31 Comments
User's avatar
Joseph L. Wiess's avatar

I have no problem with a man in drag reading kids books to children per se; he’s just a human being reading to kids, which is perfectly normal behaviour.

Why doesn't that same drag queen go read to the people in old folks' homes or to shut-ins? Why is it that they always have to read to 5-year-olds?

Expand full comment
The Common Centrist's avatar

A fair question. As I said, in principle, I have no problem with it…if it is just a genuine and innocent desire to read to children. However, if it is motivated by something more sinister then it should never be allowed to happen. Why not old folks too is a legitimately good question.

Expand full comment
Joseph L. Wiess's avatar

You can read to children without dressing up in a bustier and fishnets and looking like a demon from the 8th circle. And you don't have to read about sex, sexuality, or LGBT+ issues to children.

The only reason for a man to dress up as a characterization of Cher, in a bustier and fishnets, is to push sexuality.

Children don't need to have that done to them.

Expand full comment
Sarah's avatar

"The boys tell their parents about what they saw in class that day but, as they are children, they cannot articulate the level of depravity that was on display as they are too young to fully understand it. And because of their youth, their descriptions of events are understandably vague and innocent given their limited knowledge of the world of adults and their childish vocabulary."

Here-in lies the less obvious, perhaps more sinister issue. It's argued that "educating" children along these lines is healthy and protective so they are well informed. But what it actually is, and I can't remember who phrased it so well in a video, but she said what they're doing is teaching kids to ignore those feelings of unease. It the first step toward control, to convince a child that their instincts or "weird" feelings about someone else is bad. There is a huge difference between a child feeling judgement toward a classmate with worn out, unstylish clothes and feeling weird of confused about the behavior of a camp counselor.

Great article, south park is invaluable in my opinion.

Expand full comment
The Common Centrist's avatar

Thank you... I agree entirely

Expand full comment
😳😳😳😳😳's avatar

I can’t believe I just read an essay length, start to finish recapitulation of an episode of South Park. Anyway if you found this, watch this 1993 short from kids in the hall https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKkb0qXbyUY

Expand full comment
Rick Danz's avatar

Fucking brilliant. Both South Park AND you, my dude.

Expand full comment
The Common Centrist's avatar

Thank you very much, good sir...

Expand full comment
Rick Danz's avatar

I love how they don't take shit from anyone (look what they did to Chef went he went all weird on them). And their take on trans athletes is also fucking brilliant. They just get it.

Expand full comment
Rachael  Morgan's avatar

South Park = laugh, learn and be challenged. Always reckoned they had their finger on the pulse

Expand full comment
The Common Centrist's avatar

Couldn’t agree more…

Expand full comment
L Roy Page's avatar

This is excellent.

Expand full comment
The Common Centrist's avatar

Thank you... Means a lot...

Expand full comment
S.H. Jacobs's avatar

The absurdity of reality can sometimes surpass South Park. I wrote recently about my school board removing a kids book that had bondage imagery, which our local pride protested. Pretty much anyone who speaks out about controversial curriculum changes is booed by a chorus of women who tell us to be more kind and inclusive of differences. So yeah....South Park is here.

Expand full comment
The Common Centrist's avatar

Yeah, its so crazy, right? That’s why I was compelled to write this.

I remember watching this episode 20 years ago and thinking it was a cautionary tale about the political correctness of the time, over exaggerated to a ridiculous extreme to prove a point. Looking back, I couldn’t believe how accurately the hit the nail on the head. Young me watching it for the first time would never have believed it could all come true pretty much as it appears in the show. Crazy world.

Thanks for commenting…

Expand full comment
The Reverend Gonzo's avatar

South Park is a truly brilliant show and I am still surprised that our illustrious gatekeepers have allowed them to pollute the minds of our youth for decades now. My favorite episode that prophesized the coming trans lunacy is from Season 9, Mr Garrison's New Vagina. In this episode Kyle wants to become a better basketball player so he undergoes a negroplasty, Randy identifies with dolphins so he undergoes a dolphinplasty, the entire episode shows the fallacy of changing your gender to fit how you feel; the fact it came out a decade before gender madness became the new thing shows a Nostradamus level of prophecy from Parker and Stone.

Expand full comment
MaKenna Grace's avatar

If you had told me 20 years ago that South Park and SNL would become reality, I probably would’ve laughed in your face. Sometimes real wisdom comes from the oddest of places.

Expand full comment
The Common Centrist's avatar

Right? Crazy world, eh?

Expand full comment
MaKenna Grace's avatar

Indeed.

Expand full comment
Anthony May's avatar

This article could be so much more useful if it included half a dozen in-line links to real-world examples of the inappropriate behaviour you’re calling out.

Expand full comment
The Common Centrist's avatar

That’s a fair criticism. I must apologise for this but I feel I may have forgotten that my readers wouldn’t be as familiar with this episode of South Park as I am… Upon watching it in retrospect, I feel the comparisons are self evident. To me, it was almost like deja vu…

Thank you for the comment…

Expand full comment
Anthony May's avatar

I’m sure it is, but my point/suggestion is that, your article might serve as a useful tool for those who are sympathetic to your article’s message, to re-post it intended to be seen by friends/followers who are adherent of the ‘woke mind virus’ (whether they’re conscious of it or not), if it included links to mainstream news articles covering specific instances across a range of its many pimples. Because ‘woke’ has now become such a panacea descriptor as to be also used as a pejorative by some of the worst examples of humanity to have won the recent US presidential election, that any moderate’s criticism of the WMV automatically gets us labelled as objectionable rightists and perhaps even worthy of cancellation.

Expand full comment
The Common Centrist's avatar

They can label me however they like. They have as much right to their opinions as I do mine. The crux of the problem in my opinion is precisely that... zero tolerance for any diversity of opinion.

I've gotten tired of trying to explain to those types that being opposed to the extremes of one side doesn't definitionally make me a member of the opposite extreme. In their head, it's a political binary between their side and the other, 'good guys' v 'bad guys'. The existence of centrists apparently breaks their fragile ideology.

Expand full comment
Chaz Hoosier's avatar

Yeesh, you realize South Park is a cartoon and not real life right?

Expand full comment
Heartworker's avatar

You realized that cartoon has become reality and real life a cartoon ?

Expand full comment
Chaz Hoosier's avatar

If you think South Park is real you need to log off and go outside more.

Expand full comment
Heartworker's avatar

If you don´t realize that all too much of South Park has become reality maybe you should go outside, or open your eyes and senses, more.

Expand full comment
Chaz Hoosier's avatar

Never in my life did I imagine I would end up trying to argue with a grown man about whether cartoons are real.

Expand full comment
Heartworker's avatar

Until now this hasn´t happened because I never did claim such thing. But that I have to argue with grown humans who seem not be sufficiently able to read carefully what I actually wrote, happens every day. One of many causes why reality frequently surpasses even the craziest cartoons by far.

Expand full comment
Chaz Hoosier's avatar

Sure, go scream with your Klan buddies about all the rabbits being crushed by anvils.

Expand full comment