a good thing. But that also makes femininity a really difficult concept to nail down. Here’s what Oxford Languages has to say about it:

Okay, straightforward enough. But what attributes are characteristic of women? That’s where we come across our problem; there really aren’t any. Many of the traits (at least personality wise) society used to consider characteristic of women are misogynistic stereotypes, or exist solely as a way to justify gender roles; as such, we can’t designate femininity based on personality traits, which is a great thing for society as a whole and a bad thing for the simplicity of my South Park meta.

Consider this example: being easily grossed out to the point of fear was, in the past, considered to be a trait typical of women. Consider all those boomer comics you’ve seen about women being afraid of mice. Surely then a reasonable conclusion would be that Kyle’s irrational disgust/fear of pee would be a feminine trait. But that conclusion actually isn’t reasonable, because we now know that isn’t necessarily a female-exclusive trait; as such, that interpretation is misogynistic and can be disregarded. Do you see what I mean? It’s really not that easy.

But I actually have a way to make that work. It is going to require some inception. Keep that in mind while we segue to another relevant question:

iii. What is effective characterization?

We talked about characterization a little bit above, but now we need to talk about it again: namely, how do you characterize a character? How many times will I say the word character in this essay?

This question doesn’t just apply to South Park: I mean this for all shows, but most specifically the long ones, and the ones with questionable track records in episode quality. We have all watched something and thought “he would not fucking say that”, even when the person who made him fucking say that was the creator themselves. How do we reconcile that with our vision of a character, especially when such a character assassination is often unintentional? Do we take everything the character does or says at face value by rating all of their behaviors as equal in the characterization scheme, or do we look deeper?

I think the answer needs to be the second one: we need to take characterization by intention, rather than what the character actually says. Generally, a creator will have an intention for their characters, whether that’s in personality, arc, or both. They typically have a plan for some aspects of the character, even in episodic shows like South Park, and they try not to diverge from that plan. For example, Kyle’s reaction will often differ as he is faced with differing events (as real life people do), but he reacts in a similar way, fueled by his consistent morals: he never responds in a Kyle way one episode and in a Cartman way in another. He always reacts like Kyle would, and rarely wavers from his fairly consistent characterization. It is clear that when planning Kyle’s responses to things, they do not start with a blank slate.

That’s the perspective we need to take on when viewing this; we need to look at these characters from the way Matt and Trey intended for them to be looked at, and we need to look at them with the perspective that Matt and Trey had. Segue over: let’s go back to the main point. Keep that in mind.

iv. How do we fix our dilemma?

You don’t really need to keep it in mind, because I’m going to say it again right here: we need to view the characters with the perspective Matt and Trey had. This applies to everything characterization related, including femininity. What makes Matt and Trey’s perception of femininity different from our own?

Well, that’s easy: they’re from a different generation, for one. They’re old white guys, for another. They naturally have different views on femininity than we do, because they have different (often shittier) views on women than we do! Matt and Trey have had some good takes, but their takes on women rarely fall into that category. Unfortunately, we’re going to have to deal with those takes for now if we want to draw a conclusion, because those are what we have to go by when deciding femininity. 

We’re putting on the Matt and Trey goggles for this meta. What do they think femininity is? How would they portray a feminine character? What would a feminine character look like in their eyes? When judging characterization by intention, which I plan on doing throughout this meta, we need to Become Old White Men. 

(That same reasoning is why I’ll essentially be using women and feminine people interchangeably throughout this essay; Matt and Trey tend to associate femininity exclusively with women or flamboyant gay men, and the way they portray them is often the same. Needless to say, those terms are not interchangeable in real life; I only use them as such here both because of the above reasoning and to try and shorten this behemoth of a meta.)

From Matt and Trey’s perspective, it would be much less ludicrous that women would be more easily grossed out; that is the common consensus among men of their generation, and they haven’t proved themselves to be more enlightened than the rest, so we’ll go with that common consensus. From their perspective, Kyle disliking pee would be a feminine trait; therefore, giving that trait to Kyle implies that, in that episode, Matt and Trey viewed him as feminine and intentionally portrayed him that way. This argument becomes stronger once the rest of his traits are considered, which we’ll do throughout this essay. From this point forward, I'll clarify that this is from Matt and Trey’s point of view less often for brevity; assume that unless I clarify it's from mine, it's from theirs. 

Understandably, there may be some issues with this, namely: doesn’t temporarily taking on this perspective and then proceeding to label Kyle as feminine based on stereotypes imply that you agree with those stereotypes? To which I say: no, not really. You can take the intention (femininity, in this case) and disregard the bad that comes along with it: you can essentially claim Kyle as a feminine character without acknowledging what may be flawed reasoning on behalf of the creator, and choose to draw your own conclusions based off of that. I’ll explain this in more detail at the end. 

So, that’s the introduction! But we still have one more thing we need to talk about before we can move onto the actual meat of the essay.

We need to talk about creek.

THE CREEK INTERLUDE.

Why do we need to talk about creek in a Kyle-centric meta, besides that I like talking about creek? The answer is that Matt and Trey’s views on creek answer a very reasonable question, that being: Why do we have reason to assume that Matt and Trey would intend for any of them to be feminine? Why do we have reason to believe the idea of femininity in relation to their male characters would even cross their mind?

Creek is our reason! 

i. The Masculine/Feminine Divide

Consider Matt and Trey’s audio commentary for Put It Down, starting at :52. "One person wanting, which is usually the woman... who flips out a bit more about things emotionally, and generally the man is a bit more, like... not responsive to emotion, and just wants to problem solve. And we have had experience with that…"

Through that commentary, Matt and Trey have already assigned ‘roles’ to Tweek and Craig within the context of the episode; namely, Tweek being the woman and Craig being the man based on their behavior throughout the episode. Obviously, the stereotypes they suggest above very often aren’t true, and a gay man in a relationship is in no way ‘the woman’ regardless of femininity, but they reference them nonetheless, and this helps our case for three reasons:

It confirms that Matt and Trey view some characters as more ‘woman-like’ than others, even just within the context of a single episode: ie, more feminine than others. It shows that they take femininity into account when viewing character behavior, and it is possible they have done so with other male child characters than Tweek.

Furthermore, it shows that the above behavior is intentional; they’ve intentionally made one character more ‘woman-like’ than the other. Matt and Trey admitting that they “have had experience with that” implies that they, on some level, based the episode off of their own experience: hence, Tweek was intended to play the role of ‘the woman’ from the beginning of the episode. It is therefore possible they intended this with other episodes.

The parallels between Stan/Craig and Kyle/Tweek, and on a larger scale, style and creek as relationships, are obvious. The fact that creek exists in the Matt and Trey collective brain as a masculine/feminine relationship implies that their platonic parallel, Stan and Kyle, has the potential to exist in the same way. 

I don’t personally think that Tweek is at all intended to be feminine throughout the series in the same way that Kyle is - Tweek’s meth-driven paranoia is a far cry from Kyle’s natural neuroticism (a trait which, while not inherently feminine, is obviously such within the eyes of Matt and Trey) - but within the context of that episode, the point stands. It also gives us something to look for: contrast. If Kyle is feminine, going by Matt and Trey’s way of portraying relationships, he must have a masculine counterpart. This part is easy. 

STAN MARSH, ALL AMERICAN BOY:

When looking for traditional masculinity within the main four, Stan is our guy. Despite possibly being the most sensitive out of the group, the remainder of Stan’s traits, behaviors, and interests line up exactly with the typical perspective of what masculinity looks like. His consistency with this makes Kyle’s deviation even more remarkable.

i. Personality

So far, we’ve mostly talked about masculinity and femininity in reference to personality, so it only makes sense to start there with Stan. First, let’s consider the trait that Matt and Trey explicitly mentioned they consider masculine:

“Not responsive to emotion, and just wants to problem solve.”

We don’t even need to look through the series for evidence of this one: South Park Studios themselves confirmed it on Stan’s SPandMe results, a quiz intended to connect quiz-takers with their respective South Park character. 

“You are an average all-American person, and despite your crazy surroundings, you remain levelheaded.” 

Remaining levelheaded in crazy surroundings essentially boils down to being not responsive to sudden, situation-driven emotion, especially in the context of Put It Down, where Craig is able to step back from Tweek’s emotion-driven response to a crazy situation and consider it in a levelheaded way. Stan often tends to perform the same duty for Kyle as Craig does for Tweek in that episode, serving the role of someone to vent to in stressful situations.

Now that we’ve checked Matt and Trey’s explicitly mentioned perception of masculinity off the list, let’s consider some other traditionally ‘masculine’ personality traits: regardless of whether they’ve been explicitly mentioned, it’s a fair assumption that they’ve considered a few other traits within the ‘masculinity’ vein. 

Quick to Threats: Stan has a tendency to be levelheaded, as mentioned above, but when angered he can jump straight to threats of violence; this serves as a contrast to Kyle, who tends to respond verbally instead. Consider this moment in Passion of the Jew: 

While Stan actually gives Cartman a fair amount of time to ‘take it back’ before he resorts to active threats of violence, he still does so much quicker than Kyle has ever done in the past; Kyle, by comparison, tends to insult normally. Stan, when pushed by Cartman, responds with threats within a few lines of dialogue: Kyle, when pushed by Cartman, has only legitimately snapped a few times over the course of 25 years of harassment. 

Another example would be in Cash For Gold, where Stan jumps to telling the jewelry salesman to kill himself without any prior conversation; unlike Kyle, who typically makes efforts to negotiate first, Stan resorts to threats.

Also consider Stan’s behavior in Stick of Truth, in which upon the character’s arrival into the Elf Kingdom, Stan is immediately ready to get into a fight to defend Kyle; as the character approaches Kyle, he threatens them by punching his fist. His method of protectiveness often boils down to violence on behalf of the people he cares about, and he takes personal affronts, or affronts to those people, extremely seriously. Kyle, on the other hand, is defensive rather than offensive in terms of protectiveness, and cares more about the wider populace instead of mostly the people directly relevant to his life; we’ll get into that more later.

This is a trait heavily associated with masculinity throughout history, and throughout media: masculine characters in shows, books, and movies are often the ones shown to pick fights rather than verbally negotiate. This trait is even shown through Craig, who’s already established as “the man”; throughout the first few seasons especially, he threatens other characters once aggravated instead of communicating. 

Leadership Ability: Obvious disclaimer is that this trait in particular is not exclusively male, or even largely male (just like every other trait I’ve mentioned), but the world continues even to this day to associate leadership qualities with traditionally masculine qualities, and I have reason to believe that Matt and Trey do the same thing. Let’s go through a few episodes in which Stan is staunchly placed as the leader for some examples:

Stan, as a character who is often the protagonist of the show as a whole, naturally falls into the leadership role within The Boys. In this way, he once again serves as a contrast to Craig, who is obviously the leader of his own game; the official wiki goes so far as to call them Craig and Those Guys. An example of this would be in South Park Is Gay, in which Stan approaches Craig first to try and one-up him, and another more subtle example would be in Good Times With Weapons, in which Stan’s leadership is demonstrated just by him being front and center in front of Craig’s door.

He also serves as the lead detective in Lil’ Crime Stoppers, and tends to be the leader of his respective sports team, being chosen as both quarterback and pitcher in football and baseball respectively. On a larger scale, Stan becomes Captain in Whale Whores, where he is revered for actually making things happen in comparison to the previous Captain. 

South-park-meta also has a great description of why Stan’s a leader which you can find here, which mentions a few things that I haven’t. 

Stan in a leadership role comes up over and over again, and while I normally wouldn’t consider this a strong enough piece of evidence to bring up on its own, Stan’s other masculine traits (which I’ll be getting to shortly, outside of the personality department) make me believe that it’s intentional. This is especially relevant when the leadership within the girls is also considered: while the groups of boys tend to have a very obvious leader, the girls fluctuate often between Wendy and Bebe, with Matt and Trey unable to even keep the leader of the Pleases and Sparkles Club consistent. The fact that the boys tend to have leaders and the girls don’t leads me to believe that Matt and Trey do see leadership as a masculine trait.

Superficiality & Ego: To be clear before we start this section, I do think that Stan is legitimately very sensitive. He is my sensitive little guy. But he does have a tendency to be superficial with some issues, often unable to grasp the bigger picture, especially when failing to grasp the issue tends to benefit him specifically. 

Consider his behavior in A Scause For Applause. Initially, Stan has no clue who the farmers are or what they stand for, and is labeled a hero simply because he likes his wristband and doesn’t intend on taking it off. However, as soon as he essentially becomes a celebrity, he pretends to be extremely passionate about the cause, despite the fact that it is all “bullcrap” to him. Stan is hugely empathetic, but only towards people that are close to him, or issues that are relevant to him (such as the whales, as he loves animals): he couldn’t care less about the farmers in Belarus, but relishes in the attention he’s getting because of it.

Another example of this would be in Butterballs, where Stan behaves in essentially the same way: he joins the anti-bullying campaign not because he is passionate about the issue, but because he’s being taunted and he wants to prove that he’s a leader, or, as Bucky Bailey says, a “big man”. His pride is extremely important to him, which is part of the reason why he steps up. As Stan starts to make the anti-bullying video increasingly about him, Kyle sees through him and points it out.

Once again, his ego drives him rather than genuine passion for the issue: his actual interest in it is superficial at best and serves only to fuel his ego. Both qualities are heavily associated with masculinity, and toxic masculinity in particular: as Stan gets pissed at Kyle in both episodes, that side of him and the anger accompanying it begins to show. We’ve now accepted those traits are generally bad, but they were often praised as a key part of manliness in the past: them continuing to be associated with masculinity in Matt and Trey’s mind would be very plausible.

ii. ‘Manly’ Interests

Stan’s one of the most fleshed out characters throughout the series in terms of interests, but he does have one that shows up more prominently than any other: sports! I’ve gone into exactly how frequently it pops up for him in my Jock Stan meta, so I won’t go into it now, but I highly suggest reading that if you’re interested. Furthermore, that’s also why I’m not going to be using basketball as a masculine justification for Kyle; from what I’ve found, it’s just not as relevant to his character.

Sports are widely considered to be an interest associated with men, and particularly, masculinity; while the gender split among people who are passionate about sports is much less divisive than the media would lead you to believe, few people associate anything other than women’s sports with women. Football in particular is typically considered a man’s sport, and has its heavy associations with toxic masculinity: the traits valued within football tend also to be the traits that our society values specifically within men, those traits typically boiling down to strength and competitiveness. As mentioned above, the desire to compete and show off (particularly with Craig, also considered to be the respective ‘leader’ of his group) is a trait much more heavily associated with Stan than Kyle; it leads me to believe those traits and his interest in football paired together are not a coincidence.

Another one of Stan’s larger interests are animals, which he consistently feels passionate about, but more specifically dogs. He’s shown to love Sparky dearly, with the first Stan-centric episode of the series having Stan’s crisis about Sparky as a main factor, and he even accompanies Stan in Stick of Truth for one of his attacks. I mention this because while a love of animals is often associated with women, or femininity, dogs specifically are consistently associated with men; when the term “man’s best friend” was coined, they were not considering ‘man’ as the wider mankind. Dogs are so heavily associated with masculinity that people naturally assume dogs that they meet are male, and that the large majority of dogs in fiction ARE male. The association between dogs and masculinity is actually a necessity for Big Gay Al’s Big Gay Boat Ride to work as an episode: Stan valuing “butchness” and wanting Sparky to behave in such a way acts as his main conflict throughout the episode.

While this last one is not quite as relevant to Stan’s overall character as the previous two, it’s frequently brought up as a “counter” to Stan’s sportiness, so I still find it relevant to bring up. Board games, which are certainly less associated with manliness than sports, are still an extremely male sport, particularly dominated by white males (with 93% of board game designers being white men); I am inclined to believe that Matt and Trey knew this, which was why Nichole, and the rest of the girls, stood out so much. They even address this within the episode, which has most of the boy gamers (excluding Stan, who is more open to girls joining the group) rejecting the girls who want to play. Even Stan’s least traditionally masculine interest is centered around manliness within the episode.

Is it coincidence that when Matt and Trey selected interests for their characters, they chose interests heavily associated with masculinity for Stan? Probably not. Again, these interests aren’t necessarily male-exclusive, nor do they even necessarily lean towards men in reality, but from the perspective of two older men like Matt and Trey, they ARE masculine traits. The fact that Stan is given those traits specifically while the other characters are not is heavily indicative of their intention; namely, to make Stan an obviously masculine character.

iii. Appearance

I swear we’re almost done with an insanely long Stan section in what’s supposed to be a Kyle meta. I may have to change the title.

The last thing we’re going to be looking at with Stan in regards to masculinity is appearance: how does he present himself? When he chooses roles in games, how traditionally masculine are they? Let’s start with his Stick of Truth role: Stan Marshwalker.

During Stick of Truth, Stan serves as Kyle’s devoted, protective knight: as I already mentioned above, he’s ready to pick a fight with the player just for looking at him. But even beyond his behavior, his appearance is undeniably masculine; knights were the ideal of manhood and masculinity for quite a long time, hence the trope of a knight saving a princess from a castle. Especially back when knights were a Thing, there was nothing more traditionally masculine than waving a huge sword around and fighting a dragon to defend someone’s honor. Stan doesn’t defend the honor of any princesses in Stick of Truth, but he does offer to duel Tolkien on what’s implied to be Kyle’s behalf, which could be easily interpreted as a parallel.

The knight motif comes up again in the episode Make Love, Not Warcraft, in which Stan’s selected character is this: a muscular, masculine presenting knight. I’m leaving this section a little short because I’m going to be bringing it up again when we get to Kyle , but keep Stan’s appearance here in mind. 

Stan’s next most relevant character is Toolshed, from Stick of Truth:

Stan’s TFBW costume, who is essentially a handyman, is less ingrained in society as traditionally masculine than a knight, but still is a heavily male dominated field: in the United States, 96% of handymen are men. While less symbolic than a knight, handymen can be considered masculine even considering only that trait; they are heavily associated with men, which is essentially the definition of masculinity from the Matt and Trey perspective.

Stan has a ton of alter egos throughout the series, but we’re already at 4k words so I’m going to keep this section as brief as I can. The only other real thing of note here is that Stan seems to associate ripping off his sleeves with strength, as he opts to go ripped sleeveless in both Good Times With Weapons and as Stan The Man in W.T.F. 

iv. Conclusion

What can we conclude from the above information, and how does it have any relevance at all to Kyle?

Firstly, we can conclude that Stan Marsh, in personality, interests, and appearances, was given traditionally masculine traits by Matt and Trey. Furthermore, we can conclude that due to Matt and Trey’s mention of masculinity and femininity within Tweek and Craig, this is not a coincidence; his masculinity was intentional. Finally, we can assume that Matt and Trey genuinely believe these traditionally masculine traits to be legitimately masculine: as in, it is unlikely they gave him these traits with any other intention than making it clear he was a masculine character.

Okay, so we’re done with Stan! Mostly. He’ll come up a little more later. But why did we need to spend this long talking about the character who isn’t even the main guy in this essay? I know I talked a little about it above, but surely I have more of a reason than that? Well, it’s because of what Matt and Trey said in the commentary for Kenny Dies, around the 42 minute mark.

“A couple weeks before this, the idea was that we were going to kill Kyle, remember, and we'd make it a big thing - we'll kill Kyle, and Butters will step in... it always seemed to us that Kyle and Stan were really similar... so let's kill off one of those two."

As of Season 6, Stan and Kyle were too similar. In order to justify keeping Kyle on the show, they needed to draw an actual distinction between the two of them. Before this point, Stan had already been established as South Park’s masculine, golden football boy since his very first episode, so what would be the most effective way of differentiating Kyle from Stan in a consistent way?

The answer would be to give Kyle feminine traits to contrast Stan’s masculine ones. It required leaning hard on some aspects of the character, but it obviously worked: Kyle is still here, widely loved, and often very different than the way he was before season 6. If we can prove that Stan was intentionally given masculine traits, we have even more of a reason to believe that Kyle may be given feminine traits to separate their personalities, and we���ve already proved that! Now we need to prove that Kyle was actually given those feminine traits, and we’ll start right now.

...by which I mean tomorrow, when I post the second half of this. Please hold your applause and/or complaints until then, because you really need the second half to tie the whole thing together and actually come to some concrete conclusions.

You can read part 2 here!

[kennytheworkingclasshero]

What I really appreciate about Stan Marsh is how much he absolutely loves animals. He is not just an animal lover in the passive sense like a lot of people are, not someone who only seems to care about domesticated animals that are seen as “traditional pets” like cats and dogs, his love extends to all animals. He is really about it, with his longest list of crimes falling into “eco-terrorism.” He’ll steal a bunch of baby cows and participate in a sit in, in order to ensure their liberation (“Fun with Veal”), he’ll bomb ships and attack people when they kill whales and dolphins (all for the love of the animals, not caring about the clout that it brings him, as can be seen in “Whale Whores”) and he’ll refuse to shoot wildlife even though he wants to connect with his uncle, because he is unable to kill an animal (“Volcano”). And even after Stan turns cynical, even after he has to deal with depression, addiction and the reality that he doesn’t care about things the way he used to (“You’re Getting Old” and “Ass Burgers”) Stan still finds it in himself to care about animals. That part of him doesn’t go away or turn cynical, he still posts selfies with cats and talks about how cruel animal testing is and how it should be stopped. His cynicism didn’t get him completely, he still cares deeply about things and his love for animals is an example of that.

[fanbun]

Does anyone else think Cartman has some kind of power to make his hallucinations real?

Mitch Conner in The Fractured But Whole seemed to actually possess Kyle’s hand, and in the recent episode Cupid Ye was shown shooting kids with his nazi love arrows while Cartman was trying to stop him. Mr. Mackey said he saw a bee flying around the school, so that could either mean it was a literal bee or Mackey just saw Cupid Ye that way because it was an easy explanation for the hysteria.

Omg. Wouldn’t it be cool if this facet of Cartman is tied to Imaginationland in some way? Since Cartman’s Christmas critters became real in Imaginationland?

…Come to think of it, what about Kyle and Mr. Hankey? Maybe characters from Imaginationland often leak into the town of South Park and become “real.”

[fayoftheforest]

vampire kyle & historic antisemitism

DISCLAIMER: this post is not intended to incite drama or discourse, I simply want to share my thoughts on a complex topic. Just because I’m Jewish does not mean I speak for the entire community. We’re not a monolith, there is great diversity of opinion among us, discussion and debate is a beloved part of our culture, etc etc :) ok on with the post!

But wait, Fay, I hear you interject. Vampires aren’t even real! How can they be sayin’ stuff about Jews? Well, my dear friends, I have some rather grave news for you: much of pop culture is Sayin’ Stuff About The Jews. And very little of it is positive :/

I’ll quote Jewish author Deke Moulton to establish the basic links between vampires and antisemitism:

The problem is tied to the conspiracy called the blood libel. If you’re not familiar with it, the blood libel started in Medieval Europe in the 12th century and claimed that Jewish people needed the blood of Christian children to make our Passover matzoh. For context, Jewish people are prohibited from consuming blood at all – we will salt kosher meat to draw out blood. Despite being very old and very wrong, the blood libel idea still persists today (albeit usually with slightly less obvious framing).

There is also a common trope of vampires operating through a secret, worldwide council that often governs ‘vampire affairs’ but also may dabble in controlling other aspects of the world’s governments. While some people can see a similarity to the Catholic Church, often times this calls upon the antisemitic trope of the ‘cabal’—that Jews secretly run the entire world (which is another strange antisemitic trope, as Judaism doesn’t have any central religious figure like the Pope). The word ‘cabal’ itself is a bastardization of the word kabbalah, a form of Jewish mysticism. If you combine this with a trope of vampires hoarding large amounts of money (especially gold?), you’re using yet another antisemitic trope that says Jewish people control the world’s banks.

Even things like being adverse to the sunlight can have antisemitic implications – the early Church claimed that, because in Judaism days start at sundown and thus our time of worship happens at night, that gathering at night to worship was proof of us being evil and satanic.

So, all vampires are bad and wrong, and vampire Kyle AUs are a hatecrime, and everyone who’s ever done one should go straight to jail, right?

Well. No.

Because really, it should be noted that this extract is from an interview on Moulton’s novel “Don’t Want To Be Your Monster,” a book which not only features blood-sucking vampires, but a blood-sucking Jewish vampire. Interesting, interesting... it's almost as if this topic is nuanced or something 🤔

Many iconic vampires are based on antisemitic stereotypes. Perhaps most famous is Dracula, with curly hair and a hooked nose, is an Eastern European immigrant who has the intentions of “infecting” British society. Another example is Nosferatu, who also has an exaggerated hooked nose, is thin, pale and hunched, and is topped by a skull cap. There are modern exceptions to this trend, though! Twilight comes to mind. Edward Cullen is far more inspired by Stephanie Meyer’s Mormonism than Judaism as a whole. Explained so aptly by The Quietus, “As vampiric portrayals become more positive, they tend to also become less connected to Jewish representation.” Come on, you guys >:( Jewishness can be hot and sexy too, I swear!!

From what I’ve seen of Vamp!Kyle AUs, portrayals tend to lean more towards the mysterious and alluring Cullen-type than the bad-to-the-bone Dracula. Ultimately, I think this is what redeems our fandom’s vampire Kyle. Because crucially, whilst vampires can be antisemitic, they are not innately antisemitic. When you show Kyle brooding behind his high-collars and flashing toothy grins at his love interest, it’s not typically symbolic of the ultimate evil that we are expected to fear and ridicule. It's intended to be cute, or cool, or hot, or whatever.

My advice is thus: if you want to make something deeper or complex with the AU, just have a think about what you’re using his vampiric traits to represent. Are you drawing from unfortunate stereotypes or feeding into antisemitic fears? Are you validating or justifying the “othering” or ostracisation of Jewish people from wider society? You could consider finding a Jewish beta/sensitivity reader, if that’s accessible to you. But generally speaking, so long as you’re not presenting Kyle as an all-powerful predator to pure, innocent Christian society, I reckon you’re probably alright :)

[heyhelloumfellas]

Victor Chaos and Butter's Obvious Control and Autonomy Issues

(where I over analyze south park because I have brain rot)

Butters as a character is someone who does not have a lot of control or autonomy over his life. His strict and abusive parents who constantly ground him instead of you know parenting. The other children in his life like Cartman who manipulate him.

The "bad ending" in Post Covid I think is interesting because Professor Chaos evolved specifically out of Butters feeling angry at the world.

With Professor Chaos he was trying to gain some of that autonomy to hurt the world who hurt him. It makes sense that as a persona that evolved because of that feeling of helplessness that he assumes Victor Chaos permanently.

His anger issues manifest in him trying to gain control of his life, there's a reason he became invested in his "brand". A brand is to give control over how others see you. There is insecurity in this feeling of being helpless.

In Post Covid, Butters/Victor Chaos has never had full autonomy for the majority of his life. He went from being grounded in his home to being in a mental institution. He was grounded and then grounded again.

Whether his parents or by an institution, he never had personal autonomy. Not even as an adult where in theory he should have the most control. His entire persona and identity is built around someone who is desperately trying to.

The way Victor Chaos says "I think Butters was a twerpy little loser kid whose parents didn't love him" again this is a defense mechanicism, Victor Chaos is reclaiming space by distancing himself from "Butters"

Victor describes him as a "twerpy little loser" aka the opposite of who Victor Chaos is trying to be because that twerpy little loser kid felt angry at his lack of autonomy and control.

...and yes he did this through NFTS unfortunately.

The reason why I think this is interesting is that it mirrors what happens to people in real life. A lot of the angst and anxiety around being a child is the lack of agency a child has.

As a child there are not many rights available. Your parents decide how they parent you and if they parent you, you cannot choose where you live. You are stuck.

I think a lot of children go through those feelings but it is particularly strong for children with neglectful or abusive parents. But it could also mirror the experiences of disabled people, who are often robbed of their bodily autonomy.

Victor Chaos was his way of getting back at that but in the overwhelming circumstances and trauma Butters became Victor Chaos completely. Which is why he will continue to attempt to exert control even in extremely unhealthy ways...like trash talking people lol.

[eric-cartman-my-beloved]

Eric Cartman and Nazism

  “Is Cartman a nazi?”

  For a question that is asked rather frequently from participants and non-participants of the fandom alike, the opinions are rather conflicting for this one. So I thought, why not put my two cents here as well?

  It’s well-known that Eric possesses extremely antisemitic beliefs, but is he an actual nazi?

  For this post I will be analyzing a variety of scenes that I believe will be helpful to the point at hand, will point out what one side of the argument has to say, and give my personal input.

  *Yada, yada, yada, content warnings and such…*

  [Tumblr don’t flag this please, thanks]

  So, to begin with, we also need to take a trip to South Park’s beginning, and the episode we’ll be dealing with first is none other than “Pinkeye”. The very first episode that Eric dressed up as Hitler.

  It’s also the episode that caused quite a few misconceptions, in the later years especially – mostly due to the way Eric’s and Liane’s wiki pages are written.

The main arguement here is:

“Cartman didn’t know who Hitler was at the time. Liane made that costume for him and made him wear it”.

  I do believe it mainly originates from here:

  Let’s analyze the latter statement first.

  Many people believe that a lot of Eric’s racist views stem from Liane, who imposes them on him. While it is true that during earlier seasons Eric quoted his mother on homophobic, antisemitic, etc. opinions, it is also true that we as an audience have never seen Liane say any of this herself.

  Who is to say that Eric is not lying? Has he not lied successfully many, many times in the past? Why should this not be him trying to excuse his bigoted beliefs?

  Therefore, the “Liane is imposing her views on he son” headcanon is mere speculation at best, and not necessarily canon.

  Now that we’ve established that Liane and Eric do not share the same opinions, let’s think for a second: what would Liane have to gain out of dressing Eric up as Hitler for Halloween if she herself does not support the nazi ideology? The answer is nothing. As seen in quite a few episodes, Liane is thought of as less because of her job, she wouldn’t want to do something that would attract this much negative attention from the community.

  “But why did she make the costume then?”

  Simple: Eric made her. Why would a mother who’s helped her physically healthy son participate in the Special Olympics, who’s left her home at his request (“Shots!”) not sew a costume for him if he pressured her?

  And now that we know the costume idea was Eric’s initiative, let’s take a look at the former statement.

  Did Eric know who Hitler was?

  Short answer: yes.

  A lot of people tend to use the scene with Principal Victoria as evidence that Eric is not aware of who or what the costume represents and frankly I fail to understand why. Not once does he ask a question or show that he doesn’t truly know what he’s wearing.

  In fact, this is his reaction when he is asked about his costume:

  How would he know how to say “Sieg Heil” unless he knew who Hitler was? (Supposing Liane didn’t teach him how to say it because we’ve already been through that.)

  And these are his reactions to the video Principal Victoria has him watch:

  Do these look like the faces someone makes when they’re confused or don’t know what they’re watching? He’s even doing the nazi salute right back at the video. South Park characters have limited facial expressions due to the special quality of the animation, so, if a character is confused, they would have a very obvious confused look on their face. This is not one of them.

  Like I said earlier, he never asks anything. He is simply “enjoying the moment”. And then he asks to watch it again.

  But if you’re still insistent, fine. Let’s say for a moment that Eric didn’t know who Hitler was prior to “Pinkeye”. From then on, he learned, and his interest in him still held up to latter episodes.

  What other evidence do we have pointing to Eric being a nazi?

  This brings us to the next episode. “The Passion Of the Jew”. It is often ignored by those who say that Eric is trying to “change” and “better himself”, most likely because it isn’t in favor of their point.

  Remember when Eric tried to start a second Holocaust? ‘Cause I ‘member.

  I don’t think I need to say much about this episode. Eric’s hatred for Jewish people is what motivates him to dress up as Hitler and attempt to collect a crowd that will help him “exterminate” them.

  What kind of person’s hatred Jewish people runs so deep so as to try to have them killed off, if not a nazi’s? Whether he succeeded or not is irrelevant in this case, because it’s more than obvious what his intentions were.

And from this episode on, there is absolutely no denying that Eric knows who Hitler was.

  The next thing I’d like to put here is a quote from “Make Love, Not Warcraft”:

  "If you had a chance to go back in time right now and stop Hitler, wouldn't you do it? I mean, I personally wouldn't stop him, because I think he was awesome, but you would, right?"

  Why would Eric say this unless he shares the same beliefs as Hitler did? I don’t think it can get any more obvious than that. From the last sentence it’s pretty clear that Eric is not the least bit revolted at the thousands of Jewish people the nazis killed, he endorses their actions, because he himself would have loved to do the same.

  And he actually (partly) did. Or, tried to, at least.

   In the Coon Trilogy.

  Eric suddenly has immense power in his hands: the dark lord Cthulhu now obeys his every order with just a little bit of pushing.

  And what is one of the first things Eric makes him do? Destroy synagogues. I think that this is also one of the scenes which prove that Eric hates Kyle for being Jewish, and does not hate Jews because of Kyle.

  His hatred for people different than him runs so deep that he doesn’t simply dislike their existence, he wants them erased – which is something he attempts to do whenever he is being given the chance.

  I could list of all the antisemitic things Eric has said or done (like his scheme to degrade Jewish people on national television in “Le Petit Tourette”) but this post would never end. I picked these because they are the most extreme.

  Now let’s get to the final episode we’ll be analyzing, which is none other than the latest South Park episode: “Cupid Ye”.

  (A picture is equal to a thousand words, isn’t it?)

  So, giving a little bit of context, Cupid Me has built this… lab/temple(?) inside the school bathroom in order to make arrows that will turn everyone at the school antisemitic. Supposedly kind of like nazi propaganda, except that it has no way of failing. In Eric’s head, at least.

  During the entire episode Cupid Me has been insisting that Hitler is actually a good historical figure, whose actions weren’t so bad. It is worth noticing though, that Eric disagrees with him.

  If we go by the generally accepted theory that Cupid Me represents Eric’s hidden emotions and desires (such as his repressed attractions and his attraction to himself) it is safe to assume that he clearly represents an attraction to the nazi ideology (or to Hitler himself, if you want to get literal, but I’m not sure if you want to go there).

  And why is it repressed and Eric argues with Cupid Me and tries to stop him?

  Because as much as Eric hates Jews, Mexicans, etc. he’s also a pretty lonely kid. Nazism is stigmatized everywhere especially today (as it should be) so Eric is trying to somewhat hide his extremist views so that he’ll fit in. It can also be one of the reasons as to why he has been more “calm” or “tame” during the latest seasons comparatively to the older ones in the issues concerning antisemitism.

  But even though Eric tries not to let the hatred resurface, deep down his beliefs about the matter cannot change. Which is why this “calm” state of his will probably not last for long. Eric, after all, is certainly not the epitome of self-restraint.

  And now, let’s hear what the opposing side has to say:

  “Cartman can’t be a nazi because he’s a rabbi in the Post Covid Specials”.

  Well, why are we so sure that the Post Covid Specials are canon? They are not part of the main show, they are just movie-like episodes made specifically for Paramount+ because Matt and Trey signed a contract. (Plus, they do have quite a few out of character moments.) So why do they have to be canon?

  Eric already has a future, and it is one out of the two possibilities depicted in “My Future Self ‘n’ Me” – an episode of the main show.

  But even if we do accept that the Post Covid Specials are canon, Eric would have four different outcomes for a possible future (a plumber, a CEO, a rabbi, and a homeless man). He can alter his future easily, with simple decisions, like seen in that episode, like with how the moment he decides to eat the cookies his future CEO self transforms into a fat plumber. So who is to say that his decisions later on will not affect and cancel out the rabbi self?

  “Cartman can’t be a nazi because he converted to Judaism in ‘Jewpacabra’”.

  And how long did that last? A few minutes. Some of Eric’s beliefs (but not all), in this case, religion, can be very flexible. For instance, when in “Ginger Kids” he thought he had become a ginger himself, the first thing he did was try to start a movement that would showcase gingers as “the superior race”’ despite Eric hating them just a few days prior.

  (And of course, the idea of a “superior race” is pretty nazi-esque in itself.)

  It is the same for Judaism. Eric announced his change of religion because he was glad that he survived what he considered a pretty traumatic experience, believing that some sort of higher being was responsible for his survival. So he wanted to show his gratitude and remorsefulness by altering his religion.

  But we know from episodes as early as “Starvin’ Marvin” that Eric’s relationship with religion is rather flimsy. When he found himself alone in Africa because of a mistake, he turned to God, because he thought this was the only way he would survive.

  However, not even a couple of hours later, he didn’t hesitate to treat the native people rudely, once he realized that he would return back home – an action which is not supported by the God he addressed not too long ago.

  Therefore, Eric will use religion as it benefits him (like he does with everything) and the “Jewpacabra” episode cannot be valid evidence that Eric is not a nazi because he took up Judaism.

  “But Cartman said: ‘Wouldn’t you kill Hitler if you had the chance?’ in 'Tsst'”.

  Yes, Eric did indeed say that. The important thing here is to think about when he said this. He said this in order to persuade his friends to help him kill his mother. In order to demonstrate how oppressive he thinks she is to him, he compared her to a well-known tyrannical historical figure. He chose these words so that the boys could understand how painful his “martyr” was.

  Interestingly enough, the episode that follows “Tsst” is “Make Love, Not Warcraft”. In which Eric said the infamous quote I mentioned above. ("If you had a chance to go back in time right now and stop Hitler, wouldn't you do it? I mean, I personally wouldn't stop him, because I think he was awesome, but you would, right?")

  So he is either contradicting himself (which is unlikely given that this is just the next episode and not some seasons later), or he simply compared Liane to Hitler so that the boys could sympathize with him and help him.

  “But Trey said in an interview that Cartman will realize that dressing up like Hitler is wrong”.

  I have also heard that Trey has said how “Cartman is a kid and eventually he’ll realize that dressing up like Hitler isn’t cool” (or something along these lines) in an interview. However, I have not been able to find said interview anywhere, so if anyone could link me to it, I’d appreciate it.

  Even if the interview exists though, it was given during season 1, and Trey is referring specifically to “Pinkeye”. Nearly 25 years ago. Several things have changed in South Park ever since then. Stan and Kyle didn’t even really have distinguishable personalities yet at the time, and some parents didn’t even have fixed names, so I don’t think that this quote can be considered credible.

  “Cartman is just a kid, he can change”.

  While it is true that we have seen Eric is capable of some change – most notably in “Tsst” – we have also seen just how easy it is for him to revert back to his old horrible self. All it takes is the promise of two toys from Liane.

  Eric completely lacks the motivation for a change. And given what we have seen of his personality, nothing is a strong enough motivation to get him to truly change for the better. He is fine being the way he is, he doesn’t think that there is anything wrong with him, and it is unlikely that he will admit he has problems later on.

  But even if some kind of motivation was there, his beliefs are rooted too deep in his mind to change now. The aspects of a personality that a person forms the first years of their life are some of the most integral ones, and sometimes, they’re next to impossible to alter.

  “Cartman can just be antisemitic without actually being a nazi”.

  Of course such people exist. There is a line that separates prejudice against Jewish people to full-fledged nazism. Eric just does not belong in that category. When you make it a goal to belittle Jewish people, to try and erase them off the face of the earth, when you take pride in dressing up like the figure a lot of people believe is solely responsible for the Holocaust, you are way past the point of simple prejudice.

  Furthermore, Eric’s bigotry towards other groups of people (like black people, disabled people, little people, etc.) is in accord with the beliefs of the nazi party, since they believed such people to be inferior and/or potentially dangerous. Plus, his first reaction to the things he dislikes or believes are harmful is to usually try to censor them (like in “Cartoon Wars, with “Family Guy”.)

  “But if Liane didn’t impose antisemitism and/or nazism onto him then why is Cartman like this?” 

  There is no definitive answer to that, since the show does not explain the very source of Eric’s bigotry, so this is just my speculation. Liane has something to do with it, but not in the way you might think.

  Oftentimes Eric is seen alone at the house, or even left to take trips to nearby cities (like the trip to Fort Collins in “Scott Tenorman Must Die”). Liane seems to be leaving him alone for not-so-small periods of time, enough for Eric to watch TV or go online unsupervised.

  It wouldn’t be impossible that Eric stumbled across a documentary about Hitler on TV randomly and became enamored with the idea of power and of superiority that he thought the people of that time exuded. Afterwards, looking up for more information on the internet wouldn’t have been difficult. And the more he searched, the stronger their views were instilled on him.

  In the meantime Liane was there, sitting idly as her son slipped deeper and deeper into the pit that is the nazi ideology. Because she couldn’t afford to tell him ‘no’, she either couldn’t bring herself to teach him some morals because she saw he was excited, or she didn’t care enough to do so.

  Either way, she is enabling her son’s inappropriate behavior. So of course she is partly responsible for Eric’s current situation, but this is different than her imposing her personal prejudices on him.

  In short, it’s more likely that the ideology was not enforced on Eric, but rather “chosen” by him because he cannot comprehend how harmful it is. And the more Eric stays like this, the harder it will be for him to see the error of his ways.

  Conclusion:

  Yes, Eric is a nazi. He meets the criteria, and there are little chances of him making a true change of his views at some point in the future.

  The funny side of this matter is that quite a few times I have seen people who are not in the fandom or who dislike Eric call him a nazi several times, while it is usually the people who do like him that try to defend some of his actions and preach that he is capable of change. I just think it’s weird how people who do not put much thought to his character actually understand that aspect of his personality better.

  Eric is supposed to make people feel uncomfortable in a lot of ways, and I do think it is a pity that some try to erase a part of his personality like this. If canon Eric makes them feel so uneasy that they have to change him, maybe he is not the “right” character for them.

  Personally, I do have in mind that he is a neo-nazi when I write him.

  That being said, of course you don’t have to agree with me. Just don’t be offended when you come across this interpretation of him. People have the right to interpret him like this just as much as you do to interpret him as an innocent victim of the circumstances who can change.

  If you’ve read this far, thank you, actually! I didn’t mean for this to get this long…

[iammissingautumn]

genuine question, in the kindest way possible: why do you like south park? i truly don’t get what the appeal is, especially in a sense of wanting to make fan content for it. i understand that it can be funny to watch sometimes, and i get when people like it casually, but i am continually confused when i see people making fan art and fanfics and intense in depth meta posts about characters and characterization because it’s like. a joke show? it’s all a joke. it’s all satire and inappropriate/sometimes genuinely over the line humor. i don’t understand why there are so many people who seem to resonate with it in such a way, especially because as far as i can tell most of the fandom seems to be very young people - teenagers and young adults. again, i don’t ask this in a mean spirited way or to judge or shame, i just am genuinely baffled every time i see south park content you share and i wanted to ask… what’s up with that? what’s the appeal, for you? why do you think people are so into it in this fandom way? do you think that the fandom is just very divorced from the content itself?

Oooo thank you so much lovely follower. This is an amazing ask. And if you’d want the answer I’ll give!!! And there’s a TL;DR at the end of this :>

Why do (you) so many people like South Park?

(C.W. for south park typical stuff, mentions of abuse and s/a in many forms and serious topics.)

1. What’s the appeal for you?

I got into the South Park fandom at the age of probably ten or so. Eight years ago. How did I get into it? Uhhhh I watched the series rarely as a younger kid. What made me want to get into fandom? To tell the truth it was Stick of Truth. That was South Park’s first video game where you are put into the town and play along side the kid. South Park was the first fictional series I ever got into. Before that I had been a youtube shipper (Septiplier). And then I saw South Park. To be fair, I saw Kenny. Early memories of South Park is fanfiction and pinterest art and playing hours on hours of Stick of Truth, and later the next game.

What did I see in Kenny McCormick? He was a poor kid, who died everyday, with parents who fought physically and verbally. He was the fourth wheel in a best friends/obsession dynamic of his close friends. Pretend this isn’t a comedy. Pretend this isn’t some silly show. It’s a boy who can barely have enough money to eat. He had a younger sister he was willing to sacrifice anything for. And an older brother who never said much without a slur to his words. Without saying too much about my life on main I had a lot of reasons to identify with that. This is a house that many people can identify with, drunks as parents and kids who have to take care of themselves. On top of this he’s Princess Kenny :) Get’s treated as a girl in a roleplaying context and loves it. She’s a great princess. My interest in Kenny then went to Bunny (Ship of Kenny McCormick and Butters Stotch).

What is there to see in Butters Stotch? He’s a boy being dragged into sexist, racist, and homophobic talk. We quite literally throughout the series see him become more and more mean. How does a nine year old boy get dragged through those things? His parents are incredibly abusive, often grounding him for things he didn’t do and finding any excuse to blame anything for. He believes he’s at fault for everything he’s in trouble for. The only friend he eventually gains is a boy who uses him for schemes and tried to kill him at least once. The other person he considers to be a friend doesn’t speak or lead. He finds someone who sticks with him and isn’t a hypocrite and sticks to him no matter the pain he’s put through. He also want made for conflict and enjoys femininity. This will be talked more about later, but I assume you can make some assumptions as to why a ten year old could like the stuff shown here. Then again the next list will be why I like it as well. But Kenny and Butters were my start. They’re on of the most popular ships in fandom. So there’s a lot of content.

2. Why is this a popular fandom?

It’s like. Have you ever been neurodivergent? Have you ever been gay? Have you ever been trans? Have you ever been abused? Have you grown up in a simple U.S. town?Have you ever accidentally become codepdent to your childhood friend as a child? Have you ever been born into a situation that hurts you for years but you’re a child you don’t know what to do? Have you ever been a child and all the adults are so stupid and they’re supposed to be protecting you?

Have you ever been all of those things or some of those things and wondered. Holy Fuck. How am I going to handle this all? I hope I don’t need to explain how or why some people would feel these things and how they would use South Park to express these feelings. (Relatability.)

(Age.) A big criticism I’ve heard is. Oh no. They’re Ageing Up These Characters To Have Sex. It’s a very weird assumption and very strange to assume that people would only care about themes of childhood, being a son, or growing up if it’s about sex. Aging up the characters often has to do with wanting to give them maturity and time to learn. You have access to kids still forming their brains, you have access to 50 year old adults who are still growing and dealing with their current problems. High schoolers going to teen parties for the first time and drinking and smoking. College kids going to parties for the first time drinking and smoking making steps to join their profession and figuring out what they want from live and having the freedom of life or being trapped by family expectations.

Infinite scenarios. The amazing thing about South Park is you have at least ten characters to make whatever drama you want with at a time. You can make an ensemble piece of friend groups full of years of love and hate or a focus on one characters inner turmoil. You can make them into fucked up adults with complicated feelings, a gay man who’s never accepted himself sees his childhood best friend and Understands. The kid being drugged secretly by his parents dies of overdose and now everyone has to deal with that and the feelings towards the person. It’s winter and there’s too many holes in kenny’s house so he asks to stay over at someone else’s by knocking on a window and sneaking in. On top of this for many seasons one of South Park’s things is they would make fun of specific movie concepts that have been run into the ground by putting the kids in it. Losing Edge, Stanley’s Cup, and Up the Down Steroid are great examples of this.

People love to take the absurd seriously. I don’t think I can explain how people who see something silly and take it seriously do it. If you don’t see the appeal that’s really fair. But when Kenny Dies plays and we see Kyle Stan and Eric deal with death in their own ways. We see their differences highlighted. As we watch The Passion of the Jew we see this internalized anti antisemitism, that many people who have the same thing or something similar like internalized racism, homophobia, transphobia, ablism, etc. see reflected on the screen in this surprisingly real way.

A lot of content. There are 26 years of seasons in this show. That’s a lot of content, but genuinely a lot of people don’t watch even half that shit. Majority of the time I’ve spent being invested in South Park I had only seen a few dozen episodes. There are two full videos games with extra content and a phone game. A movie as well. A lot of content you can pick and choose from! A lot of small moments to hang on to. (I.e. Good Times With Weapons Butters get his eye hurt, fandom draws him with a scar more often then not. Eric got Kenny’s eye as a transplant after Kenny died one time. Kyle is said to have the same nose as his mom; hooked.) these build the fandom, but everyone has always embraced those who reject and those who accept canon. There’s so many different things to sink ur teeth into, including serious AU’s of the canonical fantasy and superhero games the characters play together.

But once again I’ll harp on this. I think what brings people to this show is seeing damaged things and giving them the chance to heal. Or giving them things to make their damage a bit easier. Or maybe damaging them more. Standard exploring relationships and feelings. But on top of this we see character who have been sexually assaulted, groomed, abused, neglected. While also the show gives very liberal takes and knows how fucked up these situations are. That’s apart of the comedy (Tsst. Where we see Liane Cartman take away the chance for Eric Cartman to become more respectable and less bigoted and everything because she wants someone to hang out with her.). There’s always something enthralling about seeing yourself on the big screen, and seeing my friends right there too etc. (Relatability, again.)

Simple designs. A child could make the cardboard cutouts that we see the characters as. That’s motivating! What’s also motivating? Giving these characters with specific color schemes a full face body and wardrobe of clothes ! Oh so that means I can make my favorite superhero team Coon and Friends all hanging out together? So that means I can draw something about Kenny dying? So I can make them play dsi’s together? There’s a lot of one off concepts we get that are very cool and some people love to reimagine them in their own style. Others love to make the setting more fantastical like Princess Kenny in the rose garden during the Black Friday Trilogy. You can make them anything!

Sand box! We have set up friend groups, conflicts from twenty years ago, and a mayor of the township! We have the entire map laid out in front of us and more from every episode’s location that hasn’t been included. We have the local coffee shop and the local movie theater. We have a whole city! We have canonical neighbors and stores and everything! Where would you like to start? We have it all.

Taking things “Seriously”. Most importantly, South Park wants to be take seriously. SP doesn’t work without being able to take it seriously. The comedy in Passion of the Jew doesn’t work unless you sympathize with Kyle. I laughed at the obliviousness of the adults as Cartman formed his group and then a pit grew in my stomach as I saw Kyle and them about to crash. The comedy in World Wide Record Concert doesn’t work if you don’t know that Mr Garrison feels bad for a very dumb reason !!!! But that episode is genuinely one of the funniest to me. South Park did not make it a character trait that Mr Garrison is gay for all those early seasons just for us to not notice. And more importantly he feels like a very very ignorant gay man in those seasons, but he feels genuinely gay. As Kenny Dies it asks you to take this seriously, and we watch in Coon Vs. Coon & Friends and are asked for it to be taken seriously as Kenny describes the many deaths he’s faced. This show quickly shows how absurdist and crazy it is in most if not all episodes it has yet it still cares to ask you to take things seriously, to sympathize, empathize with these characters. It tells you to laugh at Kenny’s deaths and then it has the audacity to tell you he remembers Every Single One and is reborn every time, and that Cartman always knows and they never talk about it. They never mention it more then once. They lull us into personal moments and then never bring it up again. The fandom is built around these one off moments, these things the creators didn’t think too much about. These characters have such strong personalities and back bones that have existed for YEARS. Stuff set up and shown in the first five seasons makes sense to the characters of today. The character consistency goes rlly hard for a 25 year old show that only stops itself for exploring character because they know they’re there to be funny and not serious. It’s crazy and amazing and we want the serious shit!

History. South Park history is crazy, what’s ever crazier? Fandom history. The shows history doesn’t matter too much (except that time Matt and Trey went to The Oscars for sp while on LSD) but the fandom history is legendary. The development of fandom, the fandom blorbo of the time, the Stan and Wendy baby guy. It’s really neat. We have a steep history with artists that have come and gone in a very unique way because of how tumblr’s algorithm is set up. South Park’s fandom existed before most popular social media sites. And while this allows you to put the character in Any decade it also lets you see how old some of those ff.net fics are. The fanart on tumblr can easily be a decade old if you look at the right blog. A deactivated user behind it. Ships that have come and gone, we’ve been here this whole time !!!! I love hearing about different sites issues and problems. And also the beloved stuff that has happened here. Some people weren’t here before Creek was canon, some people came in with a canonical gay couple amongst the kids as just an average background thing.

So those are some reasons. The most important ones that I think most south park fan in the fandom. will list at least one of when being asked Why. I value all of these things heavily. You also meet some really great people with mostly solid opinions ! It’s great ! Genuinely a really understanding and accepting place with unique stories from anyone you meet.

3. Do you think that the fandom is divorced from the canonical content?

Off the rip I would say no. But it’s complicated. To those who have seen all or most of the show I’d say; We’re pretty connected. I think the majority of us are just smart enough to understand that Cartman is a bad person on purpose. A lot of this has to do with he’s something the creators use. He’s an archetype of the worst person and is the only character imo that gets pulled ooc in order to do What The Plot Needs. But majority of the fandom is gonna give Kyle curly hair, green eyes and he’ll love to study with some side sports interest. We have a lot of continuity in many ways.

That being said there’s MANY people who have seen Five episodes and read the wiki and maybe play the game(s?). And they treat the show the same as those who have seen it more. Those who have not seen the show might be a bit more outspoken about how it’s Bad or Wrong when they haven’t seen it and I usually don’t trust those people. Hence why I’m watching the entire show rn on my own, to get my own opinion. Those people who haven’t seen shit are also probably connected mainly to a duo or one character. Popular examples of this are Creek (Craig x Tweek) and Bunny (Kenny x Butters). There’s non watchers in the Style (Stan Marsh x Kyle Broflovski) and Kyman (Cartman x Kyle) community but less so from what I’ve seen.

But we’re looking at this show in a different genre. Many of us act like we’re creating CW Shows except Better. Many of us lean into drama and tragedy. Others are in it for the sillies. Majority of people know what’s bad in this show, some people are sometimes so hurt or misguided that they think Cartman is the only evil and never want to see him. Other times ppl are just uncomfortable with him (Like I’ve spent the majority of my time here being). There’s a scale! I think it’s important to realize what is wrong with the show in your own way, and I think the show gets demonized for its effects on main stream media and boys who couldn’t grow a spine for themselves so took Cartman’s personality. It’s pretty apparent that Matt and Trey are very liberal they just thought “making fun” of everyone “equally” was right which got some bad apples. No one likes season 9 episode 1. Not a soul. Tbh most of the drama doesn’t relate to bigotry, though enough does that it matters. And if you aren’t interested in exploring how bigotry effects ppl I’m not sure why you would be interested in South Park.

Like yeah Matt and Trey haven’t thought about Marjorine more than once, but everyone saw a boy being accepted and cared for and enjoying himself seen as a girl more than ever before. And Matt and Trey aren’t gonna give these kids real mental illnesses when we see the symptoms clear as day (price of making characters “unique”). We’re playing a different game then they are, so yeah we’re disconnected in some ways. But we’re very connected in others. We don’t let all 25 seasons go to waste.

And what has my opinion been from watching the show so far? Well I’m on season 11 and so far it’s not as bad as I expected. I agree with a lot of their messages and the stuff that’s obviously just. terrible isn’t as common as I thought it would be? Again, s9 e1 is the worst of it, and you phrased it really well when saying it’s mainly inappropriate humor that often goes over the line. They’re very liberal though, I mean they introduce a gay character in the first episode and in the 90’s teach a kid gay is chill. There are episodes I dislike or just get bored by, but most of what I’ve gotten through which is getting closer to half of the show runs from decent to surprisingly well made (pick any s8 ep tbh. oops all bangers). Mattrey aren’t me, and I’m here to develop the characters, they’re there to develop a comedy. we are not the same but we appreciate each other even tho we probably squint and think the other is more in the wrong then ourselves. But we enjoy each other occasionally.

EDIT: I meant to put this originally but not everyone here is a young adult. I’ve seen 11 year old fans I’ve seen 50 year old fans. we have a lot of diversity in stuff like that. I think young adults had a wave of coming into the fandom because creek became canon which gave the show credit for showing how good it can be at times. Every one of my south park friends are at least two years older then me. That being said I joined a discord that I hadn’t realized was for minors and saw the swath of young ages we get. a lot of us have a decade between each other, but even more of us are in that 17-25 range. I think it’s just more common for young adults to get into it since we have the freedom to watch whatever we want and it’s a household name some may have been restricted to. Then again I joined this when I was 10 as well so like. i may be a bit warped. either way this shows rlly has smth for everyone.

Oh wait! Oh no!!! TL;DR: South Park is a show that’s important to me and others for a lot of reasons. Nothing butters me up like seeing people in broken worlds be able to put it together again in the future, or to be torn apart idk it depends. Other reasons to like the show are: Relatability, they can be literally any age, Infinite scenarios, People love to take the absurd seriously, A lot of content, Relatability; again, simple designs, the setting is a sandbox, creators kinda want us to take this seriously, and a lot of fandom history! And probably more. We’re not that disconnected from the series itself but everyone is pretty aware how problematic it is and many disconnect entirely from the series. Other choose to embrace it to Fix Them. Ppl love to do a lot.

[roostertuftart]

Can we stop W the “if you have a different opinion on sp you clearly haven’t watched the show” bit. it’s. Very annoying