Review: South Park “Band in China”

 

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Still suffering from his depleted weed sales, Randy has a one-in-a-million idea. He travels to China to find more buyers for his product. However, since China has over one billion people, Randy’s one-in-a-million idea is already in wide use. On the plane ride, he meets many American business-people hoping to profit from the Chinese populace. Most notable among these China-chasers is a rogue’s gallery of characters from Disney Animation, Star Wars, Marvel, and Pixar. Randy does not appreciate all these rubberneckers stealing his “original” idea.

Back in South Park, Stan’s hardcore heavy metal band rocks the straight-laced harvest fest and garners the attention of a Hollywood producer. He wants the boys—Stan, Jimmy, Kenny, and Butters—to write and film a biopic of the band they formed 2-3 weeks ago. They agree but are almost immediately hounded with notes to keep their content acceptable for a Chinese audience. Why the Chinese audience, you may ask? Because a movie won’t make more than a BILLION dollars if it doesn’t get past the Chinese censors.

Upon landing in China, Randy pulls a Paul McCartney and gets busted with a bag full of marijuana. But unlike Paul’s nine-day stint in a Japanese jail, Randy is shuffled into a merciless Chinese gulag. There, he learns the virtues of communism and making toy robots by hand. But because Randy is gonna Randy, none of the subtle torture works on him. He does, however, take pity on two of his cellmates, Piglet and Winnie the Pooh. They were locked up because of a meme that suggested the Chinese president looked similar to everyone’s favorite “silly old bear.”

Disney takes a hit when Randy defends Winnie during one of his tirades. This draws the ire of the big boss—Mickey Mouse. The stark-raving rodent is beside himself. He can’t believe somebody from a non-Disney property messed things up so badly. Randy explains to the mouse that he only wants to sell his weed. This gives Mickey an idea. China would be more than happy to sponsor Tegridy Farms—and forgive Disney—so long as Randy takes out that fat-assed, honey-gobbling bear. Randy, the savvy businessman, does just that. He takes a garrote and goes to town on the poor bear’s neck while Piglet is forced to watch.

Stan gives up on the biopic, unable to abide by the Chinese regulations. The People’s Republic doesn’t want anything edgy, or controversial. They prefer their entertainment to be vanilla and cheesy. A stroke of genius hits Stan once Eric and Kyle return from the detention center. They reform their old boy band, Fingerbang, and make them the focus of the biopic. Ultimately, Stan can’t go through with it and opts not to sell out.

 

Our Take

This was a great episode, and not just in comparison to the disjointed shenanigans of last week. Instead, we got South Park at its finest. Maybe it’s because I am personally super-critical of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and can’t stand hokey biopics, but everything about this outing spoke to me.

The ending, and most of the setup was a direct shot at Bohemian Rhapsody—the biopic about Queen—and it was spot on. So much of that film was fabricated to create conflict that never existed, and the most dramatic moments were fictionalized. Scenes depicting LGBTQ themes had to be cut from the Queen and Elton John biopics for their releases in the China market which drastically changed the plots, characters, and integrity of those films.

So, good for Stan! Even though he’s fed up with living on the weed farm and his dad’s lunacy, he didn’t sacrifice his integrity to get what he desired. Stan has consistently been the most principled character on the show, and it’s refreshing to know that Trey and Matt won’t compromise Stan for plot convenience or a cheap laugh. It’s as if they have… crap, I can’t think of the right word.

In the interest of full disclosure, I had to look up “Fingerbang” because it’s a callback to a really, really old episode that originally aired before my father was born.

Like with most South Park episodes, Randy’s story was the most interesting by far. His loud and ignorant persona helped captured the hold China has on America in an all too perfect way. Movies have transformed—no pun intended—from intimate expressions of art into repugnant globs of CGI that exist for the sole purpose of stimulating the amygdala. And Disney is the biggest sellout to China—and other overseas markets to a lesser extent.

Watching the barrage of beloved characters bow to the company’s whims was a superb visual. However, it was disappointing not to see representatives from The Muppets, The Simpsons, or Die Hard—all of which Disney now owns.

The best part of the episode was watching the trials and tribulations of Winnie the Pooh and Piglet. It may seem insane for a character to be banned due to a harmless internet meme, but President Xi Jinping is apparently not big on levity. Randy learns this lesson the hard way. Worse yet, he almost made an enemy of Mickey Mouse. But in the end, he got his weed deal with China and all it cost was the life of one little tubby, chubby bear, all stuffed with fluff.

Interestingly, South Park auditioned for the voices of Winnie and Piglet last weekend and recorded the actors on Monday and Tuesday for the airing on Wednesday. The speedy production of this show never ceases to amaze me.