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South Park's Extreme Stereotypes In All About Mormons

1261 Words6 Pages

South Park is a well known television show that is famous for its ability to satirize every single controversial issue. To get people to see more than one side of an argument the show has made fun of everything from politics to race relations. In an effort provoke thought on the positive and negatives of religion the creators of South Park, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, satirize Mormonism and Scientology in the episodes All About Mormons and Trapped in the Closet through the use of religious stereotypes, the creator’s attitudes, and by challenging the ideologies that the religions hold.
South Park uses extreme stereotypes of religion in an effort to showcase how the religions can be perceived by others. The episode All About Mormons, starts …show more content…

One of the main characters, Stan is offered to take a personality test with the Church of Scientology. Before he takes the test, Stan does not feel as if he is depressed in any way yet the test results say that he is. This plays on the stereotype that the church will belittle someone in order to get them to join their church. South Park also shows how people will typically view Scientology as a cult after Stan’s friends accuse him of joining a cult organization. After being recruited to the church, Stan writes a new text for the religion and ends up admitting that the entire thing was made up. South Park uses this to show the stereotype that the Church of Scientology will sue anyone by having the crowd threaten to sue Stan for making fun of them. At one point in the episode, Stan communicates that his family would be upset about being a part of a different religion than them. The Church of Scientology respond by saying “that’s not a problem at all. Scientology is more of an alternative to psychology than a religion,” (Trapped in the Closet), mirroring the generalization of people believing that Scientology is not an actual …show more content…

The stereotypes shown for Scientology paint a negative picture for the religion. In fact, the Scientologists in the episode do not even refer to themselves as a religion. South Park showcases that many Scientologists are arrogant and only want to recruit members for their money. When the personality test shows that Stan is depressed, the Scientologists offer to cure him for $240. The episode depicts the religion as “just a big fat global scam” (Trapped in the Closet) that exists only to take money from its members and will sue people that speak out against it. Parker and Stone criticize the religions using their personal attitudes and feelings in an effort to point out the negatives of following a religion like

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