"South Park"

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that cartoons in Trey Parker and Matt Stone's original episode of "South Park" were created by using construction paper cutouts; however, after the series was picked up by Comedy Central and became a computer-animated empire, the creators continued to reproduce this archaic style, which helped popularize "South Park" on the internet before it was marketed as a series. The author points out that, although the primary audience is actually adults, the primary characters on the show are children and the seemingly primitive animation seems to suggest that the show is aimed towards children. The paper questions if it is acceptable for viewers of "South Park", especially children, to accept concrete moral instruction from artistically innocent-looking children characters whose moral prescriptions are often arrived at through offensive means.

From the Paper:

"To appreciate the moral implications of the film, it is important to examine the tacit meanings behind some of the fundamentals. The self-referential nature of the movie seems rather obvious considering that the boys sneaking into an R-rated cartoon parallels the fact that many underage "South Park" fans almost certainly did the same thing to see "Bigger, Longer & Uncut". However, this type of self-reference goes much deeper and is important to understanding the ethical elements of the film. It is plausible that the characters of Terrance and Phillip symbolize the creators (Parker and Stone) and the film as a reaction against negative criticism about "South Park". People criticized the simple animation and "fart jokes" of "South Park", and Terrance and Phillip were created as a reactionary show-within-a-show in which the characters do nothing but "fart" on one another and the animation is significantly worse than South Park's."

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