Has South Park Gotten Worse Over the Years?

It’s no secret to anybody who casually knows about South Park that it has been a controversial series since the day it first premiered. Pretty much every episode features a diverse set of opinions. There is a more prominent opinion being featured anytime a new season is running. A number of current fans and former fans have been stating complaints over the most recent season being terrible, stating that the show is suffering through “seasonal rot”. Seasonal rot is a term to describe a series getting progressively worse over time.

I’ve only given a real review for one of the 240+ episodes in the show, and I still plan to get to those within time, but I’ve decided to briefly go over all of the seasons here in addition to giving a comparison to a couple of other shows that have suffered seasonal rot and breaking down some of the complaints from those who consider the show has “jumped the shark”.

Let’s take a look at how South Park has originally started. Premiering in 1997, South Park primarily started as a raunchy cartoon that would use gross-out humor, cursing, violence, and sex to make attract a large audience. The series is now currently known for its deconstruction of pop-culture and the current conditions of society. As we can see, the show has changed over the years but still focuses on the comedy and still contains the same major characters while giving more focus to some of the reoccurring characters, a couple of them are now main characters too.

Now here is a brief synopsis of seasons 1-17:

Seasons 1-3 is the introduction to the show. We start learning about the main characters, and are introduced to reoccurring ones such as Wendy, Tweek, Jimbo & Ned, Dr. Mephisto, Ms. Crabtree, Officer Barbrady, and Chef.

Seasons 4-6 is around the time the show got a little sleeker and became a bit darker in its themes. The animation has received some improvements. The episodes introduced more changes in the show such as the kids moving to fourth grade, Butters becoming a more prominent character, Timmy and Jimmy are introduced, and Kenny was temporarily killed off for real.

Seasons 7-10 is considered by many to be around the time the series was at its best with the classic Good Times With Weapons and the World of Warcraft episodes. While the show was always heavy on pop-culture, episodes centered around current events became more common. In addition, Mr. Garrison became a woman. On the flip-side, several of the older characters phased out. Chef and Ms. Crabtree also got killed.

Seasons 11-13 is where the satire has reached its full effect in addition to episodes increasingly taking place outside of the town of South Park. Imaginationland might be the best example here. The gross-out humor is sparingly used now.

Seasons 14-17 is what a number of fans believe to be the time the show has gotten bad with additional changes made. The stories increasingly got darker such as the concept of Mysterion and Stan being confirmed to have depression. Ironically, some of episodes have taken a step back to use elements from the older episodes.

As you can see, there’s has been constant changes for every season of the show, so it’s understanding that there are fans who have lost interest. But at the same time, some of these changes have been embraced, and they haven’t exactly explained why the show is getting worse in the eyes of fans.

There are two shows that I will be discussing and a brief look at another one, all confirmed by the majority to have suffered Seasonal Rot.

SpongeBob SquarePants has been a show running for about 15 years made for children. The original creator of the show Stephen Hillenburg wanted the show to end at three seasons after its movie, but with the show’s overall success Nickelodeon wanted the show to keep running. With Paul Tibbitt as the show’s current executive producer, this lead to what was once a wacky, child-friendly series to become increasingly dark and mean spirited to the point it’s been questioned if it is meant for kids. Many of the current writers display a high case of confidence to the point that they aren’t considering improving their episodes.

Family Guy is a show among the adult-targeted audience that has been frequently compared to South Park thanks to the two-part Cartoon Wars special. It originally started out as a light-hearted parody of family sitcoms and featured numerous pop-culture references that mostly linked to shows and movies. As the series progressed, the humor became more vulgar, and there are now frequently moments where it attempts satire, but it ultimately upsets a large audience based on the fact that it doesn’t understand how satire works. It has been said numerous times that Seth Macfarlane is trying to make the series worse on purpose so it gets cancelled, and he is shown to be highly confident like the writers of SpongeBob. It has increasingly become darker as well.

The Simpsons might be the first example that comes to people’s minds over Seasonal Rot. Unlike the other two examples, I’m not as sure what exactly led to it getting worse, but if I were to guess it’s most likely the fact that there is an attempt to appear relevant that doesn’t really work for an episode made in six months (Family Guy follows the same process as well). There is also the possibility of “Flanderization” named after the character Ned Flanders; a term that I will describe later on, and perhaps less creativity in the stories.

South Park only falls under the category in that the episodes have gotten darker overtime, but that isn’t always a bad thing as long as there is more of a purpose than to just be shocking. The show manages to remain relevant by keeping a tight schedule of making an episode in six days, and thanks to this it’s clear that Trey and Matt get burnt out from time to time but they overall still seem to enjoy making the show, and unlike two of the previous examples, they are critical over the episodes they create and acknowledge their flaws, and they still remain in charge over what is happening.

That covers the comparisons of other shows progressing overtime.

The current seasons receive a number of complaints for the following:

• The show is now overrated
• The characters have become Flanderized
• The show has too much gross-out humor
• The show is now too mean-spirited
• Trey Parker hates women
• The show relies too heavily on pop-culture
• The show is now terrible (Yeah, this is never explained)
• The show needs to end now

“The show is now overrated”

This is firsthand a highly subjective statement, and is warranted solely by an opinion. A large part of where this opinion comes from is the fact it is the highest rated show on Comedy Central. While this does give some merit over the fact its highly popular, it isn’t fair to claim that a series has gotten worse purely based on popularity.

“The characters have become Flanderized”

To start off this section, it’s best to describe the term “Flanderization”. Flanderization is the term to describe a character’s trait being exaggerated gradually over time. Now it isn’t made clear who this is referred to, so let’s go over the major characters and several reoccurring ones.

Stan Marsh has developed into the sanest character of the show. He’s intensely loyal to his best friend (perhaps to an unhealthy degree). He hates most of the adults because of how stupid they are, though he seems to get along with his mom. He also has an obvious disorder for depression and some possible anxiety based on vomiting when he’s in love.

Eric Cartman was a bratty character and remains an asshole. He’s more intelligent later on and a bigger asshole. He loves being a leader and has a surprising talent for being an entrepreneur. And he holds hatred especially for Kyle.

Butters was originally a background character. By the time he became a more prominent character, he developed into someone who has a crappy life but remains the most optimistic character. He’s very naïve and puts his trust in everybody, especially Cartman. He also has his more easily angered moments, which are becoming more frequent lately.

The following mentioned are characters who have merely went through character development and managed to avoid Flanderization, only having some of their traits exaggerated for certain episodes.

Next up are characters who have likely been Flanderized poorly.

Kyle was initially a lot like Stan to the point of being possible twins in personality. He was originally going to get killed because of these similarities (although that obviously ended up being Kenny). As the series progressed, his temper shortened, and his hatred for Cartman increased. He’s also the one best known for having a sense of morality, and he cares a lot about his brother. His role seems to now be just about his rivalry with Cartman.

Randy has been stupid since early on in the show, but now it has become far more prominent. He often has stupid ideas, and they fail to work. He also tends to get punished alone when he causes trouble.

Mentioned above are a loose speculation of how Kyle and Randy had certain traits exaggerated over time. The irony is the fact that this happened for opposite reasons for each character. Kyle’s role is being limited to serving as Cartman’s rival and getting easily angered, and Randy often has too many episodes with a similar plot. This seems to be less of a problem with their characters and more of a problem with how they’re being used. Kyle needs more episodes without Cartman that perhaps focus on his religious views or sense of morality (he still doesn’t have an episode about growing up, so there is that). Randy needs less focus episodes unless they have a different kind of story. The Stick of Truth seems to be patching up these issues slowly with Kyle focusing more on stopping Clyde than hating Cartman and Randy being the adult that mostly helps the player’s character, so it is a start of improvement.

That being said, Flanderization isn’t always a bad thing. I’ll repeat that Flanderization primarily means taking a characteristic and exaggerating it overtime. Flanderization is bad when you exaggerate one trait and reduce all other characteristics, but it can work well if it is used as a tool to give more quirks to a character’s underplayed personality.

Take Kenny for example. He was originally the most generic of the major characters, who was only known for being killed every episode and being rather perverted for a kid his age. Overtime, his perversion has been exaggerated and his family’s poverty stricken conditions were better known. In addition, we are introduced to him having a superhero identity (Mysterion) and an interest in cross-dressing (Princess Kenny).

There’s also Wendy. Her original role was stricken into being Stan’s girlfriend, but as the series progressed she has become more rounded as one of the more politically aware characters with feminism being something important to her. While she was always into politics, it became more prominent later on and also managed to make her character stronger overall.

From what we have gone over, the South Park characters have been either Flanderized poorly, positively, or haven’t been Flanderized at all instead going simply through character development. So this comment does hold some merit, but not as much as it might originally seem to.

"The show has too much gross-out humor"

The episodes that are accused of this most frequently are HUMANCENTiPAD, More Crap, and Pee.

I’ll go back to the episodes later and start with the gross-out humor itself. Gross-out humor has been a staple to South Park ever since season 1. Terrance & Phillip is a cartoon with nothing but fart jokes made in response to the detractors of the show. Mr. Hankey is a living gross-out prop himself, and any episode starring him is filled to brim with gross-out jokes. Both examples mentioned are used less frequently as the series progressed, and in general South Park has taken a step down from using gross-out humor.

Of course, it still pops up again. If this happens, then ask yourself what purpose it is being used for. When I think gross-out humor is poorly used, that’s because its only purpose is to be gross. More Crap and HUMANCENTiPAD are fitting examples for when it was done poorly. If it’s being used to make a creative story like in Pee or The Stick of Truth then it has a purpose. Considering there’s just a small handful of poorly done gross-out humor in a show that has gross-out jokes as a staple that has taken a step down throughout the years, I don’t think this is much of a problem.

"The show is now too mean-spirited"

This is admittedly an issue that has existed throughout the series. Stanley’s Cup, Ginger Cow and The Hobbit are currently getting accused of this the most often. Stanley’s Cup only had one weak moment and that was in the ending. There were technically only two assholes in that (Mr. Jarvis and The Red Wings) which is mostly the reason why I don’t have as much of problem with it compared to others.

Ginger Cow is a bit of a guilty pleasure to me. It portrayed Cartman and Kyle’s interactions differently than usual, which made it a bit refreshing. Although, it was still a weak episode considering Cartman got away with what he did. That’s really what needed to be changed to make it a good episode.

As mentioned before, this is a flaw that has existed since the beginning. In Damien everybody, except for possibly three characters, were assholes. I see very few people criticizing this aspect of the episode. Both Freak Strike! and Jared Has Aides had the main characters treat Butters like shit. And Tonsil Trouble has Cartman give Kyle HIV.

This is definitely an issue throughout the show that I agree with, but considering it has been present in much earlier episodes, I don’t think it’s fair to put the weight on just the more recent episodes.

As for The Hobbit, I’ll talk about that in the next section…

"Trey Parker hates women"

This is an accusation that stemmed from both The Hobbit and The Stick of Truth. Never mind the fact that Trey has worked with plenty of women on the show, or that there are plenty of episodes with the female characters portrayed as smarter than the male characters. Because one episode and a game gives you enough information to know a creator is sexist.

Let’s start with The Hobbit. In it Wendy believes in the beginning that Photoshoping images is an issue because people should be happy with how they look; nothing wrong with that. The other girls want to edit their pictures because they’re self-conscious about their appearances, which is also understanding.

People have been complaining about this episode because the girls were all ganging up on Wendy and she was portrayed as wrong or out of character. I want to start off by saying that if Wendy was portrayed as wrong would she be seen as sympathetic at the end? On a whole, this episode was meant to show two sides of the coin: Wendy’s stance on women being happy with how they looked and her friends feeling self-conscious. It’s worth noting that it only took editing a picture to make the other girls happy with how they looked. I also saw the photos being a physical representation of “self-images”. Additionally, the other girls only got angry at Wendy when they thought she was insulting them. It was just a case of miscommunication. And in the end, Wendy only caved in because she realized Photoshopping images was actually making girls happy with their appearances. The only real criticisms I have towards the episode are the running gags with Kanye, making several of the male characters shallow (with Butters acting like a jerk far more than usual), and the fact Wendy thought she was jealous instead of realizing her approach was abrasive, which is in character especially when you see the comparison between her and Stan. Considering Kim Kardashian is sympathetic in the end as well, I don’t have much of a problem with this episode in comparison to others.

Then there is The Stick of Truth where people are criticizing the girls for being hypocritical and gossiping out of enjoyment in addition to the fact your character is a male. Starting with your character being male, TikalTyrant of Tumblr made a good point about your character being a male because he starts with Cartman, who is perhaps the most sexist character in the show. Would I have enjoyed being able to create a female character? Of course. But that isn’t a sound reason to claim Trey Parker is sexist, and I think it’s very likely that originally there could have been a female option but because of the game being in development for over two years, some last minute changes probably had to be made.

With the portrayal of the female characters, I can forgive them for being quick to insult some of the minor characters because it’s obvious they were defensive for one of their friends. I would have really liked some more diversity among the girls, but I can see why Trey has some difficulty writing a female. No matter how much we dislike it, society has the tendency to shape males and females while growing up much differently. And if I’m honest, I find it more difficult to make a male character than a female character. The female adults, however, are written strongly, so there is potential to develop the other fourth grade girls.

There is also the complaint about why the girls are acting like stereotypical teenagers? Truth be told, this isn’t the first time any of the fourth graders are acting like teens. Take a look at The List, Bass to Mouth, and Cartman Finds Love for example. If anything, I’m going to guess that in South Park the characters mentally age the same rate we do but physically age much slower.

I’d also like to take the time to shed some light onto a couple other episodes: Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset and Eat, Pray, Queef. The former can be seen as an inverse to The Hobbit. While the females are all sympathetic in The Hobbit, they want to be just like Paris Hilton because she is famous in Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset. As for Eat, Pray, Queef, that episodes perhaps demonstrates best that Trey Parker understands feminism.

Overall, if you didn’t like how the message in The Hobbit was portrayed or the lack of a female character option and less diversity among the girls than the boys in The Stick of Truth, that’s fine. But with this issue happening only twice, and the females being portrayed positively far more often (not to mention both of the creators’ target demographic of white male adult characters have been portrayed negatively), there is little to no proof that Trey Parker is actually sexist.

"The show relies too heavily on pop-culture"

Much like the gross-out humor and mean spirited moments, this has been a staple since the beginning. When referring to the show “relying on pop-culture”, ask yourself what you consider that to be. Tom’s Rhinoplasty had a B-Plot with Mr. Garrison get a nose job to look like David Hasselhoff, Asspen was a parody of sports movies, there is one episode where the kids are playing “Lord of the Rings”, Imaginationland is filled to the brim with shout-outs. And those were just a few examples.

One of the things I really admire about this show is its ability to stay up to date with current events, and hearing about those current events makes me feel more enlightened even if it’s parodied to a ridiculous extreme.

Perhaps the reason for this criticism is a sense of nostalgia. Looking at the older episodes gives a glimpse at what happened in the past, something I enjoy. But this has been around ever since, which I don’t see as a sign of the show getting more reliant on pop-culture.

"The show is now terrible"

If you believe that the show has gotten worse, ask yourself specifically why. Has it been doing something objectively bad like Flanderizing the characters? Copying older episodes? Does the writing seem to be getting lazy? Or is it because of a personal preference that you don’t like how the show is changing? Keep in mind that what you subjectively don’t like might be what another person enjoys.

"The show needs to end now"

This is a statement I partially agree with. When the series come to its end, I do not want them to end with a typical episode or even worse; a cliffhanger. This is a show that has lasted for almost 20 years, and if anything it’s earned a proper closure. What I hope for is a three-part conclusion that shows what will happen to the town and the major characters.

Having the series end right now isn't going to happen because Trey Parker and Matt Stone are under contract until they finish their 20th season. I want the series to end on its 20th season with an impressive finale. I still have hopes for season 18, so let’s hope that they can pull it off.

Over all the parts I’ve examined, from the seasons to other shows and what are common criticisms, I think this show is still doing pretty good. I’m not asking anybody to enjoy how the show is changing, or to even agree with any of my statements. All I am asking is to understand if your complaints are objective or personal. If they are objective, explain exactly why. If they are personal, keep in mind that there are others who won’t feel the same. What you don’t like subjectively is not a sign that a series has gotten worse overtime.