South Park Episode
The 10th episode of the 13th season titled “W.T.F.” One episode is what I will be analyzing in this paper. “W.T.F” aired on Comedy Central October 21st, 2009. It marked the 191st episode of the overall series of South Park. Wikipedia reports that according to Nielsen ratings, W.T.F." was seen by 1.37 million households among viewers aged between 18 and 49. [1] On the Comedy Central website, when I watched it there had been 5.1 million on the website.
I will analyze the representation, production and audience of this South Park episode in my essay.
There are 4 main characters who are boys, Cartman, Kenny, Stan, and Kyle are accompanied by their three friends Butters, Token, and Jimmy at a WWE match between superstars John Cena and Edge. Totally fascinated by what they saw, the boys decided to join their school's wrestling team. First, all of the boys are upset about their wrestling outfits, but decided that they were supposed to put on “real” wrestling clothes over it. The wrestling coach, Mr. Connors begins to teach them “real wrestling” and immediately the boys feel that the …show more content…
sport he is teaching is fake, homoerotic and then quit the team. Next, Stan and his crew creates their own wrestling league called "the Wrestling Takedown Federation" (W.T.F.). Their first match is staged by Cartman with himself scripting the match while adding theatrical elements to it. Such elements include a veteran wrestler, a wrestler from Congo, a Russian wrestler who belittles Americas who also changed characters to a girl who is addicted to abortions (we will talk about these fallacies later in the paper), etc. The boys’ acts draw a crowd, mostly of rednecks, who believes the scripts to be based on actual events.
The entire show is predominantly represented by white, male characters. There is one black character, and his name is “Token”. This play right into the head of underrepresentation and stereotypical satire. The term token comes from tokenism which is when a movie or television show has a character who is a stereotype of a minority with limited representation.
There is an emphasis on physical display of male prowess, which is evident in the popularity of professional wrestling with adolescent males in the W.T.F episode.
Even in the theatrical scenes performed by the boys, the female character was played Cartman who is a boy. This episode excludes any female representation that could possibly be present. “W.T.F.” mocks fans of wrestling, who is typically portrayed as rednecks who believe in the fictional storylines. The few women that are seen in the introduction clip of the episode are rednecks. They are dressed in loose fitting clothing, tattooed with stereotypical associations like “I married my cousin”, and are over opposite of what “femininity” is. The femininity I am referring to is the definition that believes women in makeup and dresses are the ideal women. South Park also masks over the fact that there are Professional Women
wrestlers.
This South Park episode is all about men. Men create the problem and solve the problem. Their ideas are reinforced and represented with each character. Wrestling is an athletic sport which requires two men to be in various positions with the goal of pinning your opponent to the mat for two seconds. Pain and violence amongst men is commonly depicted as exciting and rewarding behavior. That is why there is a preference to the theatrical wrestling in comparison to real wrestling. There is an idea that exists that the sport is “gay” because of the physical contact between two men, while others see no homosexual aspects of the sport. In this episode, there is a need for this idea not to participate in a that is seen as “gay”. Also, the commentators contribute to inciting violence. Sports commentators constantly praise and replay incidents of athletes taking big hits or engaging in reckless acts during matches. Their enthusiastic calls regarding what is happening in the matches adds to the dramatics of professional wrestling.
Comedy Central was launched 1990 and owned fifty percent by Time Warner and the other fifty percent Viacom. Viacom bought Time Warner’s stake in the channel for $1.225 billion in April of 2003. Currently, Comedy Central is still owned by Viacom Inc.’s MTV Networks. Comedy Central was introduced to America’s television on April 1st, 1991. What a clever day since April 1st is April’s Fools and Comedy Central is a comedic channel. Comedy Central's target audiences ranges from the ages of 18-49, highly concentrating on adults and men. [1] Comedy Central aired the two highest-rated original series on basic cable in the age group 18-34 among the men with South Park and The Sarah Silverman Project. [2] Now let's explore South Park in more depth. Trey Parker and Matt Stone created South Park in 1997 for the Comedy Central television network. Trey Parker and Matt Stone are both Caucasian males in their late 40’s. They met at the University of Colorado Boulder where the two “both shared an uniquely provocative, anti-authoritarian humor.” [3] Trey narrates 21 of the characters’ voices and Matt narrates 16 voices total. For the female rare characters in episodes, their voice is narrated by a woman named Mona Marshall. Mona Marshall is a 69-year-old Caucasian woman with an extensive timeline in animated cartoons narrations. South Park’s team is all Caucasian individuals, even the voice of Token.
I will analyze the representation, production and audience of this South Park episode in my essay.
There are 4 main characters who are boys, Cartman, Kenny, Stan, and Kyle are accompanied by their three friends Butters, Token, and Jimmy at a WWE match between superstars John Cena and Edge. Totally fascinated by what they saw, the boys decided to join their school's wrestling team. First, all of the boys are upset about their wrestling outfits, but decided that they were supposed to put on “real” wrestling clothes over it. The wrestling coach, Mr. Connors begins to teach them “real wrestling” and immediately the boys feel that the …show more content…
sport he is teaching is fake, homoerotic and then quit the team. Next, Stan and his crew creates their own wrestling league called "the Wrestling Takedown Federation" (W.T.F.). Their first match is staged by Cartman with himself scripting the match while adding theatrical elements to it. Such elements include a veteran wrestler, a wrestler from Congo, a Russian wrestler who belittles Americas who also changed characters to a girl who is addicted to abortions (we will talk about these fallacies later in the paper), etc. The boys’ acts draw a crowd, mostly of rednecks, who believes the scripts to be based on actual events.
The entire show is predominantly represented by white, male characters. There is one black character, and his name is “Token”. This play right into the head of underrepresentation and stereotypical satire. The term token comes from tokenism which is when a movie or television show has a character who is a stereotype of a minority with limited representation.
There is an emphasis on physical display of male prowess, which is evident in the popularity of professional wrestling with adolescent males in the W.T.F episode.
Even in the theatrical scenes performed by the boys, the female character was played Cartman who is a boy. This episode excludes any female representation that could possibly be present. “W.T.F.” mocks fans of wrestling, who is typically portrayed as rednecks who believe in the fictional storylines. The few women that are seen in the introduction clip of the episode are rednecks. They are dressed in loose fitting clothing, tattooed with stereotypical associations like “I married my cousin”, and are over opposite of what “femininity” is. The femininity I am referring to is the definition that believes women in makeup and dresses are the ideal women. South Park also masks over the fact that there are Professional Women
wrestlers.
This South Park episode is all about men. Men create the problem and solve the problem. Their ideas are reinforced and represented with each character. Wrestling is an athletic sport which requires two men to be in various positions with the goal of pinning your opponent to the mat for two seconds. Pain and violence amongst men is commonly depicted as exciting and rewarding behavior. That is why there is a preference to the theatrical wrestling in comparison to real wrestling. There is an idea that exists that the sport is “gay” because of the physical contact between two men, while others see no homosexual aspects of the sport. In this episode, there is a need for this idea not to participate in a that is seen as “gay”. Also, the commentators contribute to inciting violence. Sports commentators constantly praise and replay incidents of athletes taking big hits or engaging in reckless acts during matches. Their enthusiastic calls regarding what is happening in the matches adds to the dramatics of professional wrestling.
Comedy Central was launched 1990 and owned fifty percent by Time Warner and the other fifty percent Viacom. Viacom bought Time Warner’s stake in the channel for $1.225 billion in April of 2003. Currently, Comedy Central is still owned by Viacom Inc.’s MTV Networks. Comedy Central was introduced to America’s television on April 1st, 1991. What a clever day since April 1st is April’s Fools and Comedy Central is a comedic channel. Comedy Central's target audiences ranges from the ages of 18-49, highly concentrating on adults and men. [1] Comedy Central aired the two highest-rated original series on basic cable in the age group 18-34 among the men with South Park and The Sarah Silverman Project. [2] Now let's explore South Park in more depth. Trey Parker and Matt Stone created South Park in 1997 for the Comedy Central television network. Trey Parker and Matt Stone are both Caucasian males in their late 40’s. They met at the University of Colorado Boulder where the two “both shared an uniquely provocative, anti-authoritarian humor.” [3] Trey narrates 21 of the characters’ voices and Matt narrates 16 voices total. For the female rare characters in episodes, their voice is narrated by a woman named Mona Marshall. Mona Marshall is a 69-year-old Caucasian woman with an extensive timeline in animated cartoons narrations. South Park’s team is all Caucasian individuals, even the voice of Token.