Someone linked this imageboard post (spoilers & video clips) where a poster summarizes the Season 22 episodes Unfulfilled and the sequel Bike Parade.

The episode is about Amazon dominating their town, with Bezos being the villain. They do the whole A plot, B plot thing and so there are some slow and eh parts, but what makes this episode really surprising is there are whole sections where they quickly summarize Marxist class theory with no real criticism or making fun of it, like some of their soapbox moments. It’s not even said in academic language like ‘bourgeoisie’ and ‘proletariat’, it’s simple, calm, blunt explanation about how the owning class exploit workers.

South Park, a notoriously contrarian US Libertarian-preaching show, uncritically platformed Marxist ideas at length. [snip] The episode commentary for Unfulfilled has Matt Stone saying “the really big thing which Trey was super excited about was I really wanted to do a lesson about Marxist economics and Marxist critiques of capitalism”. The commentary also suggests the stuffing of Josh in a box might be an intentional metaphor for the dehumanization of workers.

They’re probably not going to be great episodes for entertainment or plot but I think this unexpected turn is enough to deserve a review.

(Tagging @AnarchoBolshevik@lemmygrad.ml)

  • comfy@lemmy.mlOP
    0·
    7 months ago

    Thanks for the review, comrade! I gave it a watch too in the meantime, it’s only fair to, and overall I had similar thoughts. While they do platform actual basic Marxist points, which I must admit was surprising, it’s shallow lecturing and not integrated into the plot or the moral.

    I am presuming that the writers are not seriously suggesting that we all indulge in weed in response to Amazon, so it is probably — get ready for this — buy from small businesses, which only contradicts the lesson in Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes. In fact, this story feels quite derivative of that episode.

    IIRC that Walmart episode also had a similar argument about supporting smaller businesses to boycott it, and while abstaining didn’t work for them in that episode, this time they’re saying that the town has the “integrity” to support smaller businesses and boycott Amazon. And that’s a bit ridiculous of a conclusion after pointing out the struggle between “those [] who control the means of production and [] the working class” and then having Randolph Treatler whining about his weed business to a disfigured worker and later becoming the hero of the story. And, on that note,

    it is unsurprising that the writers kept Jeff Bezos alive but killed off the two socialist characters

    There’s a deleted scene which shows a fight between the Mall zombies and the Amazon strikers, where Josh Carter appear with a Marx beard and pushes Bezos over a guard rail, seemingly killing him. They backed out of this scene, I’d guess because they thought the Randy Weed Lmao ending was funnier and more moral (neither was funny, and integrity can’t leash captialism). But, it goes without saying, none of this changes that the writers obviously aren’t advocating for anticapitalism, it was probably just something they thought was interesting and relevant to talk about. Like you said, they’re lolbertarians. They think the core problem here is crony business or big mega business.

    Surely there are more than a few lower-class consumers who understand what it is like to be stuck working a lousy job and can therefore side with strikers over the upper classes.

    Bourgeois media is a hell of a drug. Yes there would truly be consumers who are aware enough to side with the workers, although I’ve also seen plenty of proles IRL complaining about rail strikes being entitled/greedy, crabs-in-a-bucket crap or “protests shouldn’t inconvenience me” selfishness. I wouldn’t expect them to care enough to counterprotest over treats, but I’m not surprised to see them positioned against striking workers.