South Park and Philosophy: You Know, I Learned Something Today (The Blackwell Philosophy & Pop Culture Series)
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Book Summary Information
Editor: Robert ArpEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-12-01
ISBN: 1405161604
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Blackwell Publishing
Book Reviews of South Park and Philosophy: You Know, I Learned Something Today (The Blackwell Philosophy & Pop Culture Series)
Book Review: Disappointing, Because It Could Have Been So Much Better
Summary: 3 Stars
South Park and Philosophy is a mixed bag.
Myself, I'm a fan of both topics--as are probably you--and I was interested to see some professionals dissect the philosophy as presented in South Park. After all, as any fan of the series knows, South Park is awash in ideas and debate.
A few of the essays included are pretty good--they present a light overview of some philosophical argument and then show how South Park has approached it over the years it's run.
Most of the essays, however, don't do such a good job. A sadly high number of the authors (a collection of Associate Professors, and a few full ones) seemingly have only seen one episode of South Park, and so they write based on that very limited knowledge. Some of the essays are just explanations of a philosophical argument, with only South Park character names or quotes put in to pander to the reader. Allow me to cite a couple of the worse offenders:
John Scott Gray, writing about voting and democracy in South Park, breaks apart his discussion (almost exclusively about "Douches and Turds") with subtitles, the first of which being "Douches and Turds, Y'all." Alright, understandable subtitle. Acceptable. But note the others: "Yeah, Boy...Getting, Keeping and Using the Right to Vote"; "Gettin' Schooled at College, Dawg"; "Yo...Your Candidate is In the House"; "The C to the H to the O to the I to the C to the E"; "You Wanna Third Party, G?"; and, best of all, "Stability in the Political Ghetto, My Homey."
It's obvious that Gray neither watches South Park, nor even understands its place in the culture. Whatever South Park is, it isn't "gangsta'", and it wouldn't take watching that many episodes to get that... although, if the *one* episode you've seen features Puff Daddy (as does the Douche and Turd episode), then it's maybe more understandable. The inclusion of this essay, and its betrayal of the author's fundamental ignorance about the subject he's writing on, is just insulting.
The last essay included, Dale Jacquette's discussion of the portrayal of Satan in South Park, is arguably worse. Jacquette has, quite obviously, only seen the South Park movie, because his discussion revolves only around Satan's appearance there. Actually, "discussion" is generous; Jacquette essentially spends the whole time *recapping* the movie, including transcribing entire conversations. It provides no insight. Absolutely worthless, and disheartening especially considering that an actual examination of South Park's theological cosmology (including Christ & the Super Friends, Santa's role, etc.) might have been very interesting....
These faults might be due to poor choices made by the editor of the collection, Robert Arp, who shows little regard or understanding for the subject, especially, in his mock interview with Trey Stone and Matt Parker at the conclusion of the book.
That said, some of the essays are pretty good, and its clear that some of the writers are deep fans of the show (as they should be, to contribute to a collection like this). Most of the essays wind up somewhere in the middle.
I enjoyed reading this collection, but at the same time, I was slightly disappointed. It could have been more. It could have been better. If an editor had been selected with more belief in the show and the subject than Robert Arp, then essays might have been selected that display a greater knowledge of the show. As it stands, this is a lukewarm presentation apt to disappoint hardcore fans of either South Park or Philosophy.
Three Stars.
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