Taking South Park Seriously

Voorkant
Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock
SUNY Press, 11 sep 2008 - 254 pagina's
Since it came on the air in 1997, Comedy Central s top-rated animated program, South Park, has been criticized for its crude, scatological humor and political insensitivity. However, the program also fearlessly wades into the morass of American political life as it tackles and satirizes all American sacred cows, including political correctness, the value of celebrities, ideas about childhood, and the role of religion in American life. In the process, South Park raises provocative and timely questions about politics, identity, and the media s influence in shaping American thinking.

Taking South Park Seriously brings together scholars who explore the broader implications of South Park s immense popularity by examining the program s politics, aesthetics, and cultural impact. Topics covered include the pleasures of watching the show, South Park s relationship to other animated programs, and the program s representations of racial and ethnic minorities, the disabled, celebrities, children, religion, and education. This book will be of interest not only to communications and cultural studies scholars, but to anyone who has ever laughed along with Cartman, Stan, Kyle, and Kenny.
 

Geselecteerde pagina's

Inhoudsopgave

Bigger Longer Uncut South Park and the Carnivalesque
23
The Pleasures of South Park An Experiment in Media Erotics
39
Orphic Persuasions and Siren Seductions
59
Simpsons Did It South Parkas Differential Signifier
79
Identity Politics
97
Freud Goes to South Park Teaching against Postmodern Prejudices and Equal Opportunity Hatred
99
Cynicism and Other Postideological Half Measures in South Park
113
Shopping at JMart with the Williams Race Ethnicity and Belonging in South Park
131
South Park Heretics Confronting Orthodoxy through Theater of the Absurd
165
Prophetic Profanity South Park on Religion or Thinking Theologically with Eric Cartman
173
Specific Critiques
193
You Know I Learned Something Today Cultural Pedagogy and the Limits of Formal Education in South Park
195
Omigod Its Russell Crowe South Parks Assault on Celebrity
209
List of Episodes Cited
227
Complete Episode Guide Seasons 111
233
Contributors
243

South Park Conservatives?
143
I Hate Hippies South Park and the Politics of Generation X
145

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Over de auteur (2008)

Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock is Associate Professor of English at Central Michigan University and the author of several books, including The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Spectral America: Phantoms and the National Imagination.

Bibliografische gegevens