South Park Takes On QAnon and Covid 19!
By Ron Signore
Some people have lost grip to reality. Some live in a world that is so alternative to what is real, that they have created a separate universe that accommodates their beliefs in life. We know an extremely specific group in QAnon believers who are so far up their own behind, that they view daylight through their mouth.
Rampant and ridiculous conspiracy theories surrounding the pandemic have been going on since the genesis of the possibility of the arrival of COVID in America. They have continued to blast these paranoia filled theories to the masses in any way possible. The ultimate goal is to discredit reality, but they continuously do nothing but drive a rift in this country.
This past week, the viewing world had to take a trip into another alternate universe to get perspective on reality. This week, the creators of South Park aired an episode that took a deeper look at the ongoing struggle we are experiencing as a nation with the ensuing vaccination against the pandemic.
The fictional town of South Park is the scene where many of it’s citizens are waiting for their vaccination against COVID. Introduced as waiting in line at the town’s Walgreens as though it were like an exclusive night club to get into with A-List celebrities. The line forming was of the normal everyday citizen, where entrance was limited to the elderly and a specified designation of certain front-line workers. Manned by security represented by a bouncer-like figure, people pleaded to get in just to get the shot so they could move on with their lives.
The four main characters, in the meantime, pull a ghastly prank on their current teacher, forcing her to quit teaching, identifying it was not worth the risk to teach such troublesome students. This opens the door for the need of a teacher. The perfect time for the reunion of Mr. Garrison to South Park Elementary School. Garrison had been portraying the radical, yet comical, impression people have of Donald Trump. Instead of black-face, they had Garrison drawn in “orange-face,” sprouting the hateful messages Trump stood for by true satire.
Upon Garrison’s return, the town glares at him with nothing but hate for the most part. Until we see one family approach him, coincidentally with the family name of “Whites,” showing their silent majority following of what it was Trump was believed to stand for. Garrison, who claims he just wants to return as a teacher and live-in peace gives the Whites a pretty direct message to go climb a tree- it was a little more extreme and expletive, but that was the point.
This prompted the Whites to do what we have seen done for the last couple of years. Calling a gathering in secret with some hilarious characters, including someone who looked like the “Buffalo Man” we saw at the insurrection on January 6th, Mr. White begins to express his encounter with Garrison to the followers. While the common viewer heard the tone and unmistakable message of Garrison directing the White’s to buzz off, he turned it into the mind-boggling nonsense that it was some code from the “Chosen One,” to act upon their nonsensical beliefs.
Continuous satirical references to admitting to learning information from the internet and taking it was all true and real, the group decides they want to start their own teaching program where the main point is to spread their truths to the youth of today. The creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, leave no stone unturned by emphatically embarrassing these ridiculous ideas and conspiracies the members of QAnon are attempting to spread. Anti-Semitic quips and victim-based paranoias of being ruled by one specific elite race who is trying to get everyone the vaccine so people can be tracked filled the episode with laughter by the viewer in the obvious attempt to slander the moronic views we continue to see from these radical right-wingers.
The imagery, language, and even certain concepts of the show, specifically in this episode are too graphic to really detail in many instances. However, the structure and overtones that support what reality people have to combat every day. They bring to light the confusing and exclusivity in some respects each vaccination rollout can bring. They highlight the resistance to vaccinate solely on the premise of a conspiracy to track you and control you. They strongly show the deliberate damage the spread of misinformation can bring and the destruction it has caused and will continue to cause in our country. The episode also clearly illustrates the awareness of damage Donald Trump did to our country, and the idiocy that is followed on in his legacy by his brainwashed racist followers.
The episode ends with a pretty big awareness message that needs to be understood as we progress forward: as a country, we need to get rolling with the vaccinations. The final segment is the storyline of getting the boy’s teachers their vaccination, however, they got to their teacher a minute too late. She starts coughing, and subsequentially passed away. The death toll is already more significant than it ever needed to be in the first place, but we now have the tools to get the curve to a flatter space, we need to execute with more urgency to eliminate anymore unnecessary death. Here in Ohio, we are just opening up the ability to get vaccinated if one is over 60, has diabetes or other specific qualifying/underlying conditions. Even May is too long of a time to be completed. We should have been rolling out mass vaccination sites and applying the shot as frequently as possible.
The irony of it all is to address the delusional and address the pandemonium we are experiencing as a nation; a fictional cartoon has done the best job to point out the stupidity people are displaying to ruin our country. The exposure would be vastly unwelcomed if anyone down the Q hole observed. It is time to get back to reality and work together as a nation, if it takes satire from a foul mouthed fictional town to point it out, I am willing to accept it at this point.
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