Thursday, March 15, 2007

South Park

For those who aren’t so willing to observe the crasser side of media, South Park took on conversion therapy last night. I’m not going to put the youtube video up here (it is offensive, dealing with suicide offensive). But you can go there and search for “Cartman sucks” if you like.

Butter’s speech at the end gives the moral of their story (as South Park tends to do). Butters is a straight kid who gets tricked in to seeming “bi-curious” and is thus sent by his dad to “Pray the Gay Out” at a camp, and the counselors keep telling him he’s confused. Mind you, he has no idea what bi-curious means. While Butters is trying to talk his “account-a-bill-i-buddy” down from a bridge, one of the counselors calls him “confused” again:

“All right, all right that does it!

I am sick and tired of everyone telling me I’m confused. I wasn’t confused until other people started telling me I was. You know what I think? I think maybe you’re the
ones who are confused. I’m not going to be confused anymore just because you say I should be.

My name is Butters, I’m eight years old, I’m blood type O, and I’m Bi-Curious. And even that’s okay, because if I’m bi-curious and I’m somehow made from God. Then I figure God must be a little bi-curious himself.”

At that, the gay kid on the bridge says “I think, I think I’d like to come down now.”

Again, it is offensive, but, if you want to see how popular culture is looking at this issue, there it is. South Park is pervasive.

And I still need help with Easter :-)

4 comments:

Christian said...

It was by a fluke that I happened to catch that episode last night. It is South Park Offensive as ever, but it does seem to bring home the message.

playasinmar said...

One favorite of mine is an older episode about gay marriage, The Gov tells the crowd of gay activists that they can get married but they can't call it marriage. Instead it will be "butt buddies."

Instead of husband or wife it will be "butt buddies."

Before that episode I hadn't been able to form a good argument as to why I didn't like the term "civil unions," exactly.

Scot said...

Hey Edgy, nice to see a new face around here :-).

"Instead of husband or wife it will be "butt buddies.""

Even for the lesbians, and the gay couples who've never done any such “buddying” :-).

I thought that was a good way of getting the point across also.

MoHoHawaii said...

Thanks for the hint. I never watch South Park (too gross) but I recorded this episode on my DVR and watched it.

It's crude, but I have to give those guys credit. It was funny and did satirize reparative therapy very nicely.