The animated television show South Park is notorious for its crass language, satirical take on cultural, religion and politics, and its ability to cause controversy in all sorts of ways. Last week was no different. In a brazen takedown of the progressive agenda, the show poked fun at the movement that allows female transgender athletes, i.e. men who believe they are women, to compete in female sports. It’s one of the few instances in Hollywood of creators pushing back against the radical liberal agenda.
This is by no means an endorsement of South Park, the show that focuses on the actions of four precocious and often crude 4th grade boys. As Plugged In writes, the show pushes “envelopes galore and is notorious for their crass, satirical and occasionally morbid lampoons of virtually everything. Religion, celebrity, euthanasia, politics, race and sexuality are only starting points for them. Absolutely anything even remotely controversial or popular is fair game for rancid ridicule here.” (For more details, you can read Plugged In’s full review here).
But despite the show’s controversial and wildly inappropriate nature, it is refreshing to see people within Hollywood who call out the absurdity of biological men, regardless of their transition status, competing against biological women. It’s something that we’ve covered here at The Daily Citizen several times.
The episode, entitled “Board Girls,” is about a strong woman competition where a newly transitioned man named Heather Swanson, who bears a resemblance to the late wrestling icon Randy Savage, competes against the character Strong Woman, the vice principal at South Park Elementary. Strong Woman attempts to voice her support and show that she is inclusive, but Swanson dominates and wins the event.
After the competition, Swanson confronts Strong Woman, her husband (known as PC Principal) and their five PC Babies at their home. As Swanson leaves, PC Principal says, “Something about that woman doesn’t seem right.”
In another scene, PC Principal says to Swanson, “You went through puberty as a male, so your body is completely different. … All I want is to have a discussion.” Conservative and religious groups have said similar things.
Later in the episode, Swanson is challenged to play board games by a group of girls at the elementary school where his physical strength doesn’t matter much. In response to his loss, he says, “You only won because you dumb girls memorized the rule books. When I play games, I just want to be a pirate or a space man. … I may identify as a woman now, but I grew up a boy, so you have an unfair advantage.”
Despite the show’s crude nature, there is an immense amount of truth in those statements, and that’s the great thing about satire. It allows people to explore truths in humorous ways. Although Focus on the Family definitely isn’t endorsing South Park by any means, the show actually points out things that ministries across the country have been mercilessly attacked for saying.
It may offend some people along the way, but satire has a way of getting to the heart of the issue and putting the mirror up to the culture. It was encouraging to see creators who are willing to take on such a controversial issue like transgenderism and highlight some of the biological realities between men and women. Even if it is in jest. It could definitely be less crass and inappropriate, but it seems like in this situation it is the only voice of reason coming out of Hollywood on this issue.
If you enjoy satire, check out the Christian satirical website the Babylon Bee.
