After watching the Big Gay Al South Park episode in our recent discussion group I realized that there is much more to South Park then I originally realized. Usually when I watch this hilarious show, I am not trying to interpret and analyze the show with a sociological lens. Now that I have taken this class, I have learned to look at everything in a new light especially television. The show’s humor is based primarily on witty satire that can easily offend many groups of people. This particular episode demonstrated marginalization against gay men, the handicapped, Jewish woman, the military, and lawyers.
This episode did a good job in mocking the controversy currently surrounding the Boy Scouts of America involving gay troop leaders and whether they should be allowed to remain in the organization. The writers even went as far a naming the troop that Big Gay Al led Troop 69. When Big Gay Al gets kicked out of the scouts it exemplified direct institutional discrimination because this was an organizationally prescribed action that intentionally had a differential and negative impact on members of a subordinate group.
In this case the group was homosexuals. After Big Gay Al was kicked out, the scouts brought in a new military oriented scout leader mainly because he was perceived to be “manlier” than Big Gay Al. This new scout leader was really a repeated child molester named Mr. Slippy Fist. This demonstrated the marginalization against the military about the stereotypical belief of closet-case gays in the military. Kyle’s mom, Mrs. Braflofski is the loud, rude New Yorker who sticks her nose into everyone’s business and hunts for any reason to cry discrimination against Jews. She does this repeatedly in this episode.
The handicapped aren’t really discriminated against in this episode because they are never really mistreated, but they get mocked over and over again through the use of Timmy and Jimmy. This is best demonstrated during the cripple fight at the end of the episode. Timmy, an autistic 4th grade cripple in a wheel chair, and Jimmy, an ugly cripple on permanent crutches, beat the shit out of each other while the whole town of South Park just enjoys and watches. I think this demonstrates how many handicapped people feel when they go out in public, because many people just have to stare at them and treat them differently even if they know it might affect the handicapped person’s feelings.
The last group that I feel was marginalized but wasn’t as evident as the other groups were lawyers. When the South Park kids and Big Gay Al take the scouts to court with a lawyer, the lawyer takes all the credit in front of the press for overturning the rule on gays as troop leaders. Many lawyers in America are stereotyped as a money sucking, greedy group of people that only care about themselves. This, I feel, demonstrates this stereotype.
After taking this class, watching shows like South Park will never be the same. Once you get past all of the slapstick, fart jokes, and profanity, you can realize that there is actually a lot of symbolism. Even though some of the symbolism may be a little offensive to some people, it conveys some very insightful sociological messages about discrimination in America.
