South Park Character Analysis

South Park, an undoubtedly offensive TV show, has polarized viewers opinions throughout the world since it has been released. South Park uses satire, vulgarity, and questionable techniques to address issues such as racism, homophobia, and discrimination. Although this show may be too explicit and vulgar for some people to enjoy, it strives to get important messages across while aiming to address issues within society. South Park is beneficial for society and allows viewers to make what they want of a situation, as well as allowing viewers to be open minded. Over the years, there has been a lot of controversy surrounding South Park and religion. There are many episodes that discuss various religions in a questionable way. Although the

South Park features four main characters: Eric Cartman, Kyle Broflovski, Stan Marsh, and Kenny McCormick. The main characters of this show are fourth graders who often must teach adults, and the city of South Park, Colorado, a lesson. Stan Marsh is an extremely important character and often plays the voice of reason within the show. He is usually the one out of the four boys to help resolve a problem and to realize that the things they’re doing are absurd. Before getting into an analysis of South Park, Robert Arp offers an important statement on the show, “South park is the most important series on TV. The fact of the matter is that people who think they have the “corner on truth” need to be taken down a peg. After all, people’s perceptions of the truth are just that, people’s perceptions, and it’s OK to laugh at them. He then notes, “We need a healthy dose of skepticism about any belief, and this is one of the important lessons that South Park, along with philosophy, teaches us.” (Arp,

The episode begins with Stan not being able to do anything with his friends since he doesn’t have any money. He comes across a stand offering free personality tests. The lady at the stand introduces scientology and asks if Stan wants a free personality test. After the test, the person giving Stan the test tells him that he is miserable, depressed and a perfect candidate for scientology. He claims that the solution to his problem is very simple, he just needs two hundred and forty dollars. Stan gives him the money and receives a lesson on how scientology was discovered. After sending Stan to get a test done, the scientologists believe that Stan is a reincarnation of their prophet (L. Ron Hubbard). The president of the Church of Scientology asks Stan to continue the writings of the prophet. The president eventually reveals to Stan that the purpose of scientology is to scam people. Stan doesn’t agree with this and believes that it isn’t right for the church to be charging money to help people. Once again, this episode features highly offensive depictions of the religion but also concludes with a valid point. It isn’t right to be charging people money for