South Park has always taken pride in punching down on people, a reputation that justifies much of its risque humour by saying that nobody is off limits. The left, right, centre, and every point on the political spectrum is ripe for parody. It doesn’t matter if you’re Black, white, Asian, gay, straight, cis, trangender, or anything else - they’ll make a joke out of you and claim that’s just what the show does. But that balanced approach doesn’t work if many of the groups you shit on don’t have the same rights as others. Once you cross that line, you’re feeding impressionable viewers the belief that hating on these people is okay.
Recent seasons took aim at transgender athletes, seeing a classic wrestler suddenly deciding to identity as a woman to cheat the system. It’s a lazy take on a real world story where trans people are demonised simply for being who they are. Instead of using that subject and poking fun at the bigots making nonsensical arguments against this group, Trey Parker and Matt Stone went for the lowest common denominator, knowing their audience is happy to just nod and smile at the suffering of others because it isn’t aimed at them. South Park was bold and brash 20 years ago, but now its take on constantly satirising the political climate and biggest stories of the moment simply doesn’t work. It sits alongside Family Guy as a show that’s completely behind the times.
South Park: The Stick of Truth and Fractured But Whole, two RPGs published by Ubisoft, were rare exceptions to the rule. Well - almost. In the case of the former, Obsidian Entertainment was seemingly aware of the show’s reputation, choosing to focus some of the game’s biggest moments on classic episodes and references within a playful fantasy setting instead of poking fun at minority groups for the sake of edginess. It’s a great game, and also a funny one - largely because the studio behind it was talented enough to recognise its strengths and weaknesses. Fractured But Whole saw a change in developer, and thus its reception wasn’t nearly as positive. The character creator claimed to make the game more difficult the darker your skin tone became, a commentary on racial prejudice that has become all too real in the years since its launch.
People don’t talk about that game much anymore, which is likely due to its horrendously long development cycle and the fact it didn’t have Obsidian’s RPG mastery to guide it.
In its purest form, South Park is forgettable. A show built around poking fun at the modern world and political issues is always doomed to become irrelevant, or age terribly as the world moves on and becomes a more progressive place. You could call me overly woke or sensitive, but if a series can’t be funny without poking fun at other people, especially minorities, then you have to step back and consider whether or not it should exist in the first place. I’m not sure it should, and the confirmation of several more seasons, films, and a new game from Trey Parker and Matt Stone has me rolling my eyes in exhaustion. South Park isn’t going anywhere, and it’s unclear if this new game will follow the RPG mould that allowed it to shine throughout the previous generation.
We simply know it will be a “3D video game set within the world of South Park,” a description that is giving me awful flashbacks to Chef’s Luv Shack on the original PlayStation, or the Nintendo 64 tie-in that was little more than a mediocre first-person shooter themed around evil chickens and snowballs. These games were bad, and unless South Park decides to once again adopt the RPG framework and work around its few strong qualities, I honestly can’t see this new adventure being much better. A property like this requires a guiding hand to ensure it doesn’t fall victim to its worst vices, and with South Park still willing to engage in transphobia and tired racial stereotypes in the modern era, I’m not confident that guiding hand will be there. Just let someone make another Rick and Morty game instead, our own Stacey Henley would have a ball with it.