The most recent season of South Park took aim at Internet anonymity and the trolling phenomenon it bred, all while drawing parallels to the political rise of Donald Trump. Now that Trump actually sits in the Oval Office, however, series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have said that governmental reality has become too ridiculous to parody.
“They’re already going out and doing the comedy,” Parker told Australia’s ABC News about Trump and his administration. “It’s not something you can make fun of.” Stone added, “It feels like it’s going to be more difficult. We’re having our head blown off like everybody else.”
Season 20 of South Park spent a large amount of time poking fun at the discourse surrounding the election, and Parker said even that was challenging enough. “It’s tricky and it’s really tricky now as satire has become reality. We were really trying to make fun of what was going on [last season] but we couldn’t keep up. What was actually happening was way funnier than anything we could come up with. So we decided to just back off and let [politicians] do their comedy and we’ll do ours.”
It’s going to be hard for them to avoid politics entirely, however. Last season ended with Mr. Garrison, acting as the satirical surrogate to Trump, becoming President of the United States. This was after the character literally raped the Canadian President, depicted in Trump’s image, to death. Even if they manage to gloss over the status quo set by the previous season, you can probably count on South Park to continue providing biting commentary on our slowly dissolving culture. Buckle up, buckaroo.
