Here's the thing. You ARE allowed to say whatever the hell you want. However, whenever to whoever. By all means. you can say/do whatever you want through whatever medium you want. Sure it's not protected, but you can. There isn't limitation. There's consequence.
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South Park: TFBH "Game is Gold" Trailer
- Thread starter sjay1994
- Start date
Here's the thing. You ARE allowed to say whatever the hell you want. However, whenever to whoever. By all means. you can say/do whatever you want through whatever medium you want. Sure it's not protected, but you can. There isn't limitation. There's consequence.
spindashing
Banned
Free speech enables you to say whatever the fuck you want to but it doesn't protect you from the opinions of people.
Donda West's caricature did not have to look the way it did, period.
So here's the thing, though: South Park is usually pretty self-aware. The token black kid's name is Token, and when they do stereotypical stuff they usually acknowledge it. Cartman's racist assumptions are played for laughs, and when they pan out it's an additional joke because it's so unexpected.
Kanye's mom's character design in the trailer doesn't appear to have much to do with anything. The clip doesn't seem to acknowledge it at all, and the fish looking like a mammy has no payoff at any point. It plays less like an intentional poke at stereotypes and/or blackface and more like somebody got told to make Kanye's mom a fish, and that's just the depiction they went with for a black woman.
It's the same reason the 'gay fish' repetition falls kind of flat. HAHAHA GAY and HAHAHA BLACKFACE aren't funny in and of themselves, and neither are actually serving as a launching point for any actual joke. The one good joke in the trailer--the see you soon bit--functions completely separate from them. Changing the mom fish's character design wouldn't remove any of the actual humor from the scene. South Park does an insane amount of offensive stuff, but there's usually a point to it. There's no point here.
The joke isn't about anyone's mom having passed away, it's about Kanye making a game about his mother riding a horse to heaven.
That doesn't mean it isn't tasteless, but it isn't some random attack.
It didn't have to. But it's not Donda West. It's a fish. A black fish. It can be interpreted as Donda West. But it's not. It's their loophole. It's a fish. Not a person. Sure they have the actual meaning behind it, but it blatantly is not a person.
And yes, people have opinions. Being a brown person I understand that people have opinions. Humor has no limits as it is subjective. What I find funny differs from what you find funny.
What is the joke about depicting Donda West as a blackfaced mammy?
RumbleHumble
Banned
C'mon dude. The whole source of the joke lies in the idea that the "mammy" fish is Donda West, and look at her in her "mammy" look. How fucking hilarious.
Old dude, this shit is so fucking old. Black Face needed to die a century ago.
???
IMO, the only thing even slightly funny was the "See you soon" reaction at the end. The fish sticks joke was funny the first time South Park did it, but having Kanye appear as a gay fish now seems to need too much thought to make as good of a reference as I think they were intending. The "making fun of dead mom's tribute" thing didn't make any sense to me at all and after looking into the context it's just unpleasant, not witty. Just seems like a really big fail.
spindashing
Banned
I cannot believe that you typed all that with a straight face.
You and all of these other people know exactly who that fish was referring to.
That's a seperate issue to what I was replying to.
starchild excalibur
Member
JFC. Sure, the fish isn't Donda West. And the racist blackface caricatures on old TV programming aren't real people, they're light diodes just creating a representational figure that people could choose to interpret as people, let alone racist caricatures. Got it.
I don't know what "being a brown person" has anything to do with what follows in your quote. You can laugh at whatever you want to, but that doesn't mean that people don't get to question you on it - brown person or not.
It's arguably the only reason this thread has as many pages as it does and no one's even attempted to answer it. The rest of the trailer is well tread ground, however.
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
Come on b
Of course you're free to enjoy what you want but don't insult people's intelligence
Well I don't know why you're looking for an answer from me. Do the South Park guys have Twitter accounts? You could try contacting them.
Blood Diamonds
Banned
Who fucking gives a shit, that doesn't excuse it from criticism.
Oh son of a bitch. How did I never pick up on that. What the fuck is wrong with me.
excelsiorlef
Member
Yeah...no
That ain't cool
Wtf...
I wish I knew. I'm a fan of SP. This was nasty.
South Park fans around the world are happy that SJWs are triggered. Sometimes Im baffled that people defend racist imagery with statements like But but they make fun of everyone!!!. And this only sets up a joke to after the inevitable Kanye Fish boss fight.
I for one look forward on how a southpark writer gets choked with a fishstick on Turbo Grafx 16.
I for one look forward on how a southpark writer gets choked with a fishstick on Turbo Grafx 16.
alexbull_uk
Member
So just to be clear:
Stick of Truth's abortion on a 9 year old boy: OK
Fractured But Whole's black fish: Not OK
Yes, on looking at it again I'll agree that the representation is in poor taste (but really, what isn't in South Park?), and I get that everyone has a "line" but I'm surprised that somebody who 'loved' the first game would be that put off by this sequence.
This fucking picture...
Yeah...no
That ain't cool
[interior art department]
"So uhh... was this what you were looking for?"
"Jesus Christ, Dave!"
"What!?"
"Just look at what you've drawn!"
"What's wrong with it?"
"Even Walt Disney would think this was a bit far... it's racist as hell!"
"I think it's fine"
Because we can't answer that.
I enjoy South Park, but even I am confused by their choices here and understand why people are appalled by it.
Why did they make Kanye a fish instead of depicting him as Kanye West? To avoid legal troubles? Morgan Freeman is in the game as a vendor, so I don't know why Kanye is being depicted as an actual fish
Why is the fish representing his mother look like it's in Black Face? I didn't know what "mammy" was until this thread, but my only assumption is that since they don't really know much about Kanye's mother they just made some quick carciture of a black woman to act as a surrogate for her.
The only reasoning for the joke I can see is so that it is brutally mean spirited which South Park has done in the pas or additional context or reasoning was missed because the gameplay section was fast forwarded here. There isn't really much nuance to this asides from a brutal dig at Kanye.
So yeah, the only reason no one addresses it is because we can't. We literally only can say "It's just South Park being South Park" because there is no real reasoning in this section asides from being a dig at Kanye, and the show has done racist caricatures before.
So yeah, this isn't me trying to say people shouldn't be upset by this, because it is completely justified to find fault in this depiction. But I don't think any of us have a good explanation for why this is like this asides "This is South Park".
His dead mother was the butt of the joke she was being made fun of. You can try to spin it however you want.
Now that's some bullshit false equivalency if I ever saw it.
The 9 year old boy is not a real person. He never existed. It obviously was not a real abortion as there was no baby.
The "black fish" is a blackface caricature of a dead person who existed in real life and did absolutely nothing to deserve that kind of treatment.
Just stop.
That text is like... mission accomplished as far as South Park goes.
Can you picture the animators working on Chef's death scene? Or some of the shit they did with Mr Garrison and Mr Slave?
Again, that shit has context. Built up over years of character development.
This is a fish supposed to be depicting a black woman in straight blackface.
I mean, those are all fictional characters, you can kinda do whatever you want to fictional characters and get away with it.
I'm not comfortable with 1. mocking a dead person just because they're related to a celebrity and 2. using a very close to the bone racial illustration (for me personally the black fish is over the line, it looks like a Disney cartoon from the 30s)
Yeah, I'm definitely not saying it's right, just that those reactions...
"Jesus Christ, Dave!"
"Just look at what you've drawn!"
"Even Walt Disney would think this was a bit far... it's racist as hell!"
Would probably seen as compliments in their animation department. They draw some pretty terrible stuff, and it's not always that far removed from real people. Issac Hayes for example was their friend and co-worker, and I'm not comfortable even linking a picture to how they drew his character's death.
mariachi507
Member
Geeze, that was disgusting. It's been a while since I watched but I used to be a HUGE South Park fan. As goofy as this will sound, even though it's South Park I always considered them above using something like "mammy" to tell a joke. At least when Matt and Trey were really on their games.
Not to mention the lazy homophobia and making fun of a person's dead mother.
Maybe they got the guy who made that thread about writing a South Parkish version of the bible to come up with these jokes?
Not to mention the lazy homophobia and making fun of a person's dead mother.
Maybe they got the guy who made that thread about writing a South Parkish version of the bible to come up with these jokes?
Why? And why does his deceased mother deserve it?
Genuinely curious as to why a person with mental health issues deserves being "treated like shit."
TimeEffect
Member
Does he really have a mental illness or are people just saying that?
I think GAF is just anti-racism on this one.
SanguineShark
Member
No, I'm not a fan of Kanye.
But I'm also not a fan of mocking deceased mothers and blackface.
I'm a fan of South Park, despite the last couple seasons being really rotten. I think this trailer is going to make me hold off on the game. I nearly pre-ordered it to get Stick of Truth, but if this is an indication of what type of humor they're going for then I'm not interested.
RumbleHumble
Banned
I thought he got checked into a hospital for intensive treatment for mental issues a little under a year ago. Someone doesn't do that for garden variety mid-life crazy.
- He was hospitalized last year for what was well reported as a mental health episode
- Well-known history of public meltdowns, odd rants, and other 'outbursts'
- Postings on his now defunct twitter account often indicated some sort of mental health issue
- He is/was was working with his insurance company to cover the costs associated with the cancellation of his tour promoting his last album, on the basis that he had mental health issues and they were aware of the risks and liabilities.
- Kanye also has several songs where he speaks about the different medications he's taking, such as Lexapro. He also talks about having a psychiatrist too in several songs.
And as a personal aside, his behaviour and publically known issues line up with mine fairly well. I have diagnoses for mental health issues and less than a year ago spent time in a facility to help me deal with said issues. So I feel fairly comfortable with saying he has mental health struggles.
Take all this as you may.
PHOENIXZERO
Member
She died 10 years ago, that's hardly recent... Unless you're referring to some tribute Kanye did back then.
Louis Cyphre
Banned
I am so out of the loop on all of this stuff. I know enough of Kayne West and his antics at the awards plus his links to Kim Kardashian. These type of people I don't follow or care to follow so I guess this trailer isn't really that funny to me. I loved the first game and look forward to playing this one but that trailer really lost me.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
For the person who lost her it likely is.
Stick of Truth is a great game and can be had for cheap nowadays. I'd just buy that and avoid this game.
Yeah definitely play the game where you fight aborted babies instead.
I think a racist black fish depicting someone's dead mom is a weird line to draw with South Park.
Going to go ahead and slightly edit my other post for this one:
Now that's some bullshit false equivalency if I ever saw it.
The aborted Nazi zombie babies are not real people. They never existed. It obviously was not a real aborted Nazi zombie baby as Nazi zombie babies don't actually exist. Plus, Nazis suck anyway.
The "black fish" is a blackface caricature of a dead person who existed in real life and did absolutely nothing to deserve that kind of treatment.
Just stop.
Heavy_D206
Member
I really like the first game I'm excited the new one is finally coming out after so many delays.
Talking fish also do not exist.
A talking fish in blackface that was clearly meant to depict a person who actually existed and did nothing wrong.
Again, just stop.