I’m a fan, of many years. And my sympathies, politically, lie with the libertarians. I think Trey Parker and Matt Stone dislike labels, but by their own admission, their philosophies hew pretty closely to libertarian. But I’m a pragmatist, and most libertarians I know and read the words of are idealists. It just shakes out that way. I don’t care what should be, I just want to know what works.
So, with the usual trepidation I reserve for South Park episodes that tackle politics, I watched last week’s show, “About Last Night…”
I needn’t have worried. When Parker and Stone railed against Al Gore, I was a bit annoyed. They came off as Global Warming skeptics, a position I think is willfully anti-science. But Gore has been pilloried for so long by media of all biases that I wasn’t surprised he didn’t get a fair shake. This time, with an Ocean’s 11 parody, they managed to poke fun at all the candidates without taking any sides, and avoided a polemic, which is, of course, rarely funny. The hardcore libertarian point of view is the same as the one short-sighted Nader voters subscribed to in 2000: both major parties are corrupt and there is little difference between them. Again, though, it’s hard to make ideology funny, except in satire.
The political satire skewered the excesses of Democrats and Republicans, the former deliriously partying all night, sure that Obama would change everything, and the latter panicking that the country was doomed even before Obama took office. Bravo, Trey & Matt, the middle ground was funnier than picking sides.
And that’s why I’m still watching South Park, while The Simpsons devolves into a boring framework for the occasional Homer gag.
