https://southpark.fandom.com/wiki/The_Big_Fix
Maybe someone who is more hip and with-it can explain it for me, if there is a joke at all. In the episode it is revealed that Token's name was always Tolkien because his dad liked Tolkien's books. Apparently everyone but Stan knew that.
Stan feels bad for being "racist" so he tries to help Token/Tolkien by making LotR required reading at school. The reveal is that Token/Tolkien hates the nerdy Tolkien stuff. This is obviously a dig at SJWs for misguided activism but at the same time forgives them for being "sincere".
There is a Dr character directly lecturing the viewers that if they thought the name was Token that they are horrible racists, that may be the writers apologizing for the original joke?
The meta joke, imo, is that with the reveal Token's name is being changed everywhere, including the wiki article I linked, 1984 Ministry of Truth style. And that is funny in a nihilistic, laugh at the burning world, kind of way.
The B plot of Randy needing a black business partner to show "equity" so he takes on Token's dad as a literal black token is more straightforward.
I thought it was just a pretty direct jab at SJWs turning the characters from the works of Tolkien black.
This episode just didn't have a lot of laughs in it. I thought it was a lame episode. The first episode this season was much better (Pajama Day). South Park has always been pretty "hit or miss" though.
Honestly, I thought their move to HBO was going to give them more freedom to be edgier. But, of course not, not when even South Park is afraid of the woke mob.
i think HBO is less woke than comedy central is these days, tho
I recall Santa Inc airing on a certain channel called HBO Max
and i'm gonna one up you with this show that got signed for 5 seasons on comedy central: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAKgcgISc8c
Lol no adult male with testosterone acts like how those two men were "dancing" or whatever.
Most things they write are like that, a half-critic and sometimes they miss the point entirely, there was one about girls getting in to guys hobbies that pissed me off.
I still think they are funny because they can still make fun of leftism and get away with it. That being said I think you are correct, they want to move away from Token because of possible blowback and at the same time make fun of leftist activism and forced tokenism.
You know you're talking about South Park, right?
The show that won’t show Mohammed and pulled the episodes with him in it? That was, oh, a decade ago, they haven’t gotten better.
I want you to think of all the counterculture "not afraid of backlash" icons that have bowed to the woke in the last few years and ask why South Park would be immune.
If there's one lesson people should have learned in the past 10 years it's "everyone has sacred cows"
Token's name has appeared in official media in print form for twenty years. I doubt they're trying to actually retcon the name - even the 2018 video game had it in there. Token's name was Token.
South Park went off the rails with the first episode of November, 2016. They haven't really known what to do with it for the last six years. I don't hold a lot of hope for the future of the show.
Was it South Park that went off the rails or has clown world reality manifested itself to be more ridiculous than fiction?
They moved from self contained episodes, or miniarcs, to season long dramas with an actual required watch order to understand them. All so they could make jokes about Trump and internet trolls.
That's entirely on them.
I think in the worst timeline, they countinued doing the same sort of establishment-mocking one-off episodes they'd always done, but they didn't have any idea where to go when Trump won -- they couldn't keep mocking the "powerless" left without implicitly supporting Trump, and there wasn't enough about Trump to mock in a funny way, so they became unfunny by default.
I think they ran out of shit to do. I think they should have quit a long time ago.
I thought the episode (and the PJ one) was pretty funny. These are the guys who put a black kid named Token in the show a long time ago, so they are "the racist pieces of shit" whom they decry in their own show. This is intentional to show how stupid it is to retcon all racial commentary out of legacy media.
My main problem with the SP guys for a long time is that they won't touch leftist politicians. I don't know why - are they one the left side (don't think so), are they actually scared of political blowback (I hope not), or do they think its too much low hanging fruit? They went off on Trump/Clinton and then shit on Trump for while - but haven't said a word about the most inept world leader in history?
I didn't get that it was showing how retconning is stupid. It came off to me how they sincerely felt bad about the original joke. But the only way to back out of it is to do a ridiculous retcon and throw around the "racist" accusation as a way to deflect criticism.
So maybe part of the message is that calling people "racist" is projection but since it was played straight in the show it just mad me sad.
The 'Token Black' joke is one of the last remaining pop culture reminders that the forced diversity we now see everywhere used to be widely mocked, for its obvious corporate insincerity. Considering that the new LotR show is one of the biggest examples of this racebaiting yet, there could be a clever joke in there somewhere about Tolkien-Tokenism or something like that.
Not much interest in watching it though. Clown world made South Park redundant. Reality regularly parodies and ridicules itself far worse than any mockery SP could direct at it, but the absurdity seems beyond a joke any more.
Not gonna lie, that is amazing.
No wonder south park is still going strong whilst the simpsons became unwatchable close to two decades ago.
Its interesting how the former libertarian Trey Parker and Matt Stone have been getting influenced by the corporate propaganda networks. The shots are amazing and you are a horrible person for not taking an experimental mRNA vax with 9 months testing, a gay 8 year old couple and now removing the Token joke and pretending it never was a punch line.
To me is appears they don't want to get cancelled so they will go a lot more middle of the road and hire sensitivity readers as part of their staff.
Haven't watched beyond their first serialized season. I only saw the transgender athlete episode but this feels very, very weird. Token has always been Token, this is forced and I don't even know who it's making fun of anymore.
They aren't making fun of anyone but themselves to get on their knees to the mob for a joke they put out a decade ago. If they get a question from the press they'll say they evolved or it was always tolkein and tell the reporter he's racist for thinking that as a dodge, watch. It's all about not getting cancelled by the hate mob for them.
I posted this to Gab
It is justified. Tolkien was an African.