Review: South Park ‘Safe Space’

Spoilers Below:

After posting a photo of himself in his underwear, Cartman was body shamed online and went to PC Principal about it. PC then asked the students one-by-one to take over for Cartman online, screening his comments and posting for him. Butters was the only willing one, and even he didn’t really want to. Later, Steven Seagal came to give a motivational speech about fat shaming, but was clearly not in a good place himself. PC Principal asked Butters to take over his social media as well. Demi Lovato, Lena Dunham, some plus-sized lingerie models, Vin Diesel, and a whole bunch of other public figures later asked for his services too.

Meanwhile, Randy was publicly shamed every time he shopped at Whole Foods for not donating $1 to hungry kids, and subsequently started a campaign against charity shaming at grocery stores. It later expanded to all types of shaming.

Butters began losing his my mind, haunted by an evil, Snidely Whiplash-like figure called “Reality.” Faced with either continuing this work or getting detention, a naked Butters jumped out of the elementary school’s second story window. Reality then showed up at the #shamelessAmerica fundraiser and made a speech. He declared that of course shame exists; we do things that are shameful, and could probably stand to feel bad about it from time to time. That’s life.

In the end, Randy started another charity (#completelyShameless) which gave iPads to hungry kids in third world countries so that they can cleanse people’s social media critiques for them. The town of South Park then publicly hung Reality, with Butters pulling the lever.

In Case You Missed It:

1) One of Cartman’s Twitter criticizers was named Aron Boon. Yankees reference? (Btw: Congrats, Mets…I guess.)

2) One of the other commenters was Randy Marsh (@GettinRandy55), who said, “Are You Kidding me??!? #SoFat”

3) Other hastags included: #Disgusting, #ItsCalledADiet, #gross, #LOL, and #MorbidObesity.

4) Who is Leslie, and why is she being so disrespectful by constantly talking? In week two, we had, “HEY LESLIE, SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH!” and this week we get “HEY LESLIE, PUT A FUCKING SOCK IT IN!”

5) Randy is still buying his gluten-free PBR.

And the story rolls on. We once again have an episode revolving around Whole Foods, and we once again have a plot involving PC Principal. South Park’s sudden full-on foray into serialization this year has blended together seamlessly thus far, and they’ve done an impressive job of mining numerous social issues out of the arc.

And here is another that makes a statement by lumping together basically everything people are shamed for nowadays. It called out Whole Foods and other stores (I’m looking at you, Duane Reade) that make customers declare their desire – or lack thereof – to donate money to charity, either verbally or on a touchscreen. Or both. As someone who can relate, and hopefully many can, this was especially gratifying.

They also went after folks that needlessly pick apart celebrities for their flaws, even stating that Demi Lovato (a celebrity who has spoken out against shaming) is hot.

On the flip side, Reality’s speech (and the fact that he’s named Reality) made a point when it said people could use a little shaming now and then – because people do slightly shameful things. For instance, never donating to charity and being obese – while totally a free choice – isn’t something that anyone should be proud of as a long term lifestyle decision. No offense.

So yes, we have another successful spearing of current society at the hands of South Park. But is the show really living up to its full potential?

One of the things I enjoy most about this show is the fact that I usually never know what’s coming in the next episode – whether it’s the plot itself or the issues it addresses. Although the issues have varied this year, the plots have all been related in some way. “Where My Country Go?” is probably the outlier, because although it connected to the other episodes, it took place outside of South Park for a good portion of it.

I point this out not to say that the episodes aren’t successfully, entertaining, witty, and funny, but it just hasn’t hit that level other seasons have achieved with their unpredictable, far-out antics.

One thing I definitely have to acknowledge though, if you can’t tell from my scoring, is that this season has been remarkably consistent.