South Park and Philosophy: Bigger, Longer, and More Penetrating

by Richard Hanley (Editor)

Overview

Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s long-running Comedy Central hit cartoon South Park has been equally cheered and reviled for its edgy humor, poited satire of current events and celebrities, and all-around obnoxiousness. But is there more to Kyle, the lonely Jew, Timmy and the Crips, Cartman’s bitchiness, Chef’s inappropriate advice, and Kenny’s continued violent deaths than meets the eye? This collection of essays affirms that possibility. Individual chapters take a sometimes witty, often provocative look at “Is South Park a Libertarian Manifesto?", "That's So Gay!", and "Why Is Cartman Such an Asshole?”. The writers apply classical philosophical analysis to this two-dimensional dystopia, whether in Paul Draper’s “Why Good Things Happen to Bad People — The Problem of Evil in South Park” or Randall Auxier’s “Finding South Park on the Map: Officer Barbrady, Mayor McDaniel, and Chef in Plato’s Republic.” South Park and Philosophy presents new and thoughtful approaches to understanding this surprisingly meaningful show.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780812697742
Publisher:	Open Court Publishing Company
Publication date:	08/31/2011
Series:	Popular Culture and Philosophy
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	788 KB

About the Author

Richard Hanley is the author of Is Data Human? (formerly The Metaphysics of Star Trek). He contributed chapters to Superheroes and Philosophy and Star Wars and Philosophy, both in the Popular Culture and Philosophy series.

He teaches philosophy at the University of Delaware. Professor Hanley is co-editor of The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy of Language.

Table of Contents

Bullshit Alarms     ix
Religion and Other Disabilities     1
May God Strike This Book Down!   Richard Hanley     3
Team America; World Pussies, or This Is Not a Picture of Mohammed   Richard Hanley     13
Infidel Liberation   Richard Hanley     23
Pussy Epistemology Is No Match for a Dick   Richard Dalton     33
Politics and Other Sacred Cows     51
Die, Hippie, Die! South Park Liberals   Richard Hanley     51
The Death Camp of Tolerance   Richard Hanley     65
Pious Hindsight: South Park's Hybrid Vigor   Michael E Patton, Jr.     77
Drugs Are M'kay!   Richard Hanley     89
Nice Going, Fat-Ass!   Richard Hanley     99
Morality and Other Urges     103
White Jews Can't Jump   Richard Hanley     105
In Defense of Fags   Richard Hanley     121
Tomayto, tomahto...or, What to Do When Life Sucks   Richard Hanley     137
Animal Protein, or What Killed Ms. Choksondik   Richard Hanley     149
Are We All Cartmans?   Richard Hanley     159
Science, Logic, and Other Really, Really Clever Stuff     169
Time-Traveling Up Your Own Ass   Sophia Bishop     171
Start the Evolution Without Me   Richard Hanley     189
Why Timmy Can't Read: Mr. Hat's Philosophy of Progressive Education   Randall E. Auxier     199
Stem Cells, Numb Nuts   Richard Hanley     215
Humor and Other Insertable Devices     227
Killing Kenny: Our Daily Dose of Death   Randall E. Auxier     229
Chef, Socrates, and the Sage of Love   Randall E. Auxier     241
I Learned Something Today: South Park and the State of the Golden Mean in the Twenty-First Century   Aaron Fortune     259
Douching Your Truth Canal and Other Forms of Rational Hygiene   Tom Way     271
Who Sucks Ass?     291
Totally Inoffensive Index     295