I’m of the opinion that renaissance fairs and other “historical” destinations are absolutely worthless unless they go all the way and feature war, disease, and slavery, so I suppose I can chirp with satisfaction at the recurring object of this episode’s cold derision: “Pioneer Village,” an inconceivably irritating Old West diorama whose employees never ever break character. Here “South Park” is, as always, the trusty neighborhood child molester, ready and more than willing to pounce mercilessly on the weak and undefended (or, in this case, indefensible) elements of our engorged American society. And we should rejoice: like a Spongebob bike helmet, the “edutainment” movement places an unbearable burden of loud, grating lameness on our collective heads. It is perhaps the single most obvious product of our short attention spans, our gluttonous materialism, and our general stupidity as a nation (besides, of course, the inflatable barbecue, whose significance John Oliver recently mulled over at hilarious, articulate length in his amazing new stand-up special). It’s good to exorcise this particularly aggravating demon, lest it continue to gnaw away at the edifice of whatever we’re calling civilization nowadays.
But it isn’t a fantastic episode, or even a great one. While the class enjoys (or, rather, laments) a field trip to “Pioneer Village,” the sad plywood complex gets taken over as a hideout for exceedingly professional “Die Hard”-level international criminals who have just robbed a Burger King. Meanwhile Cartman and Butters, who refuses to let go of his partner’s hand like the cherubic schoolboy he is, sneak out to the neighboring Super Phun Thyme (a disgusting and hilarious den of diabetes-inducing audiovisual stimuli) and find themselves on the outside of an escalating hostage situation. That’s basically the essence of this week’s adventures; so you can either keep laughing at the faux-pioneers’ pathological inability to break character even at gunpoint, since it’s repeated a lot, as well as the ridiculousness of the criminal enterprise, or you can sit and watch the episode with mild ambivalence as it tries very little to impress you beyond its premise. I suppose one issue is that “South Park” has parodied action movies (with the same over-the-top “serious” voices) about three million different times now, so the episode feels repetitive even when it isn’t necessarily repeating itself. Whatever the case, “Pioneer Village” and its ilk deserve a better episode, preferably one that will slap American audiences across the face (through controversy, or just indelible absurdity) like the best of “South Park’s” output. I want Trey and Matt to draft a better anti-”edutainment” manifesto–for the sake of America, and for the sake of the children.
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[…] archer_ind0 wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptIt is, perhaps, the single most obvious product of our short attention spans, our gluttonous materialism, and our general stupidity as a nation (besides, of course, the inflatable barbecue, whose significance John Oliver recently mulled … […]
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