Political Correctness and Politically Correct People: South Park Case

Abstract

In this work, the concept of political correctness and politically correct people (P.C.P.) will be evaluated through the case study. As the case study, the animated cartoon named 'South Park' was chosen. Even though South Park is a cartoon, it should not be forgotten that it criticises real-world events. In 2015, South Park took political correctness as it's basis for the 19th season of the show. How do P.C.P communicate? How do they influence the society? What is the correlation between political correctness and corporations/advertisements? Answers to these questions will be sought out. Episodes of the show are analyzed qualitatively. "Politically correct" is seemingly a quite positive term. But in South Park, P.C.P. restrict the freedom of speech. They also falsely accuse people of being sexist or being racist etc. They have slowly become a social pressure group. While P.C.P. does succeed in protecting the minorities, they also pressurize the majority. Corporations use political correctness to pressurize people into donating to their social cause. Advertisements are constantly changing forms. They take on multiple forms like news or even humans. South Park claims that advertisements are starting to become dangerous to the consumers. All of the claims mentioned above should be analyzed on real customers and corporations. At the same time, findings obtained from South Park do show that political correctness can be easily exaggerated and society can get harmed because of it. These findings are limited to South Park. The study offers different perspectives about political correctness and advertisements.



Author Information
Ayla Topuz Savaş, Anadolu Uni̇versi̇ty, Turkey

Paper Information
Conference: MediAsia2018
Stream: Critical and Cultural Studies, Gender and Communication

This paper is part of the MediAsia2018 Conference Proceedings (View)
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Posted by James Alexander Gordon