“It’s a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
Except for Lola...” Ray Davies and the Kinks

Everything old becomes new again. I used to be such a stickler for keeping “bad influences” from my students. Back in the day, my parents were very keen on that, so maybe that’s where I got my little weird censorship thing. When I was a teenager, my father actually set fire to several of the books in my small library that he thought had corrupting influence. I know–psychotic, right? And whether I like it or not, some of that impulse landed within me as a teacher.

When South Park first came out, my students LOVED IT. It was all I ever heard about. They walked around saying “Respect my Authorit–ay!!!” in the voice of Cartman. Frankly, I did everything I could to discourage them from watching such filth and such a negative influence.

Cut to now: SOUTH PARK IS MY FAVORITE SHOW. SOUTH PARK IS MY FAVORITE SHOW. I want EVERYONE TO WATCH IT, including all students and I don’t care what age.

We live in a completely uncensored time. Nobody watches their mouth anymore. In fact, it seems almost weird to hear any normal person converse without dropping the F-bomb at least once or twice. About ten years ago, I had to give a little talk in my 9th grade class about which words are inappropriate for class use. When I actually told them that “damn” and “hell” are considered to be curse words, they couldn’t believe it.

Meanwhile, South Park is as irreverent as any show can be. At this point, and for the first time, I’m delighted that we seem to have no active censors in the media. To meander a bit off my main topic, in the late 1950’s, there was this thing called the” “Hayes Commission,” which had the job of censoring any shows or movies that would be released to the public. When Hitch was making Psycho, there was a scene during which a toilet was on screen being flushed . The Hayes Commission threatened for the whole movie to be banned unless he removed that one scene. (Truly ironic considering the deeply disturbing subject matter of the rest of the film!!) Hitchcock had to fight for the scene tooth and nail because he proved it was necessary for the narrative. Lo and behold, society finally saw a flushing toilet on screen.

Indeed, Trey Parker and Matt Stone are not needing to fight anyone, seemingly, about featuring a U.S. President in a sexual relationship with Satan, both naked in bed together.

I used to try to protect my students’ eyes and ears from these types of horrors. Now, I praise the show publicly and loudly for presenting parody that is truthful and meaningful. In our “mixed up, muddled up, shook up world…” intelligent voices must break through the thickest of fog in an otherwise hypnotized media.

I have made a presentation for students on “Evaluating Sources” at my Teachers Pay Teachers store…trying to teach students to seek out truth as opposed to propaganda or just lies (as shown by Clyde’s Podcast on the newest episode of South Park).

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Teaching-Your-Students-to-Evaluate-Sources-Finding-Truth-in-Times-of-Untruth-14106443