Matt Stone and Trey Parker have done more to make our generation crueler than nearly anyone else, because they can get away with it under the guise of “this is satire, duh”, not realizing that poorly-done satire only reinforces the cultural forces it is meant to mock. When 13 year-old-kids are watching South Park, they aren’t tuning in to the little infinitesimally small lessons supposedly being taught, they’re laughing at Timmy being severely disabled, they’re laughing at sexual harassment, they’re laughing at child abuse, they’re laughing at anti-semitism, they’re laughing at people who have had sex reassignment surgery.
And the “satire” is so often pathetically weak. There isn’t a single nativist in this entire country who can’t laugh at a “der takin er jerbs” joke, because those jokes don’t actually rebut or mock the arguments made by people opposed to immigration. It’s just saying a common political phrase in a funny voice. Is that how low the bar for “satire” has been set? There’s occasionally more effective satire on the show, but not nearly enough for it to be defended on the basis of its value as satire.
But if you try to explain any of this to die-hard South Park fans, they’ll completely blow it off. They think that the fact the show upsets me simply means that the show has accomplished its purpose, never actually questioning whether or not that purpose is a worthy one. That’s why the show is so insidious: it wraps itself in this cynical layer of self-containment that prevents it from ever being pointed out for what it is: a detriment to the type of society that any decent person wants to see. South Park is far more dangerous than the Westboro Baptist Church, because South Park is something that people accept and defend.
I worked with a guy who would yell “derka derka jihad!” out of his truck at Middle Eastern people. Or refer to them as “derka-derkas.”
“Derka derka jihad” is a joke from Stone & Parker’s Team America: World Police, and it’s (in a generous interpretation) a satire on “this is what narrow-minded Americans think Arabic sounds like, silly Americans!”
But about 95% of the audience thought the joke was “Arabic sounds ridiculous, it’s not even a real language!” The movie does extremely little to discourage this. [click here if you are prepared to experience a full-body cringe] The level of satire is somewhere between “extremely subtle” and “alibi.”
I know satire is subjective and the public is hard to predict and all that, but I think an easy way to tell that the thing you’re participating in isn’t satire is when you’re inventing new racial slurs and they’re catching on.
South Park is the opposite of satire.
Here’s how South Park fans think Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal happened. Swift wondered, “what’s the most offensive, politically incorrect thing I could write about? I know! Eating babies!” He wrote an essay saying everyone should eat babies. People were very offended by this essay, which makes it funny. People thought Swift was serious but he wasn’t, kek, he was just being satirical! He fooled them!
Here’s how Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal actually happened. Swift lived in Ireland, a colonial property of England. He was enraged by the ways the English government, Irish puppet government, and Irish wealthy oppressed the poor of Ireland, causing poverty and famine. He wrote a bitterly sarcastic screed carrying their callous dehumanization to its logical extreme–with your cruelty, you might as well just eat their babies! Swift sarcastically included a long paragraph of his actual policy proposals in the essay: “Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients,” strengthening his accusation that to pretend it was impossible to help the poor was viciousness at the level of baby-eating.
The cruel English politicians Swift was satirizing didn’t misread the satire as agreeing with them, because he didn’t just say the same things as them in a snotty voice, because that’s not what satire means. Nobody said, “Yeah, Swift, that’s a great idea, let’s go eat us some babies!” The targets of satire aren’t supposed to agree with it.
The late great Terry Pratchet was a master satirist. His works are fucking hillarious. His friend and co-writer Neil Gaiman explains what made him such a great satirist: “There is a fury to Terry Pratchett’s writing: it’s the fury that was the engine that powered Discworld.” And “anger is the engine that drives him.” Anger at what? “ Against so many things: stupidity, injustice, human foolishness and shortsightedness.” That is satire: a white-hot righteous fury at injustice, channeled into humor. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/24/terry-pratchett-angry-not-jolly-neil-gaiman
Nihilistic apathy and opposition to any and all political opinions and “waaahhh, those buzzkills are telling me not to call people retarded, but that’s hard and I like calling people retarded” is not a basis for satire. If you were to take every distinguishing characteristic true satire has and do exactly the opposite, you’d wind up with something like the genre South Park popularized.
“THE TARGETS OF SATIRE AREN’T SUPPOSED TO AGREE WITH IT.”
hello have you ever, just been, really bothering a small amphibian all over, and they decide they have had enough of it
the unken reflex is a defensive posture that a handful of salamanders, toads and frogs do when they feel threatened, and it involves curling right up and showing off their bright underbellies ( which usually, BUT NOT ALWAYS, means the animal in question is POISONOUS and you shouldnt eat this thing !!! dont eat this !!!!! )
the above three are rough skinned newts and a california newt, but the reflex itself is named after the fire-belled toads ( whose genus is unke in german ) where it shows up a little differently
(note the covered eyes ! )
while displaying, the animal in question gulps down a bunch of air, makes themselves as still as possible, and also releases toxins from their skin if they got em – but not all amphibians with the unken reflex have poison, and some of the poison ones dont have bright underbellies, and some dont curl up all the way while theyre doing it – its a mixed bag of postures. thats how it is sometimes
So the last time I reblogged this, someone reblogged from me with a comment along the lines of “wait till you see them with swords”. So I went to search it up, and… guys. GUYS.
There are actual sparks flying holy shit =O
this went big about halfway through holy shit
It really did. When the swords started REALLY connecting around 3:20 literal sparks are flying
math was a goddamn mistake id like to sit down and have a serious talk with every mathematician ever they knew perfectly well the nature of their crimes
I do feel bad for plants in general. Like, I know they are often as vicious as animals in many ways, just slower. But, I mean, they just show up and they’re like, “I Think I Will Evolve To Eat The Sun And Also Make Oxygen And How Now Is All This.” And, like, everything fucking dies at first (totally not plants fault, btw. okay maybe it was but they didn’t mean to) but then new things evolve. And they’re like, “Fuck it, eating each other suuuucks. Let’s eat the plants which give us life.” And so we start doing that. And plants are all, “Oh Dear No, I Do Not Care At All For Being Eaten. I Will Make Myself Into Poison Sometimes.” But, y’know, stuff kept eating plants anyway so plants, ever the bro, came up with a new idea. “I Have Made A Decision About Being Eaten And You May Eat Me Friends And Here Is An Especially Tasty Bit Packed All Full of Delicious Sugars Which I Have Produced At Great Cost (What They Do Not Know Is That My Seeds Are Within And Shall Be Propagated Near And Far By Their Dung)“ But that’s not good enough for animals, no, not at all. We love the fuck out of some pomegranates but also alliums which are like, “I Have Not Decided To Go In For This Being Eaten Business. I Shall Be Very Foul Tasting And Also A Poison.” But no, sorry, onions, you fucked up. You accidentally wound up with a species that just doesn’t give up or fully comprehend the idea of things tasting “”‘bad’“’ or other concepts like not eating poison. (Sorry, plants, later we turn some of you who are not poison into a poison we consume recreationally. We really enjoy eating poison.) Legit, alliums are deadly to, like, every other species. And we call them aromatics and throw them in everything. Peppers are the best, though. They completely got on the being eaten train. BUT ONLY BIRDS Peppers are like, “You May Eat Me, Fair Avian, For You Are Sure To Spread Me A Great Distance. But, Mammal, Take HEED. Should You Eat Me Then I Will Burn You Most Terribly.” And we were all about that. “The FUCK, burning? I love pain,” said humans, presumably. “You know, peppers, you and evolution have done a good job at burning us but I am pretty sure we could make your chemical agony even more potent. Come hang with us,” humans added to a very confused pepper just before creating the ghost chili.
I know we all love Edna because she’s super fierce and determined and an awesome role model and shit but
do you ever think that she feels intensely guilty over this, having made this suit that lead to the death of this amazing young girl
Maybe there’s a reason she never looks back.
Repeated for emphasis:
Maybe there’s a reason she never looks back.
Edna at the funeral, veiled from head to toe, slowly ripping pages out of her pocket sketchbook and mouthing the words “no capes”
you people are monsters
What the actual fuck oh my god
Think about how appalled Edna must have been. How traumatized. How guilty she must have felt over the death of this young girl.
Then realize that Edna anticipated practically every threat that the Incredibles would run into from Syndrome and built help into their suits. The only logical conclusion is that he contacted her–possibly scores of times. Syndrome was a stalkery fanboy before he turned supervillain. And Edna is THE suit maker for supers, as well as Mr. Incredible. Of course Syndrome would go to her. Edna is the best, and Syndrome would want the best designer for his costume.
Think about all that. Think about the woman who was so horrified and grief-stricken by Stratogate’s death being asked by a supervillain–one who was a genuine threat to supers she cared about–to design his costume.
And then realize that, despite her horror and guilt and rage at the gruesome deaths of Stratogate and other supers, despite her vehement conviction that such deaths should never happen again…
A handy list of poisons for writing reference, provided to you by me, Bella
Poisoning is one of the oldest murder tactics in the books. It was the old equalizer, and while it’s often associated with women, historically men are no less likely to poison you. This is not a guide on how to poison people, you banana bunches, it’s a guide on writing about poisons in fiction so you don’t end up on a watch list while researching them. I’ve taken that hit for you. You’re welcome. These are just a few of the more classic ones.
Hemlock: Hemlock (conium maculatum) is one of the more famous ones, used in ancient times most notably in Socrates’ forced suicide execution. So it goes. The plant has bunches of small, white flowers, and can grow up to ten feet tall. It’s a rather panicky way to die, although it wouldn’t show: hemlock is a paralytic, so the cause of death is most often asphyxiation due to respiratory paralysis, although the mind remains unaffected and aware.
Belladonna: Atropa belladonna is also called deadly nightshade. It has pretty, trumpet-shaped purple flowers and dark, shiny berries that actually look really delicious which is ironic since it’s the most toxic part of the plant. The entire plant is poisonous, mind you, but the berries are the most. One of the most potent poisons in its hemisphere,it was used as a beauty treatment, so the story says, and rubbed into the eyes to make the eyes dilate and the cheeks flush. Hench the name beautiful lady. The death is more lethargic than hemlock, although its symptoms are worse: dilated pupils, sensitivity to light, blurred vision, tachycardia, loss of balance, staggering, headache, rash, flushing, severely dry mouth and throat, slurred speech, urinary retention, constipation, confusion, hallucinations, delirium, and convulsions. It’s toxic to animals, but cattle and rabbits can eat it just fine, for some reason.
Arsenic: Arsenic comes from a metalloid and not a plant, unlike the others here, but it’s easily the most famous and is still used today. Instead of being distilled from a plant, chunks of arsenic are dug up or mined. It was once used as a treatment for STDs, and also for pest control and blacksmithing, which was how many poisoners got access to it. It was popular in the middle ages because it looked like a cholera death, due to acute symptoms including stomach cramps, diarrhea, confusion, convulsions, vomiting, and death. Slow poisoning looked more like a heart attack. The Italians famously claimed that a little arsenic improved the taste of wine.
Strychnine: Strychnine (strick-nine) is made from the seed of strychnos nux vomica and causes poisoning which results in muscular convulsions and eventually death through asphyxia. Convulsions appear after inhalation or injection—very quickly, within minutes—and take somewhat longer to manifest after ingestion, around approximately 15 minutes. With a very high dose, brain death can occur in 15 to 30 minutes. If a lower dose is ingested, other symptoms begin to develop, including seizures, cramping, stiffness, hypervigilance, and agitation. Seizures caused by strychnine poisoning can start as early as 15 minutes after exposure and last 12 – 24 hours. They are often triggered by sights, sounds, or touch and can cause other adverse symptoms, including overheating, kidney failure, metabolic and respiratory acidosis. During seizures, abnormal dilation, protrusion of the eyes, and involuntary eye movements may occur. It is also slightly hallucinogenic and is sometimes used to cut narcotics. It also notably has no antidote. In low doses, some use it as a performance enhancer.
Curare:Chondrodendron tomentosum is lesser known than its famous cousins, but kills in a very similar way to hemlock. It is slow and terrible, as the victim is aware and the heart may beat for many minutes after the rest of the body is paralyzed. If artificial respiration is given until the poison subsides, the victim will survive.
Wolfsbane: Aconitum has several names; Monkshood, aconite, Queen of Poisons, women’s bane, devil’s helmet) and is a pretty, purple plant with gourd-shaped flowers. The root is the most potent for distillation. Marked symptoms may appear almost immediately, usually not later than one hour, and with large doses death is near instantaneous. Death usually occurs within two to six hours in fatal poisoning. The initial signs are gastrointestinal including nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. This is followed by a sensation of burning, tingling, and numbness in the mouth and face, and of burning in the abdomen. In severe poisonings pronounced motor weakness occurs and sensations of tingling and numbness spread to the limbs. The plant should be handled with gloves, as the poison can seep into the skin.
Foxglove: Digitalis is large with trumpet-shaped flowers that can be many colors, but usually a pinkish shade. It may have from the term foxes-glew, which translated to fairy music. Intoxication causes nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, as well as sometimes resulting in xanthopsia (jaundiced or yellow vision) and the appearance of blurred outlines (halos), drooling, abnormal heart rate, cardiac arrhythmias, weakness, collapse, dilated pupils, tremors, seizures, and even death. Slowed heartbeat also occurs. Because a frequent side effect of digitalis is reduction of appetite and the mortality rate is low, some individuals have used the drug as a weight-loss aid. It looks a bit like comfrey, which is an aid for inflammation. Make sure not to confuse the two.
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