Analysis Of Marcus Schulzke's South Park And The Transformation Of Meaning

Recently, political correctness has swept into the forefront of modern day culture. The term has come to mean a variety of things, but at its core is an idea that words and actions should not offend or make anyone uncomfortable. However, South Park has managed to remain strong to its roots by still being inflammatory and offensive with the series continuing to draw heaps of criticism from many different groups. While South Park may not conform to what polite society expects, it manages to provide biting satire and commentary. Marcus Schulzke argues in “South Park and the Transformation of Meaning” that a hateful word’s meaning can be changed over time which can be seen in “The F-Word” in which the boys call a group of loud bikers “fags” as they try to get them to leave town (2012). Schulzke argues that …show more content…
Offensive slurs like “fag” are intended to disparage groups of people for being different from what the speaker thinks as normal or acceptable. However, in today’s world, society is much more tolerant of homosexual people and they have become a much more integrated part of society. “Fag” was used to develop an ingroup and an outgroup but homosexuals have become more welcomed into the ingroup. Therefore, the word is very rarely used in with its original intent. This idea can be seen in the episode when Big Gay Al gives a speech to the gay community of South Park where he says that the gay community is no longer the ones being targeted by the word and therefore the word’s meaning should change. He identifies that the bikers have replaced the homosexual community and therefore the original intention of the word no longer has meaning. In a similar way society can recognize that a word no longer is aligned with its original meaning and adjust the accepted meaning because of