<em>South Park</em> Has Somehow Become Even More Depraved in Its Skewering of the Trump Administration
(min-width: 1024px)709px,
(min-width: 768px)620px,
calc(100vw - 30px)" width="1560">In the month since the new season of South Park began airing , the infamous animated show has somehow become even more depraved, and I mean that as a compliment. (Consider this a fair warning: Please stop reading now if you're squeamish or a snowflake.) In Wednesday night's episode, “Sickofancy,” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker continue their all-out satirical assault on the Trump administration , and once again the series takes no prisoners. At one point, South Park 's version of President Donald Trump suggests inserting a ( very real ) trophy gifted to him by Apple CEO Tim Cook up the anus of Trump's boyfriend, Satan. By the episode's end, we even see one longtime character forced into a new role as the president's “cum rag.” Hey, if I had to be subjected to this image, you do too.
Just three episodes into the show's 27th season, it's become more obvious than ever that no other series on television is taking on the MAGA movement like South Park . Its juvenile and outrageous depiction of Trump and his acolytes has made headlines across the world and led to a renewed boom in cultural relevance for the long-running show, but for good reason: No other work of television is stooping this low or getting down in the muck where this White House thrives. This is the perfect crass series for this McDonald's-ordering , UFC fight–hosting , Kid Rock–associating administration and our “ Grab 'em by the pussy ” convicted felon of a president. Sure, every episode this season has featured countless jokes about Trump having a micropenis, but the message behind the vulgarity is really quite simple: If you're more disgusted watching this comedy than you are reading the news, then you just might be less human than the crudely animated residents of South Park.
Wednesday's episode begins with a continuation from the prior episode and its spoof of the mask-wearing ICE agents detaining scores of immigrants across the US Now, like many in the agricultural sector , it's Randy Marsh's turn to suffer the fallout of a federal raid on the marijuana farm to which he decamped his family a few seasons back. “Those are my Mexicans!” Randy shouts as the Latino workers at his Tegridy Farms business are rounded up into vans.
Feeling lost, Randy turns to two important figures in his life. The first is Towelie, the weed-smoking (and intentionally stupid) towel character that Stone and Parker introduced way back in Season 5 to mock all the outlandish things they could get away with. An avid marijuana enthusiast, Towelie has become something of a sidekick to Randy in recent seasons during the Tegridy Farms storyline, and now it's up to this valiant duo to save the business. To do so, Randy reaches out to another voice who has become central to his life: ChatGPT. The AI language unit is more than happy to parrot kind and obsequious words back to Randy as it suggests ways to “brainstorm some new business models.” The resulting company is pure, perfect AI gobbledygook. Tegridy Farms is now Techridy, an “AI-powered marijuana platform for global solutions” that promises to be a platform for innovation, “reimagine supply chain resilience,” and “design new pathways for the global infrastructure,” among other nonsense. “And we're able to do it all with just one Mexican!” Randy boasts. (Together, Randy and Towelie raid an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility to recruit said worker.)
There's just one catch: Randy and Towelie need to take a page out of Elon Musk's book and start microdosing the horse tranquilizer drug ketamine to boost their focus and creativity. “These tech guys do just one little spray in their nose once a day,” Randy assures Towelie. “It's just a micro amount of ketamine to give their minds the edge to work with AI” Of course, the microdosing soon turns to macro dosing, as Randy and Towelie can't help but snort the drug from an inhaler every few seconds, prompting Randy to fall repeatedly into the stupors known as K-holes .
Seeking a change in drug classification of marijuana at the federal level, Randy sends Towelie to Washington to lobby Trump—but he's in busy company. Outside an Oval Office decorated with (again, very real ) new gold fixtures, scores of people are shown lining up each day to lavish Trumpian praise on the president and present him with gifts. “Mr. President, you have so many great ideas. Your leadership is truly beyond anything we have ever had in this country, and you definitely do not have a small penis,” one Florida official says, before gifting him with a silver-plated model of a space shuttle. Also in line are Cook, a Qatari official holding a gold model of Trump's new plane , and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg with a bejeweled VR headset. “Another great day of getting presents!” Trump exclaims to Satan right as he strips naked to reveal the small penis all the sycophants had assured him he did not possess.
Just as in real life, the DC of South Park is now a threatening place. Because the Comedy Central show can animate an episode with astonishing speed, we see several shots of Towelie visiting Union Station, the Supreme Court, and the Capitol, where dozens and dozens of service members can be seen on the streets. Outside the White House, there is even a military parade taking place . And in a particularly dystopian (but perhaps not too far-fetched?) vision of the future, Trump has had iconic statues of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln altered to feature his own face (and— sigh , yes—penis). Towelie's nightmare, though, is truly complete only after Randy, seeking to snatch the president, offers him up as a special gift to Trump. “If you have to have sex with yourself again,” the minion version of JD Vance squeals to his boss, “I can bring your cum rag!”
Eventually, the K-holes become too much for Randy, and he's forced to admit to his wife, Sharon, that they're deeply in debt and need to sell the farm. But not only is she relieved (she and the kids never wanted to be there in the first place); she also coaxed this exact result out of Randy by studying the singsong, sycophantic way in which ChatGPT communicates with users, imitating it, and prodding him to hang up his farmers' boots once and for all.
After lampooning the widespread institutional capitulation to Trump , then going after one of his most abhorrent signature policies , the show does something even more daring in this episode: It goes after the kiss-ass culture around the president—one that repeatedly tells us not to trust our lying eyes or pesky consciences. So often during the past few months of chaos and cruelty, I've found myself feeling like Randy spinning out on his farmhouse balcony. Is this really happening? I can't help but wonder. Sometimes, it truly feels as if only you are experiencing this, or as if you're going crazy—which is precisely why this episode hits so hard. It pierces the bubble of the AI hype machine that has seemingly enveloped every company on earth, and it easily pops the Trump bubble too, with a reality check that only Stone and Parker could deliver. Randy may be out of his mind, but watching South Park is the sanest I've felt in months.
