No (South) Parking

“The big questions in life are tough: Why are we here? Where are we from? Where are we going? But if people believe in (Expletives) like you,we’re never going to find the real answers to those questions. You’re not just lying; you’re slowing down the progress of all mankind,”— sounds like philosophy you say? South Park-philes would agree. But you will probably rethink your assessment after you discover the identity of the speaker. After all,Stan (who happens to be one of the four lead characters of the popular US animated series South Park) is a foul-mouthed eight-year-old resident of Colorado with very little regard for adults. His vocabulary includes choicest of abuses. He has a propensity to vomit on his steady girlfriend Wendy and has an eclectic bunch of friends which among other very colourful characters,a pedophile.

Not stuff that any self-respecting Bengali parent would encourage in their eigh-year-olds. But for Arunlekha Sengupta,a 22-year-old resident of Garia,Colorado maybe a world apart,but Stan and his friends aren’t. “I relate to the characters. Like the characters of the show,I’m sick of conforming to established norms,” she says. Sengupta,who has been following the show for the past two years on the internet,has a reason to celebrate. South Park is being aired on Indian television for about a month now. “I couldn’t believe it at first. I was channel surfing and spotted the show. Initially,I thought it was just a promotional clipping,but it went on for half an hour,” she laughs.

Airing a show like South Park in India,feels Monalisa Sen an employee of an IT firm in the city,is no “mean step”. “The show lampoons everything that is sacred to mainstream society. In a society which objects to unbuttoning of pants in public,I wonder how a show like this will go down,” says Sen. Indeed,one shouldn’t be surprised if the show ends up inviting controversies galore. After all,the show has managed to stir a hornet’s nest in the US with it’s clever digs on everything from intolerance,scapegoating,books like Men are from Mars,Women are from Venus and Les Miserables to US President George Bush. It may be a bitter pill to swallow,but many feel that South Park holds mirror to the “first world disaster” that is the USA. “I feel that the excessive satire is important. It drives in the point more thoroughly. Though the more politically correct will want to be righteously offended at the on-screen antics and certifiable bad taste slapping us in the face,there’s just enough truth and bite in the show to mollify those concerns,” says Sengupta

The show’s explicit content may alienate some,feels Reeti Roy,a student of Jadavpur University. “Sadly,far too many viewers may be grossed out by the shows excesses and miss the real important issues raised in this smart,if excessive,satire,” says Roy.

Yet,one hopes that the show is taken in the right spirit. After all,how often do we get the pleasure of seeing God defecate on President Bush with his “yummy,yummy crap’?