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South Park Social Reality  
 

David Marroquin 
California State University, Los Angeles 

 
 

This is an observational paper based on South Park, a popular 
American television show. Theory is centered on the realistic 
humor proffered by the creators of the show and how humorous 
scenes throughout a particular episode are in fact realistic to day-
to-day culture and a massive problem in society. Examples of 
particular characters created to represent various minorities in 
society are used in the article. It is believed that these characters 
act as reinforced stereotypical ideals of minorities and while 
exasperating these stereotypes creating a realm of humor set for 
questioning these stereotypes.  

 
 
 
 
 1 South Park, an Emmy award 
winning television show, on Comedy 
Central airs weekdays at ten o’clock, has 
been deemed with scabrous humor in the 
past; with episodes like “With Apologies 
to Jessie Jackson”, “Trap in the Closet”, 
and “Die Hippie, Die”. Specifically on 
Wednesday January the 16th there was 
an episode entitled “D-Yikes”. In this 
episode South Park writers depicted 
many different social and culture ste-
reotypes that are controversial in Ame-
rican culture today. The writers made 
jokes about unemployed His-panics, 
butch (manly) Lesbians, and the fashion 
style of Prussians. In making jokes 
pertaining to these minorities we can see 
                                                 
 David Marroquin is currently a graduate 
student at the Department of Sociology, 
California State University.  His paper 
was initially submitted to Soc. 301 
Writing for Sociology, taught by Susan 
Friedman in Winter 2008. 

how the American media and culture 
portrays minorities. The crude humor 
showed Hispanics standing in front of 
hardware stores trying to receive em-
ployment; Prussians decorating their 
homes with gold curtain rods, purple 
rugs, and depicting how they like to 
wear silk shirts and shop for sunglasses; 
and all lesbians as butch looking and 
man haters. South Park shows us how 
American egocentric values and culture 
depicts minorities in America with the 
realistic view of American society. The 
viewpoint South Park presents is that 
white American values are egocentric as 
no other principle or cultures are 
acceptable. This stance displays the 
hypocrisy of white American values and 
culture towards the treatment of 
minorities in society and on television. 
Lesbians were portrayed in the episode 
as being manly and having an attitude. 
They were shown as always trying to 
persuade heterosexual women to become 

CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2008, VOL. 1 (November: 44-45) 
 



SOUTH PARK SOCIAL REALITY by David Marroquin 45

lesbians. This is seen in the beginning of 
the episode as Miss. Garrison is upset 
with men because they keep asking her 
if she is a man. The episode continues 
with a lesbian inviting Miss. Garrison to 
a gay bar and trying to persuade her to 
become a lesbian. This depiction of 
lesbians is significant because it shows 
how white American culture view 
women who are gay. As the episode 
continues, another minority is portrayed 
as day laborers-Hispanics. They depicted 
them as being able to be hired for any 
job because they are just day laborers 
and cannot say no. The portrayal of these 
two minority groups shows that America 
has minimal values because of the 
insults to lesbians and Hispanics.  

This South Park episode was 
intended to show how white America is 
biased towards minorities in American 
society. The entire episode was full of 
satirical context about minorities and 
their values, beliefs, and virtues. For 
example, the biased way the show 
portrayed the Prussian community, as 
enjoying decorating their homes and 
businesses with hideous purple rugs and 
gold curtain rods. The episode 
perpetuated  how biased white American 
society can be by portraying the Prussian 
men shopping at malls for silk shirts and 
designer glasses, and applying large 
amounts of gel after getting their 
designer      haircut.       South      Park’s 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

perspectives on minorities are a perfect 
example of American society’s views, 
culture and virtues. With South Park’s 
slanted humor on minorities, one cannot 
help but focus on the characters. The 
characters were fully developed to 
offend and shock, but also to shine a 
light on the portrayal of minorities. It 
was also about how their values and 
culture are tolerated but not accepted in 
American society. A closer look at the 
day-laborer character is a perfect ex-
ample of how American society endures 
these people but does fully not accept 
them. Continuing to focus on American 
society, another outlook one notices is 
how lesbians are tolerated but, again, not 
completely accepted.  Given this, South 
Park demonstrates the minimal values 
and virtues white American society has 
towards minorities and how they are 
endured. 

The impact of this South Park 
episode displays how white American 
society perceives minorities. One can 
recognize that the values, virtues, and 
culture of American society are minimal 
when it comes to tolerating minorities in 
their country. South Park, with its lewd 
humor, has depicted the views of 
American society, but has used this type 
of humor so white America can see how 
misconstrued and controversial their 
views on social and culture stereotypes 
are in American society. 

CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2008, VOL. 1 (November: 44-45) 
 


