Grab Them By The Laugh : An analysis of South Park’s satire on Donald J. Trump and his Presidential Campaign

Abstract: The purpose of this bachelor’s thesis is to analyse how the American adult cartoon sitcom South Park (Parker & Stone, 1997) is criticising Donald J. Trump and his presidential campaign through the use of satire and the relative tools of satire. The show prominently features arguably bizarre plotlines and themes, with usually unexpected outcomes. The subject South Park and satire, both together and separated, has a fair share of previous research in articles and literature. However, South Park’s well-known, sharp, ruthless and absurd satire, in this case, towards Donald J. Trump has shown to be rather under-researched, probably due to the topic being still relatively fresh. Therefore, looking at how South Park effectively uses one of their own original characters, Mr. Garrison, to represent and satirise Donald J. Trump and his presidential campaign is motivated. The thesis is limited to only analysing two episodes from South Park season 19 (S19E02 & S19E08) and South Park season 20 including all ten episodes. South Park episodes does most of the times have two to three plot lines running simultaneously, thus this thesis also imitates itself to only analyse and focus on satire towards Donald J. Trump and his presidential campaign, and not analysing, for example the internet troll controversy based story, known as Skankhunt42. To be able to do a satirical analysis, this bachelor’s thesis has on forehand established a theory on what satire is, before analysing the satire. This is due to the term satire being a very loose and complex term, difficult to determine and encapsulate. This bachelor’s thesis is the result of a satirical analysis the satire of South Park towards Donald J. Trump and his presidential campaign, by uniquely using their original character Mr. Garrison to act as a satirical representation. It has through the analysis come to conclude that South Park as a show creates a solid satirisation throughout second, and eight episode of season 19, and every episode of season 20 until episode seven, Oh, Jeez!, where Donald J. Trump had only managed to become president-elect, but in the show, Mr. Garrison had actually become president. Making the satire redundant from that point.