SlowpokeBlog

"South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone do not come off well in the latest issue of Rolling Stone:

They won't talk about the war, even to voice an opinion on President Bush's new troop-deployment plan. "I wouldn't even begin to say I know enough to say if it's right or wrong, because whomever is telling you it's wrong is full of shit too," says Parker. Neither votes -- "like, ever," says Stone. Parker waves a hand in the air. "Each election is a choice with a douche or a turd, so who cares," he says. "If Gore had beaten Bush, things wouldn't be much different."...

"That's the most punk-rock thing you can do in L.A.: say 'George Bush is fucking awesome' instead of talking about how lame it is that he's fighting for oil," says Parker. "The only way to be more hardcore than everyone else is to tell the people who think they're the most hardcore that they're pussies, to go up to a tattooed, pierced vegan and say, 'Whatever, you tattooed faggot, you're a pierced faggot and whatever.' '' He looks very pleased with himself. "That's hardcore."

I would say that doesn't make you punk rock -- it makes you a dick. Doing the opposite of the people around you doesn't make you some cool, superior, "politically incorrect" individualist -- it makes you a mindless reactionary. This sort of nihilism depresses me. Parker and Stone sound like a couple of spoiled white boys who never had to learn about politics because they never had anything to lose. They've never been gay-bashed, or denied something because of their race, or had a back-alley abortion, or sent to war, or gravely injured in a factory because of poor safety regulations. They seem to be part of the sub-subculture of "conservative punks," the roots of which, I would argue, lie in punk's rejection of hippie style. It's a heavily-gendered movement, a sort of macho reaction to the perceived "feminizing" aspects of '60s culture and liberalism in general. Conpunks take this rejection to the extreme, finding common cause between punk's emphasis on toughness and DIY individualism with Republican "pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps" BS. They think they're being independent-minded by differing from their progressive friends, when in fact they've basically become Rupert Murdoch with a mohawk. Personally, I'd like to drop Parker and Stone into the Dairy Queen in Suffolk, Virginia and see how long they lasted without getting beaten up.

Coincidentally, last weekend Mr. Slowpoke and I watched the South Park movie, which we had bought used on VHS for a few bucks. That is to say, we watched the first hour or so before stopping it because it sucked so bad. It's not that I found the language offensive -- I enjoyed The Aristocrats -- it's that it was boring. Kids running around dropping the F-bomb isn't shocking, it's tedious. And insulting everything does not equal wit. I'll take the Simpsons, which is actually funny, any day.

I've posted this week's strip a little ahead of schedule. It ties into Mr. Coulter's -- I mean, Mr. Parker's "faggot" comments.