Alan McLawhorn

Aaron Kashtan
UWRT 1102
16 March 2017

South Park and America

South Park is a comedic American television show, and says a lot about American

identity. The show takes place in fictional South Park, Colorado, and follows four eight-year

olds as they go through conflicts in their hometown. The show seems to talk about social issues

of today on more recent episodes, instead of before where they had actual plots not applied to

social issues. While South Park does show the worlds views, they seem to talk about how they

depict Americans in many episodes, and usually not in a good way. South Park makes fun of

many aspects of life, many celebrities, and many social issues. One thing that South Park talks

about is the role of religion in America.

American identity revolves around serious topics like religion. Since most of America,

and the world, are religious, it makes sense that religion would be a prevalent topic. South Park

portrays religion in America as hilariously idiotic, as they do many things. In the episode

Bloody Mary Randy gets arrested for drunk driving, and convinces himself he is an alcoholic

and is powerless to control his drinking. However, Randy hears of a Virgin Mary statue that

bleeds out of its anus, and thinks if he gets sprayed he will become cured. Soon the Pope claims

that the statue is bleeding out of its vagina and is therefore not a miracle. Upon hearing this

Randy goes back to thinking he is powerless to control his alcoholism. Bloody Mary can be

compared to Baptisms since Baptists dip their head in water to signal a new beginning or change

in life. Baptists believe that simply dipping their head in water and being blessed can help
change their life and fate, but it is not realistic. Randy takes being blessed to the extreme,

showing that God and God only can change his disease, while he has no power over it. South

Park is implying an implicit message about American identity and religion. They do not

blatantly make fun of this concept, but instead imply it with how Randy acts, even though he is

usually idiotic.

South Park blatantly calls Scientology idiotic in an episode titled Trapped in the Closet.

The plot is that Stan takes a personality test given out by Scientologists, and the Scientologists

tell Stan he is depressed. For $240, they say they will help Stan, and he eventually obliges. Stan

takes another test with the help of one of the Scientologists where they take his thetan levels on

an e-meter. His thetan numbers show up as the same as L Ron Hubbard, the founder of

Scientology, and all of the Scientologists think he is the second coming of Hubbard. Stan is told

about what Scientologists believe, and it is pretty ridiculous. He is convinced to write where L

Ron Hubbard left off, and he eventually hears from the Scientology president that Scientology is

a scam to make money. Stan begins to read his new doctrine but instead tells his followers that

Scientology is a swindle, but instead of support from his followers, they all threaten to sue him.

In Trapped in the Closet South Park basically makes fun of Scientology, and insinuates that it

is a money making scam. Since what they believe in follows aliens and emotions being put into

people, and since L Ron Hubbard was a science fiction writer it is a smart assumption that

Scientology is in fact fraud. Since Scientology is mostly based in America, this shows that some

Americans will believe anything. While Scientology is not big at all, it still shows that people,

including celebrities, believe in crazy things, and reflects American identity, and religion. There

is an explicit message about American identity and religion in this episode. South Park just flat

out makes fun of Scientology, even accusing them of being a global money making scam.
 In another South Park episode titled All About the Mormons a new family of Mormons

moves to South Park. They are depicted as really nice, and extremely cheerful. Stan is sent to

beat up Gary, the Mormon kid in their grade, and instead of beating him up, Stan befriends him.

Stan has dinner with the Mormon family, and sees that they are overly happy, and nice. He

eventually hears about how Mormonism was made by hearing from the Book of Mormon. Stan

goes home to tell his family about his experiences, and his dad, Randy, becomes angry, and goes

to beat up the Mormons. Instead, he sees that they are very happy, and instead decides for him

and his family to become Mormons. However, after hanging out with the Mormons, and hearing

the rest of the story about how Mormonism was found, Stan denounces Mormonism. In the

story, Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, finds golden plates, and rewrites the transcripts

that are written on them. However, also included in this fictional depiction, was that a woman

hid the scribes Joseph Smith wrote to see if he can rewrite them word for word. If he could he

was telling the truth, and if he could not he was lying. Joseph Smith could not write word for

word, and this angers Stan, who then realized that Mormonism was all made up. Going back to

the story, throughout the story, Dum, dum, dum, dum, dum was played, and when the woman

challenges Joseph Smiths ideas, it instead went smart, smart, smart, smart, smart. This

example shows that South Park was making fun of Mormons for believing the Book of Mormon,

and Joseph Smiths tale. Knowing this, the message about American identity and religion is

explicit, with South Park making fun of Mormonism.

American identity is what being an American says about you. South Park talks about

Americans and their religions, and that just means they make fun of religion. Since it is an

American television show, most of the viewers know how stupid some parts of life are,
especially religion. South Park also tries to send a message about American identity, and does

this through explicit and implicit messages.

http://southpark.cc.com/clips/104256/joseph-smith-part-2

http://southpark.cc.com/clips/104274/what-scientologist-actually-believe