You know, the older I get the more I realize that life really is a matter of perspective, I mean if you think you've been having a bad week if you're feeling overwhelmed by failures, worries or embarrassing mockery from the people around you, then just keep in mind that it could always been worse. For example, you could be Bob Iger or Kathleen Kennedy, people with whom nobody wants to swap places right now!
It's no secret that people like them have come in for a fair bit of criticism over the years for their embarrassing mismanagement of the brands and Studios under their control, their Shameless pandering into identity politics and their gradual alienation of their own customers, but most of that criticism has been confined to social media and YouTube! It's not very often that mainstream Outlets much less people in their own industry felt brave enough to call them out. All of that changed a few days ago with the release of "Joining The Panderverse", in my opinion a mess which the world doesn't need and get nevertheless of course.🙄
This project is a South Park special that tackles issues like Disneys token diversity pandering, fan backlash, the lazy overuse of multiverses as a plot device and even AI in the way that only Trey Parker & Matt Stone possibly can and damn, did it ignite a firestorm online. Other people reviewed the episode far better than I can, so I'll skip the detailed plot synopsis and try to avoid too much scenes about this, because they seem to be clamping down hard on that for some reason, but the basic gist i that Cartman gets transported into another Universe where he and his friends are all played by strong diverse women of various races.
Meanwhile the Cartman from that Universe gets transported into our world with much hilarity, especially from PC principal who tries to Gaslight the other boys into believing there's nothing weird about someone they're known their whole lives suddenly showing up as a completely different race and gender. It's a perfect satire on the tired old "It's no big deal, why' you have a problem with it Bro?- argument", and it's neatly criticiced by the Cartman, the hero in this movie pointing out that a character like Miles Morales, who was created with his own strange personality is bad enough, whereas diverse characters created for the sole purpose of being diverse are completely nuts!
There's also a neat little subplot about all the handymen in South Park insanely richt because everyone else invested their time and money in useless college degrees to the point where they can't actually fix or do anything for themselves now and their jobs are all being slowly replaced by A.I. Out of my sight it's again a nice satire of the current state of modern culture, where people are racking up insane debts to get degrees they don't really need for jobs that are becomes obsolete anyway, but the real meat of the episode is the storyline between Cartman and Kathleen Kennedy, where we find out that Cartman's complaining about Star Wars eventually caused her to turn to a Pander Stone, a magical device that allowed Disney to keep making the same s*it movies over and over for decades but still be massively successful.
Again we've a pretty biting observation about the real Disney, although let's be honest, here I think Marvel were the biggest beneficiary out of that one. The more Kennedy relied on the Pander Stone rather than doing actual creative work to make good movies, the more it became corrupted and eventually opened a portal to another Universe allowing an evil version of Kennedy to come through with all her worst personality traits dialed up to 11 and lay waste to Disney's Movies.
As with the most stuff that South Park does, the whole storyline actually provides a fairly perspective on a highly divisive issue and despite what you might have heard, the Kennedy from our universe is generally portrayed sympathetically as well-meaning but slightly disconnected Hollywood executive who wants to make a positive difference to the world but lacks the creativity and dedication to actually get it done and instead finds herself constantly reacting to other peoples criticism ultimately turn into a quick lazy solution in the form of the Pander Stone.
The thing is, the only reason she does it in the first place is because of Cartman's constant whining and nitpicking about everything that she produces. Clearly the writers are taking aim at toxic fans who find reasons to complain about absolutely everything and the evil Kathleen Kennedy From Another Dimension is a pretty smart parody of the Monstrous franchise devouring bein that a lot of people have created in their minds, that probably has little or no connection to the mundane reality of the real Kathleen Kennedy.
To be honest, I'm perfectly fine with that! Believe it or not, it's possible to acknowledge there's a lot of a**holes out there who are basically impossible to please, but also that lazy appeals to social justice and identity isn't go to silence them if anything it's just going to give them more ammunition to criticize you with. Like I say, it's a classic example of South Park's ability to present both sides of an argument fairly, make fun of the most extreme and ridiculous elements and suggest that maybe, just maybe there's a sensible Middle Ground to be found beyond the extremes of both sides.
Screaming Woke about everything which contains rudimentary suggestionswith even contains the hint of suggestions serving international understanding or feminist aims (which, in contrast to the "diversity mania", do not necessarily all have to do with the madness of 60 genders, umpteen sexual orientations, pedophilia etc.), is just as unproductive as trying to race and gender swap every single character in sight! What's interresting now is the reaction to which was actually an attempt to find a middle ground in one episode with both sides of the culture War instantly claiming it as their own.
People on the right are like "Yeah, we totally owned those woke libtards with this one!", while people on the left seem to think "This whole thing was basically making fun of those right-wing chuds and they were just too stupid to see it!". Honestly though I see this as more of a step in the right direction, although the pervert lobby came off a little better, but at least it was also portrayed critically in parts, which means a lot in today's crazy times! It's a spark of hope for the silent majority of normal people caught up in the middle who are tired of this endless culture War Bullshit and just want some decent entertainment.
Those people are the ones this episode is really meant to appeal to and in that aspect it works perfectly! What's more important though is the long term implications of this. South Park is the first mainstream production to openly acknowledge that there is actually a real problem with how we're making entertainment these days. Yes, Hollywood is relying far too much lazy and tokenized diversity without any Artistic integrity to back up and yes, it's creating an increasingly antagonistic relationship with their own customers and yes, whatever their intentions might have been at first, Executives like Kennedy and Iger have played a big part in that!
This might be the first Domino to fall, but I suspect it's not going to be the last. The first step towards fixing a problem is acknowledging that it even exists, and that acknowledgement is out there now! It's being spoken openly for the first time and it makes me wonder how many other people that have stayed silent until now are finally going to grow a spine in speak up now that South Park have paved the way for them.
Personally my hope is the same one it's always been, that we can somehow find a way back to producing movies and TV shows that relied on good storytelling and character building to sell themselves and not how many sociopolitical boxes they could tick along the way.
Liking or disliking a new movie doesn't have to become the core of your entire identity or a way of beating the other side over the head in a never- ending battle for dominance. We're still a long way from reaching that goal right now, but we've just taken the first big step towards it and with a bit of luck, the next ones might just be a little easier.
....the cultural pendulum is now swinging back towards sanity.
When reality meets mental, utopian delusions, it tends to have that effect. lol