TRIGGER WARNING: This article is about South Park and thus contains some explicit language and themes!
On the South Park episode "Sponsored Content," PC culture is upended when a student with a disability uses un-PC language. PC Principal is on the warpath to find out who printed a headline with the non-PC word "retarded." The culprit? Jimmy, the principled Editor-in-Chief of Super School News, who has cerebral palsy.
This scene where PC Principal calls Jimmy into his office to mansplain "about the rights of people with disabilities" while Jimmy defends freedom of speech ("I don't want people to be afraid of words if it stops them from having a dialogue") is pretty close to perfect:
-PC Principal: I want to talk to you today about the use of the "R" word in your school paper. You see, the "R" word is very bad.
-Jimmy: Says who?
-PC Principal: Says me, all right? And I know a thing or two about the rights of people with disabilities. When you use the "R" word to describe the school's lunch policy, it can hurt people's hearts. Can you understand that at all?
-Jimmy: That was an op-ed piece in the paper written by a first grader who found the school lunch policy to be ridiculous, and he thought "R-retarded" to be the best word to describe it. As the editor of the paper, I didn't think it was right to censor the words the student used.
-PC Principal: Okay, well, from now on, I'm gonna need to approve the school paper before you hand it out, okay?
-Jimmy: No.
-PC Principal: What'd you say?
-Jimmy: You're new here, so you don't understand how seriously I take my job as editor of the school paper. I don't allow ads, and I don't allow anything that might t-t-taint the truth behind what people are thinking. I don't want people to be afraid of words if it stops them from having a dialogue.
-PC Principal: Look, I don't want to get angry, okay?
-Jimmy: Why? Are you uncomfortable around people with disabilities? That's okay. Lots of people are.
-PC Principal: No, I'm not! I am very not uncomfortable. All right, look -- unless I can approve your paper, it is not being distributed on campus. You got that?
-Jimmy: I can't hand out the school paper in school?
-PC Principal: Not unless it is approved by me. Do you understand?
-Jimmy: Yep. Got it.
So Jimmy goes around delivering the school paper to people's doorsteps - hey, he only said it couldn't be handed out IN SCHOOL - with the headline "PC Principal's 'Retarded' Policy" which further angers and confounds PC Principal. He just can't understand, "Why would a person with a disability not see that what I'm trying to do is actually protect them?!" The answer, according to a fellow PC bro, is that "sometimes victims of oppression are so marginalized that they begin to sympathize with their oppressors." PC Principal agrees that Jimmy is an "Uncle Able," the disabled version of an "Uncle Tom."
The bros then host a PC Party, but they hit on girls (affirmative consent form, please!) by talking about how much they care about disabled people, while ignoring the disabled kids in attendance. There Jimmy gets his revenge.
-Crowd: Celebrate diversity! Whoo! Let's go, PC!
-PC Principal: All right, everyone. Listen up. Tonight's a very special night for the PCs. We're honored to be throwing this event for people with disabilities. I, for one, am sick of how these amazing kids are marginalized in today's society, but tonight is about learning and healing. So, let's get to it! PC! [Cheering]
-Brad: Hey, guys. I'm Brad. I'm PC Arizona State.
-Jimmy: Nice to meet you, Brad. Where do you –
-Brad: Uh, excuse me a second. Hello, ladies. Thanks for coming to our event.
-Girls: Hi! Hi!
-Brad: We're just tired of the way people with disabilities get treated. Can I get you some alcohol?
-Bro: Yeah, you know, it just bugs me when people refer to persons with disabilities as handicapped. When I hear that word, I want to [bleep] punch them in the [bleep] face.
-Girl That's so cool of you. Wow.
-Bro: Yeah, to be marginalizing persons with disabilities by asking them what their handicap is is a microaggression no better than asking a person of color if they went to college.
-Girl: Wow. You're really Progressive.
-Bro: No other way to be. So, uh, listen, I think you're really pretty and interesting, and I'd kind of like to take you upstairs and totally crush your pussy. Would that be acceptable to you?
-Girl: Oh. [Chuckles] Well, I-I guess it would.
-Bro: No, I'm sorry. I need affirmative consent. I'll need you to say, "Yes, you may take me upstairs and crush my pussy at this time."
-PC Principal: McKenzie, you got consent forms?
-McKenzie Oh, yeah. Right here, bro.
-PC Principal: Rise and shine, guys. If you scored last night, I need your consent forms. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Whoa, Barker, did you perform cunnilingus? There's a different release form, bro.
-Barker: Yeah, uh, s-sorry. It's right here.
-PC Principal: Nice.
-Bro: Bro! Oh, dude! Bro!
-PC Principal: What, bro?
-Bro: Dude, I scored with this female, and after consenting to putting her mouth on my penis, she wanted me to walk her home.
-PC Principal: Yeah?
-Bro: And when I got to her house, she had me meet her father, who is Filipino. So, I asked him if he could tell me about the cultural and social dynamics of being a Filipino American.
-PC Principal: Naturally.
-Bro: So, he said some stuff, and then a newspaper lands on his doorstep, 'cause I guess her dad subscribes to this school newspaper, and he picked it up, and I saw the headline said this!
-PC Principal: What the [bleep] Is this, bro?!
-Bro: Bro, that little kid wrote that our tolerant views and fight for social justice is just a way for us to crush puss!
-PC Principal: But that's not true!
-Bro: I know, bro! We're being totally victimized!
The bros hole up in their "safe space" to figure things out. They are excited to be relieved of the burden of white male privilege and be on the other side for a change: "Bro, we're the victims now. Like, we're being marginalized. Like, that makes us pretty cool!"
But the news is causing trouble in the Marsh's marriage, where Randy is enthusiastically involved with the PC movement. Sharon hits the nail on the head in calling out the PC bullying. Of course, Randy, like all PC/SJW people, completely misses the point:
-Randy: Look at what's happened to our town. We have shitpatown, boutique restaurants, and artisan shops. We have a [bleep] Whole Foods, and that was all me! Diverse people are moving here. Everyone's being aware of how they talk. This is paradise, Sharon!
-Sharon: Is it? All I know is that you've changed. Ever since you joined this PC thing, you just bully people and wait for people to say anything improper so that you can jump down their throats for whatever words he or she used.
-Randy: "He or she" is an agenderphobic microaggression, Sharon. You are a bigot.
South Park once again hilariously exposes political correctness for the ridiculous nonsense that it is! Bravo!
