Saturday, April 15, 2006

The anarchy of pragmatism

As a creative, I have many rolemodels who embody the different things I value: comedy, social/political comment, PunkRock DIY, Mischief, intelligience. Usually these rolemodels will only have one or two of these qualities, I may also admire the work and less so the person or vice versa.
Directors Robert Rodriguez and Richard Linklater. Radio personalities Sam Seder and Janeane Garofalo of the Majority Report, Jay and the Doctor from TripleJ. The guys beind TV like the Daily Show and Colbert Report, Paul Feig who was behind Freaks and Geeks. But i'd have to say of all the people i admire there's only one guy (team) who's body of work i would gladly take credit for and personalities i would body snatch. That is the South Park duo of Matt Stone and Trey Parker.
After just watching 'Cartoon Wars' a very controversial new episode of South Park which is all the buzz on the internets. It amazes that these guys are still as witty as they've ever been- as they say like a fine wine. I Won't get into too much detail as theres' enough stuff on the net- just go download it.
Basically its a 3-fer for them, 1) They completely rip on Family Guy, a competitor they don't respect and hate beig compared to 2) They comment on the Danish Cartoon furore, and the issues of free speech, sensitivity, terrorism that come with it 3) as well as throwing the gauntlet to Comedy Central to air an image of the Muslim prophet Mohammed.
The beauty of South Park is its evenhanded but to the absurd extreme. Both sides get skewered. Its done so well that people on the opposite side of the argument think that the other side is getting ripped oblivous to the fact that they are being mocked also. Thats the genius of it.
Thats why you will often find people from the Political Right claiming its sticking it to the Left and Vice Versa. Its just common sense, i like the description that Dennis Miller gave of them "The anarchy of pragmatism". You'd think they were super learned and philosophical, but they're really just all about the dick and fart jokes. My kinda guys.

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