(S12E02) The thing that makes South Park stand out above all other television shows is the creators' ability to take an old idea and put a new spin on it with depth and good reasoning. This episode is a perfect example of that.Britney Spears tries to escape her fame by hiding out in Colorado. Sadly, the paparazzi follow her and through a confluence of events, she blows her own head off with a shotgun. Fortunately, this is South Park and such things aren't fatal here.
There were a tremendous number of horror movie references in this episode. I caught Children of the Corn, The Omen and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I remember them doing similar ominous music during the first season episode "Damian" which was a more direct parody of "The Omen". I'm certain I missed a few references. If you caught any others, please mention them in the comments as I (along with all the other readers) would be interested in knowing them.
Of course the first observation that Trey Parker and Matt Stone make in their satire is how Britney Spears news seems to overwhelm important news such as the Presidential debates. I did love Hillary's line when they returned to the debates after going to Britney Watch: "And spearchuckers."
It seemed out of character when Cartman ran out of the room after Britney put the shotgun in her mouth and pulled the trigger. I would have thought he would have tried to snap some pictures so he could collect $100,000 or more from the media ("That's enough to buy slaves").
South Park has always had its shock moments and Britney's suicide was definitely one of them. And then she was STILL ALIVE (albeit as a body without most of its head). It's a testament to the creators that they can make that funny.
The episode exemplified the tendency of the media (and, by extension, the American public) to tear down celebrities in an attempt to make ourselves feel better, such as labeling Britney's suicide attempt as a "crazy no-top-of-the-head look". And then, to make matters worse, they point out deficiencies in her body, her mind, her voice and her camel toe ("a slap in the face to camels everywhere").
I did catch a pastiche of "Frosty the Snowman" for the narration during Stan and Britney's train ride to the North Pole. I found this unusual in an episode that had so many horror references and it seemed to detract slightly.
The core of this episode is how we treat celebrities. I love how they compare it to the human sacrifices of ages past. Those sacrifices were also done to make individuals feel better about their lives (by appeasing whatever deities they worshipped). We raise up and tear down media icons nowadays for much the same reasons.
Going back to my opening statement in this review, South Park has always stood above other programs by its willingness to pursue meaningful satire rather than immediate laugh-out-loud humor (although this episode had both). This was exemplified at the end of the episode where Britney's death led to a good harvest (they killed Britney for a good corn crop?) and the mention at the end that Miley Cyrus will be the next teen icon and therefore the next sacrifice. If Matt and Trey are right, we'll be reading about Miley's self-destruction in about ten years.
It wasn't their best episode, but it was far from their worst. On a scale of "poor" to "excellent," I'd rate it as a "very good".
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
3-20-2008 @ 12:31AM
jericho's_nuts said...
I think Cartman running out of the room was in perfect character...he was saving his own rear end to leave the other 3 to suffer. His own personal safety comes first even when it comes to money. The reference to the harvest and the chanting the townfolk did is from the movie "The Wicker Man" that was recently remade starring Nicolas Cage. It was bad so I would assume that's why the South Parks guys skewered it.
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3-20-2008 @ 12:47AM
Keith said...
I was really expecting Cartman to come back into the room, snatch a pic and run. I tho this was a great epi, and it actually made me feel a little bad for Spears..Matt and Trey weren't far off, and they actuaqlly made me feel for the life of a trainwreck accelerated byh the outside world...I mean really...where CAN Brit go to hide???
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3-20-2008 @ 12:54AM
BigTed said...
The main reference in this episode was to Shirley Jackson's famous short story "The Lottery," in which a town randomly selects someone to stone to death every year in order to ensure a good harvest.
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3-20-2008 @ 11:14PM
Beanie said...
You are correct, sir. I was just going to mention that. I can't believe the reviewer missed that. Oh well, can't catch em all!
3-20-2008 @ 12:55AM
Oreo said...
It was another well done episode, but something was missing in it to me. I don't know what, but I felt something should have been added.
Love the fact she blows her head off, and "lost her mind", it was obvious but I still enjoyed it.
Plus the ending was priceless.
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3-20-2008 @ 1:43AM
Bash said...
Aaaaaaah! Beeeeeeeeeeees!
*snicker*
You should really visit youtube and take a look at all the bad scenes from "Wicker Man" with yours truly Nic Cage. The most horrifying thing of the movie is the way he promotes it in interviews. The movie is so bad you cringe in your seat when you hear him talk about it praising the value of the movie.
But the scenes from the movie are really really priceless. How he kicks that woman. The bear costume. The bees. And I think there was some scene with naked people dancing around a fire but that might have been the original version made in the UK starring Christopher Lee :-)
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3-20-2008 @ 1:56AM
bruce said...
Great episode, though I agree - I thought it was very odd and out of character for Cartman to leave without snapping a picture. Though him leaving the scene, and leaving his friends behind, is certainly not out of character. I just couldn't believe he didn't snap some pictures first so he could go buy some slaves.
While they meant this as satire about paparazzi and Britney Spears, it's actually gotten to the point where reality is not far off from South Park. I've actually gotten to the point where I truly feel bad for Britney Spears, notwithstanding her terrible music. Tabloids will give us what we want, so it's not their fault, it's our fault for having an insatiable interest in everything Britney. Quite often it seems like I'm the only person in the world who does not care about her. Other than her death or her being indicted and convicted of murder, nothing she does, nothing that happens to her, nothing about her, and nothing about her family is interesting, let alone newsworthy. Since news about her is unavoidable, I get the impression that she is actually being driven crazy by all this constant stalking and nitpicking. Seriously, leave the poor girl alone. If you intentionally read or watch any "news" about Britney Spears, you're guilty as a coconspirator in destroying an innocent young lady who never did anything to you, other than make bad music that nobody forced you to buy.
I bet Britney is so confused at this point that tomorrow she'll respond negatively to this episode of South Park, maybe even sue Trey Parker & Matt Stone over it.
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3-20-2008 @ 9:15AM
John said...
I thought the episode was great, especially since I had just finished reading the Atlantic Monthly cover story about Britney and the "photographers" who stalk her everywhere: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200804/britney-spears
I liked that they made her a sympathetic character, it seems like South Park can do its share of tearing down people (Rosie, Paris, J.Lo, ManBearPig, HillDawg, etc)
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3-20-2008 @ 9:19AM
Peku said...
I thought this was a pretty bad and un-funny episode up until the last seven minutes, which were hilarious. Still, not a very good episode in my opinion. And I highly disagree with any message Stan and Kyle were trying to spread, Britney's getting what she deserves.
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3-20-2008 @ 9:54AM
MosquitoControl72 said...
Another resounding "meh" from me. It felt more like a South Park episode than last week (which I thought never caught its tone), but I wasn't in to it.
It began excellent. Interrupting a political debate for Britney? Hysterical. Hillary mentioning spearchuckers? Hysterical.
Then it began to suck. I thought it took too sympathetic a view of Britney. The Britney obsession in America is pathetic, and it's sad when people know more about her than their president (or themselves.)
But the show seemed to take any blame away from Britney herself. Britney keeps making headlines for doing increasingly stupid things. South Park instead made her seem normal. Sure, you can say that they were making the point that she was normal before the media made her lose most of her brain, but I'm not convinced that's correct, and if that's their point they could have had brainless Britney doing stupid things.
Instead they had Britney sympathetic. I don't buy it. Yes, the press creates a downward spiral, but this stuff begins with idiocy. Britney, like Paris, like Lindsey, like Anna Nicole, caught the media spotlight for being an idiot. The dumber she acted the more attentions she got, and the more attention she got the dumber she acted. But it begins not with the media but with the idiocy.
I thought they were off the mark for that reason.
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3-20-2008 @ 1:18PM
Dan said...
I totally agree with your review...this episode and the last one have both missed the mark. Maybe South Park is running out of ideas, because both episodes were just uncomfortable with few moments where I was actually enjoying it. I liked the debate part, but after that, I pretty much only enjoyed Butters in the costume and Cartman ditching when Britney shot herself. I hope they can come back and have some episodes like the one from the fall where the girls ranked the guys in order of hotness...that was a great episode.
3-20-2008 @ 11:04AM
Dan L said...
I enjoyed the episode but didn't think that it was a top-notch effort on the part of South Park writers but, hey, not all the episodes can be absolutely hilarious.
I didn't much like how Britney died in the end...flash photography? What is she, one of the robots from Itchy & Scratchy Land (in a Simpsons episode from years ago)? At least make her start running away or dragging herself with her hands and falling off a cliff or maybe onto train tracks and have a train derail because of it so she really could end up being a 'train-wreck'...I was sort of expecting that to happen when they were on the train and the conductor got that call.
Truth be told I was sort of hoping/expecting them to do something about ex-NY Gov Spitzer but maybe they're waiting to see how the whole extramarital affairs of new NY Gov David Paterson plays out before they do anything (so they can skewer the NY State Government as a whole).
Also re:Butters in the squirrel costume, where was his dad wondering where Butters is and threatening/promising to ground him when/if he comes home?!?! They could've just stuck that in after the squirrel insisting he is a little boy news piece. "...And in other news, a local couple is distraught over the disappearance of their 9/10 year old son ['Video' of Butters' dad with crying mom wondering where he is and threatening/promising a grounding]."
My $0.02
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3-20-2008 @ 2:30PM
David G said...
"this episode and the last one have both missed the mark. Maybe South Park is running out of ideas, because both episodes were just uncomfortable with few moments where I was actually enjoying it"
Exactly. Up until the last few minutes, this Britney episode was the most unfunny SP show I've ever seen. Last week's was almost as lame.
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3-20-2008 @ 3:15PM
MosquitoControl72 said...
Also kind of odd that they went from Paris Hilton being the biggest whore to Britney being unfairly persecuted.
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3-20-2008 @ 3:19PM
Joseph Bua said...
I have two Britney clips from How I Met Your Mother up at my blog.
http://iamatvjunkie.typepad.com/i_am_a_tv_junkie_a_blog_f/2008/03/video----britne.html
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3-20-2008 @ 4:46PM
JaK said...
His own "rear"? I don't see how a half headed Brittney Spears was posing a threat, he was obviously shocked. A better explanation would be that Cartman, although sick in his own way, is not as fearless as he leads on.
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3-20-2008 @ 5:08PM
Aaron said...
***SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT***
I was actually shocked when britney shot herself,though
they didn't do it to graphically but it was still shocking. I
must say though I did like the episode a lot it was actually
kinds serious and they had a great subcontext with some
good points,this episode has a lot more dark humor than the typical outrageous jokes,and they certainly take there
point all the way home.I wasn't really happy with the last 5 minutes because I thought when brit really died it was
sad and the whole conspiracy theme was already over used,I did like the miley cyrus joke though.
Highlights:
Hanna Montana Joke.
Everything That Had To Do With Butters In The Squirrel costume.
Horror Movie References.
And The All Around View Presented.
Bad Bits: Britneys Character Without Her Head (though this needed to prove a point)
Overall I Would Rank It A 8.5/10 Amazing But Not Perfect.
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3-20-2008 @ 5:18PM
Aaron said...
Peku you probably have never delt with mental illness
so just shut up. I might not like her music but I have sympathy for anyone who has to deal with such a
debilitating illness.
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3-20-2008 @ 5:26PM
JoJo said...
I love south park, but this eposode reali was sick. Britney should sue. It was ok upto when she shot her self. walking around headless wouldnt she have died???!!! kids watch this and This eposde was not funny.
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3-20-2008 @ 7:27PM
Axel Harris said...
I don't know what crazy world you live in. But last time I checked, South Park is rated TV-MA, which means mature audiences, which means NO KIDS. Now I know that doesn't stop kids from watching it, but you can't use that excuse to get them to stop from doing something like showing someone missing 80% of their head for most of an episode.