‘South Park’ creators defend depiction of Donald Trump: “It’s pop culture”
South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have defended their depiction of President Donald Trump.
Trump unexpectedly became a main character throughout the 27th season of the hit series, and the fictional version of him in South Park also became romantically involved with Satan.
While South Park has never been a political show, Parker and Stone have explained in a new interview that Trump is too much of an unavoidable cultural force to ignore.
“It’s like the government is just in your face everywhere you look,” Parker told the New York Times. “Whether it’s the actual government or whether it is all the podcasters and the TikToks and the YouTubes and all of that, and it’s just all political and political because it’s more than political. It’s pop culture.”
Stone also confirmed there’s been no pushback from the powers above regarding their portrayal of Trump, sharing, “I know with the Colbert thing and all the Trump stuff, people think certain things, but they’re letting us do whatever we want, to their credit.”
Additionally, Parker described him and Stone as “very down-the-middle guys”, adding, “Any extremists of any kind we make fun of. We did it for years with the woke thing. That was hilarious to us. And this is hilarious to us.”
In the latest episode of season 28, titled ‘The Woman in the Hat’, which arrived as a surprise Halloween special, South Park poked fun at Melania Trump, as well as the programme’s recent pivot to politics with the character Stan quipping, “Everyone knows it. South Park sucks now, and it’s because of all this political shit.”
The White House has previously condemned the portrayal of Trump, releasing a statement in July that began, “The Left’s hypocrisy truly has no end – for years they have come after South Park for what they labelled as ‘offence’ content, but suddenly they are praising the show.”
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