South Park: Britney’s New Look
Season 12 - Episode 02
Photo courtesy of southparkstudios.com
March 20th, 2008 - When I heard that Britney Spears was going to be featured on this week’s South Park, I was pretty excited. South Park has an amazing track record at lampooning celebrities, including Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, Paris Hilton, Bono, Barbara Streisand, Tom Cruise, and more. But Britney’s New Look doesn’t mock Britney so much as it does the celebrity culture that has made and is now destroying her. It’s an interesting direction to take, but it unfortunately falls short of the star-skewering episodes that preceded it.
The lampooning of our culture’s obsession with celebrities, and Britney Spears in particular, is certainly fertile ground for South Park. This part of the show is also handled very well, and the jokes made here were very funny; the boring Democratic debate being interrupted by Britney Watch, the analysis of Britney’s weight gains, and pimples, Britney being used as a human sacrifice to the corn harvest were all well played. And of course, Britney’s new look, with half of her head blown off, was also hysterical.
But as funny as half-headed Britney was, we were robbed of the show making fun of the Britney Spears we know now. Perhaps Matt and Trey felt that making fun of the pop starlet was too easy a target, not to mention one that has been spoofed endlessly already. And while that is a hard point to argue, given the show’s history of making fun of already ridiculed stars (see above list), only getting a few lines of “real” Britney felt like a gyp. Even if she did pee on a ladybug.
The thing that disappointed me the most about this episode was that it was one-sided in it’s message: That the way the public builds up and tears down celebs is shameful. But where was the flip side of this argument? South Park at its best always ridicules BOTH sides of an issue instead of just picking one side and running with it. For example, that eating veal is wrong, but that being a total vegetarian isn’t good for you either, or that it’s wrong to be offensive, but that political correctness can go too far, or that America needs to go to war and to protest it simultaneously. These episodes and others like them satire elements of our society in a very clever way. But by only mocking the obsession with Britney Spears without also mocking Britney Spears herself, this episode feels incomplete. In other words, it sure is ridiculous how often media pundits call her a train wreck, but seriously, the girl IS a train wreck. Yeah it’s unfair how her every blemish is scrutinized, but we are talking about the woman who made Kevin Federline look responsible for Chrissakes.
Though we are only two episodes into Season 12, I can’t help but be slightly let down by the offerings so far. They have both had their share of real laugh out loud moments, but as a dedicated fan of the show, I can’t help but think that South Park is not living up to its potential. Admittedly the show has set high standards for itself, and it is still funny even when it’s not on its A-game, but I hope we get to see more of the high-quality South Parks that fans have gotten spoiled by.
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