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Rating: "South Park" equals desecration of any bigotry, demystification of everything abstract passed off as empirical truth, ridiculing politics, the "court affairs" conceived by the protagonists of international diplomacy, nullification of the beliefs in which Man places his boundless trust. The main differences that separate these desecrating techniques from the similar ones in The Simpsons or Futurama concern, however, violence, the frank and provocative language of the characters (very often devolving into insults and swearing), the depiction, albeit animated, of crude, bloody, horrific, gruesome, and sadistic visions.
Each character, from the four charming kids (who, despite their young age, are always placed in "adult" contexts and speak vulgarly, grotesquely insulting each other) to the most elusive cameo, represents and demystifies a single mentality, a single attitude, irrational belief, abstract faith, with special regard to the American situation. The famous anti-Semitism of Cartman is just the most notable example: there's the pomposity/arrogance of Kyle's mother, Sheila, the bigotry that poorly hides the madness of Mr. and Mrs. Stotch, parents of Butters, the mediocrity of Kenny's family, a cage of drunkards, intellectually and economically poor, the repressed, then hyperbolized and finally placated homosexuality of Mr. Garrison, the elementary school teacher, and so on; a myriad of twisted, dehumanized, bestial personalities, each with the precise intent of making this locus the most neglected of dystopias.
The town of South Park coexists with Evil without showing any sense of dismay or shame, quite the opposite. In aid of all that is negative and deplorable, monstrous creatures and aliens even come, plots and intrigues are hatched so surreal as to pale the most astute detective, the space/time boundary is crossed as if it were nothing. Reality, satire, science fiction, and dystopia blend to create something utterly shocking and scandalous, grounded in that violence that does not remain confined to the cathode ray tube but invades with ferocity the tangible reality of news events. South Park intends to illustrate the Evil of living and existing, the dark side of society, bringing to extreme consequences all the small issues that, if ignored for a long time, can intensify and explode/implode at any moment.
The episode "A Ladder to Heaven" (sixth season) finds the gang of Cartman building, indeed, a ladder to access Heaven, the place where their friend Kenny, temporarily absent in the previous series, would be. The citizens and the entire world are moved by such a gesture, all witness this absurdity, the work, however, of four children who have lost their friend and who are still unaware of the meaning of Death. In reality, they are determined to visit Kenny in Heaven solely to be given a voucher for a large supply of candy and sweets, a coupon that Kenny kept until his death. Amid plot twists, a benevolent worldwide mobilization in support of the children, and Japan’s attempt to conquer Heaven before the Americans, Cartman, Kyle, and Stan manage to procure the free sweets even without the aid of their deceased friend, deceiving the hypocritical kindness of adults. Famous, then, is the scene where Eric dissolves Kenny’s ashes in milk, mistakenly believed to be cocoa powder, and ingests the resulting mixture. Kenny's soul will then reside in the boy’s body and will cause him confusion attacks and temporary mental blackouts.
The introspection that can be achieved from this episode is remarkable: primarily the materialism that affects youth from the tenderness of childhood, the superficiality that even denigrates death, the false kindness of the masses, generally bland and petty, the demoralization of spirituality and morality, surpassed by vanity, the quest for wealth and honors, the economic pragmatism that suffocates human reasoning. This, however, is just a taste of the wicked world of South Park, where nothing is predictable and everything is uncertain and unpredictable.
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