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There exists a legal tactic referred to as the small-penis rule, where an author who creates a character based on a real individual may potentially avoid a libel lawsuit by attributing a small penis to that character—the reasoning being that, for a plaintiff to pursue legal action, they would have to implicitly concede that the depiction of their genitalia is correct. This principle does not strictly pertain to the recent episode of “South Park,” in which the show’s creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, make no attempt to obscure President Donald Trump’s identity, yet one can’t help but ponder if the reasoning related to embarrassment still applies. In this episode, Trump is depicted as a profoundly insecure leader who literally shares a bed with Satan, his supposed lover. (“I’m not in the mood right now,” the Devil informs him. “Another random girl commented on my Instagram that you’re on the Epstein list.”) Most notably, the Trump character in “South Park” possesses a penis so minuscule that Satan remarks he “can’t even see anything.” If the real Trump were to respond, as he frequently does, he would be falling straight into Parker and Stone’s trap.
Remarkably, “South Park” is now in its twenty-seventh season. It ranks as the second-longest-running animated series on American television, following “The Simpsons,” and is undoubtedly the most provocative. Since its debut in 1997, the show—which chronicles a group of foul-mouthed elementary students in South Park, Colorado—has managed to offend nearly every political faction, pop culture community, and religious group. A Season 12 episode featuring two characters in yellowface and showcasing Indiana Jones being assaulted by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg serves as a nod to the disaster that was “The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” If the show holds any “beliefs,” it’s that all beliefs are ludicrous, regardless of whether they originate from the left or the right. Environmental organizations expressed discontent in 2006 when the series portrayed Al Gore as a delusional individual fixated on a fictitious creature named ManBearPig. The series faced a ban in China in 2019 for ridiculing Chinese censorship, and the creators received death threats after their portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad.
Despite a decline in both quality and viewership over the years, “South Park” remains sufficiently valuable that Paramount recently invested $1.5 billion for exclusive streaming rights to the series and for Parker and Stone to create an additional fifty episodes. The studio has been in the midst of merging with Skydance Media—a deal that was stalled for about a year until Paramount consented to pay sixteen million dollars to resolve a lawsuit that Trump initiated against its subsidiary CBS’s “60 Minutes.” Just days before the F.C.C. finally sanctioned the merger, Stephen Colbert, host of “The Late Show” on CBS, referred to the settlement as a “big fat bribe”—and subsequently, his show was canceled, apparently for financial reasons. All of these elements play a significant role in the latest “South Park” episode, “Sermon on the ‘Mount,” which is currently streaming on Paramount+.
The residents of South Park include their share of Trump supporters, though many are increasingly disenchanted. (“I voted for him to eliminate all the woke stuff,” one man states, “but now that foolish idiot is just lining his own pockets.”) Certain parents express particular outrage when religion is introduced at the local elementary school—in the form of Jesus Christ himself appearing in person. When the parents reach out to the President to voice their complaints, he asserts that he plans to sue the town for five billion dollars, setting the stage for an extended joke about Trump’s penchant for litigation. (Throughout the episode, he also threatens to take legal action against those who refer to his unfortunate anatomy.) However, Parker and Stone’s primary focus is on media cowardice, which becomes evident when a fictionalized “60 Minutes” airs a segment on the confrontation between Trump and the town of South Park.
The news anchors exhibit clear anxiety. “Oh, no,” one remarks as the broadcast commences. “The small town of South Park, Colorado, is protesting against the President. The locals assert that the President—who is a great man, a wonderful individual, and we know is probably watching—and, uh, we’re merely reporting on this town in Colorado that’s being sued by the President.”
His co-anchor interjects: “To clarify, we don’t agree with them.”
“We consider these protesters to be total idiots,” the first anchor adds.
The protest is disrupted by Jesus, who descends on the scene in a Superman-like manner. He distributes bread to everyone. “Just eat the bread and listen,” he instructs, leading into his Sermon on the ’Mount: “I didn’t want to return and be in the school, but I had to, due to a lawsuit and the agreement with Paramount.” He elaborates that Trump “can do whatever he wishes now that someone has backed down,” adding, “Do you genuinely want to end up like Colbert?” He warns the crowd that they need to be quiet, or else “South Park is finished.”
Donald Trump presents a genuine dilemma for comedians. He provides an endless supply of material, yet what he articulates and does is invariably more absurd—and often more captivating—than any satire could ever be. Parker and Stone recognized this early on. They initially addressed Trump by having one of the show’s recurring characters, a former teacher named Mr. Garrison, serve as a stand-in; he rises to the Presidency by vowing to construct a wall, gradually turning orange. However, the showrunners soon discovered that, as Parker expressed, “what was actually occurring was far funnier than anything we could devise.” Thus, they shifted their focus to the other defining issues of our era: Kanye West’s antisemitism, ChatGPT, and the COVID-19 pandemic (in this instance, instigated by a character’s choice to engage in sexual relations with a bat in China).
The drama surrounding Paramount has compelled “South Park” to target Trump more directly than ever before, yet the jokes, which frequently circle back to his anatomy or his affinity for memes, are not particularly groundbreaking. The most incisive joke is a self-referential one: the last time we witnessed Satan in bed with someone was in the 1999 film “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut,” which portrayed a toxic relationship between Satan and Saddam Hussein. (Hussein was the abuser.) Rather
Sourse: newyorker.com