Review: South Park “Board Girls”

 

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Now that the Tegridy Farms arc is over, we’re treated to the classic theme song known as… PC Babies? Wait? What?

That’s right, this is a PC Babies-centric story, and the babies are just as irritating as ever. They are still literally offended by everything, even when their Disney+ subscription auto-plays Mulan. Come on, babies! Mulan is the best Disney princess, and you know it!

Anyway, Vice Principal Strong Woman is training for the 6^th Annual Strong Woman Competition, and iron-woman event she’s won for the past five years. This year, however, she faces her toughest competitor, the event’s first ever trans-woman. But this isn’t a “normal” “trans-athlete.” Heather Swanson is a big, bad, bearded woman with muscles for days—oh, and she only started identifying as a woman two weeks ago.

Swanson annihilates the other women and mocks them mercifully. Strong Woman remains a good sport and accepts her second place medal with grace. Unfortunately, Heather keeps needling her and even harasses the PC clan at their home. PC Principal is angry and wants to tell Ms. Swanson “what for,” but he can’t risk upsetting the PC Babies by calling out a trans-woman. Strong Woman confesses to the principal that Heather is her ex-boyfriend and likely doesn’t care about the trans movement or powerful women. Alas, they must keep their opinions to themselves because the PC Babies don’t give a damn.

Meanwhile, at South Park Elementary, Cartman and the boys are running Dice Studz, a school club where they play a wide variety of dice games. The boys are enjoying their revelry until a couple of girls join the group and start winning every game because they know all the rules and are better at math.

This pisses Cartman off to high heaven, causing him to take excessive measures to have the girls banned from his group. He takes it as high as the state senate—at least it looks like the state senate—and uses his typical trickery to have their school’s boys and girls clubs de facto segregated. And while he wins that battle he loses the war, because the girls create their own club which is about one million times cooler than Dice Studz.

After shoving Heather on live TV, PC Principal is shamed and refuses to go home because he can’t face the PC Babies. Strong Woman, being a strong woman, suggests that he makes things right with Heather even though she’s the one in the wrong. When PC Principal invites Ms. Swanson to his school to be a motivational speaker, the kids aren’t won over by her charms.

In fact, the girls recognize that she’s rigging the game and challenge her to a series of board game challenges. Heather is beaten royally and disgraced, and the PC Babies don’t care! They accept their father for who he is and see the subtleties in the situation because all five of them are growing up.

 

Our Take

This episode was certainly a slow burn and it took a while for it to win me over. The PC Babies are often the worst characters on the show, so I’m glad this special “PC Babies episode” wasn’t really about the PC Babies. I did, however, find it amusing that they disliked Mulan because of its omission of an earnest discussion on trans issues, as opposed to an actual offense the movie committed. At the time, I didn’t know it was going to be a trans-centric episode, so I was certain they were going to be pissed about its misrepresentation of Chinese archetypes. Or even that they hired American-Chinese voice actors—and Harvey Fierstein—instead of Chinese-born voice actors.

So, Heather Swanson was just Macho Man Randy Savage, right? I know the guy’s been dead for almost a decade, but that’s who she is. I’m surprised somebody like Vice Principal Strong Woman would have ever been attracted to somebody with such raging testosterone, but maybe she wasn’t always as PC as she is today. Hmm? Food for thought.

While I enjoy South Park when it’s on its game, I seldom laugh out loud while watching. However, for some reason Ms. Swanson’s entrance to 2ne1’s “I Am the Best” got to me, particularly when she ripped off her male stripper pants and revealed a little too much “business” to a room full of grade-schoolers. Has my sense of humor devolved? Perhaps, but it was a funny moment.

Cartman relating to Ms. Swanson was a little cliché, but I guess it shows that his bigoted mind can look beyond sexual orientation when his warped morals are at stake. I’d be interested to see what type of club those two create and if Cartman would revert to his typical trans-phobic self as soon as his initial sense of awe wore off. We’ll probably never find out because with the seasonal closing of Tegridy Farms, continuity is also over for the season.