South Park: Movie Review

South Park

Source: Parker, Trey. (2018) South Park 22, Time to Get Cereal, Nobody Got Cereal?. Comedy Central

During the break, I took my time off to rest like many others but I realised that there was an RNJ due when school opens and I didn’t know what to do it on so after brainstorming ideas I decided to do an RNJ on South Park’s 22nd season’s two-parter episodes, Time to Get Cereal and Nobody Got Cereal? Yes, I know South Park is a very controversial show that mocks and parodies many issues and topics but the reason I chose these episodes is that I feel that It’s really relevant nowadays as it mocks and deals with climate change denial. In 2019, climate change began to be more recognised with activists like Greta Thunberg shedding some light on the issue and Charities like Mr. Beast and Mark Rober’s Team Trees which their goal is to donate 20 Million Trees to be planted around the world and has been donated by people like Elon Musk and companies like the Discovery Channel.

All of that aside, the two episodes are about The 4 main boys trying to stop and find out more about Manbearpig, who is the parody of global warming terrorizing the town of south park by murdering the townspeople. The episode starts with Stan, witnessed his half uncle’s friend’s encounter with the Manbearpig in which he gets captured, Stan then goes to talk to his friends about the encounter to which they suspect that the creature is Manbearpig, the creature that Al Gore tried to warn them about in earlier seasons. They boys then go find Al Gore to get his help in which he does a demonic ritual to summon Satan which tells them that in order to find out more about Manbearpig, they had to go to the public library. At the Library, they discover that Manbearpig came because of a deal someone in the town made with the Manbearpig. The people who made the deal is eventually revealed to be Stan’s Grandpa and the other elderly folks who wanted nice things like cars, ice cream, and for south park to become a better town. The episode eventually ends with the boys signing the papers to repel the deal but Manbearpig isn’t interested in cars and ice cream but instead wants people to give up the game Red Dead Redemption 2 and soy sauce in which the townspeople are reluctant to do it. So they eventually decide on another deal where Manbearpig will return in 5 years where the carnage will be worse than ever.

The two episodes have heavy uses of metaphors as the entire two-parter is a metaphor for global warming denial and how people are unwilling to change their ways for the sake of our world which is made especially obvious by the townsfolk and police who don’t believe that it’s real and deals that the characters make to Manbearpig. I’d say that the final deal is the best metaphor in the episodes as how man bear pig will return in 5 years with the carnage being worse than before is paralleling the real world where people would ignore global warming until it returns worse than before. The line said by the lawyer “And sign here that ManBearPig has rights to the lives of all the children in Third World countries.” also represents how global warming changes ecosystems in multiple areas and one of these being increased precipitation causing malaria in poor developing countries in which children would die from lack of immunity. I don’t know how to add this properly but Thailand is a developing country and Bangkok is going to flood by 2050 according to that one article that we got in class so I guess Manbearpig is gonna own Bangkok by 2050.

The episode overall made me laugh and I felt that the two episodes made its purpose of parodying climate change denial clear and only someone who ignores current world issues or infants wouldn’t get. My favorite part of the two episodes was probably the scene where Satan loses to Manbearpig who kills him and sends him to heaven and something about the lord of darkness dying then immediately being sent to heaven is incredibly funny to me, especially how the boys are pleading for his life like “No. Satan, you can’t die.” and “We can’t do this without you, Satan.” and Satan, despite being the ruler of hell encouraging them to stop Manbearpig and how they can do it if they believe.

So in conclusion, the two episodes are really funny especially if you understand the motives of the episode and the references to earlier seasons but do beware as the episodes are quite graphic as you see Manbearpig mauling people apart. There are also some curse words too but it is south park so it’s quite expected. So if you are going to watch it, beware of these things and I hope you find the episodes are funny.