South Park: American Political Satire and Why Does it Not Work in China
Small eyes, yellow skin, and speaking English with a thick accent … In 2019, American animated sitcom series South Park developed a new episode (Season 23, “Band in China’’) ridiculing Chinese people with the show’s iconic offensive style of humor. Days after the episode was aired, South Park was taken down from all Chinese video streaming services. “Chinese people can’t take jokes” became a major voice on the internet overnight. Since 1997, South Park’s political satire disguised by an extreme use of dark humor has allowed the show to achieve great successes in the American television industry. But the show’s populace never translated through the Chinese borders even before the derogatory episode’s release. While the show’s American style of humor often revolves around a lighthearted satire on social and political topics, the contradiction such a genre has with the Chinese cultural value of humility and obedience fundamentally inhibits the show’s translation into the heart of Chinese audiences.
It is certainly not to say that Chinese television viewers can’t accept any form of American humor. Indeed, South Park’s American sitcom counterparts — shows such as Friends and The Big Bang Theory — are being considered “all time classics” by almost two generations of Chinese audiences. Laughing at punchlines derived from everyday life, Chinese viewers certainly do not oppose some humor that shows them the “authentic” side of America. When Raj and Howard created a relationship profile for Sheldon as a joke, most Chinese viewers would be able to resonate with and appreciate the more down-to-earth American humor that has both similarities and differences with China’s cultural values. This sets an important distinction for our discussion today: the inability of humor to translate across country borders becomes more prominent when political ideologies are involved.
A show known for its political satire, South Park approaches humor differently by focusing more on making the libertarian “don’t give a crap” comments on political events. A democratic concept, freedom of speech is fully engraved in the heart of South Park as the show’s editors clearly do not hesitate to offend anyone to achieve the needed comedic effect. As Robert Mankoff states in his article, the taunting of another party lies in the heart of American political satire. In one of the show’s most recent episodes, the St. Patrick’s day celebration has been satirically portrayed as an anglophobe event that is “white people’s last chance to celebrate something of their own.” By illustrating St. Patrick as a drunk sex maniac, South Park ridicules St. Patrick’s day as an extra opportunity for white Americans to throw wild parties with alcohol and drugs. While the Chinese modern culture still sees significant influence from the Confucius value of respect, such is a less concerning virtue in American television. The raw hilarity that helps to make South Park’s content ultra realistic is what makes the show laughable, and it differs greatly from what Chinese audiences are prepared to accept.
An important confucius value, deference is rooted in the Chinese culture from top to bottom. But this contradicts with American political satire’s radical nature as it often strives to establish new political opinions. As Sonny Bunch puts in his article “South Park’s Road Map to American Cultural Controversies,” South Park sometimes feels like a road map to America’s many cultural and political fights in the past decades. Whether you want to find a recently emerged political thought or one that has been in place for years, there is always one South Park episode out there. Immediately following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, South Park released an episode that features Putin walking around his Kremlin office trying to nuke the world. Instead of following the world’s majority opinion today by mocking Russia as the “bad guy,” however, the show’s newest episode made fun of America’s individualism at the end with a cliche scene of Mr. Mackey saving the world single handedly. This alludes to America’s political position in the world today, but the most ironic part would be that the episode presents the show itself as individualistic for its attempt to create an opinion that has not yet been argued by anyone. Guided by the idea of deference, the forming of such a radical and individualistic perspective doesn’t really serve the Chinese audience’s best interest.
A fundamental feature of American political satire would be the use of dark humor, especially in the form of race jokes. Almost every episode of South Park incorporates at least one reference to racial stereotypes and taboos. Much in line with the majority of American television shows across time, the nonsensical political satire on race should trigger laughter from the audience. Racial jokes, however, remain largely unfamiliar to many Chinese viewers who have no knowledge of the cultural, historical, and social meaning behind them. When the show ironically shows Chinese characters as skinny with small eyes and yellow skin, or an African American character in an Irish outfit, the values represented and the message expressed is not a global one — it is American only. Dark humor invites the audience to engage in a process of self-reflection to formulate a unique outlook on the problem. The lack of knowledge on American culture from viewers abroad means that South Park and the political satire it represents automatically limits their ability to extend across borders on a large scale.
Although some might argue television and humor as the perfect medium for ideas and values to translate across borders, South Park and its political satire proves otherwise. The Chinese audience might be willing to accept some down-to-earth American humor, but the lightheartedness and radical libertarianism engraved in South Park’s political satire contrast too great from the traditional Chinese values that have been taught over centuries. South Park might have lost its last bit of Chinese viewers from one episode attacking the country, but the American humor it represents has already decided its struggle to obtain a solid viewer base abroad.
