Finally, “South Park” creators Matt Stone and Tray Parker are addressing the pervasive problem of wokeness in entertainment. In the show’s recent episode “South Park: Joining the Panderverse,” one of the main characters, Eric Cartman, is transported to an alternate “diverse” universe where every character in the show is now a “woman of color.” The whole story perfectly illustrates just how lazy and irritating it is to race- and sex-swap characters and rely on narrative contrivances like the multiverse to make it all connect.
Although the episode is characteristically unsubtle and crude (loads of repeated jokes and profanity), the argument it makes is surprisingly balanced. Yes, today’s popular entertainment has gone off the deep end with the wokeness, but there’s something to be said about the critics and fans who take their resentment too far.
While it’s healthy and normal to take issue with obvious woke signaling intended to pander to a leftist audience (as represented by Cartman’s friends), this can slip into a paranoid obsession for those fans who feel deeply betrayed and hurt by wokeness (as represented by Cartman who has nightmares about the Disney executive Kathleen Kennedy).
Furthermore, the episode makes the important point that diversity in itself is not a bad thing. Well-crafted plots and characters work with diverse and non-diverse characters alike — one character mentions Miles Morales from “Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse” as an example of this. This only degenerates into pandering when poorly developed yet diverse characters are shoehorned into an idiotic
