The latest feature-length special South Park: The Streaming Wars has addressed one of the show’s most controversial mistakes once again. As a dark satire show, the anarchic animated comedy South Park has commented on all manner of social, cultural, and political issues throughout the show’s 25 seasons. Since South Park has an extraordinarily fast turnaround time, the show is uniquely positioned to comment on events as they unfold, which inevitably results in South Park making some jokes that age terribly.
While political satire was one thing South Park season 25 got right, with the series sharply critiquing coverage of the Ukraine/Russia conflict as it occurred, earlier seasons of the show were not always so fortunate. “Board Girls” (season 23, episode 7) was understandably criticized for transphobic jokes, although even this wasn’t South Park’s most infamous misstep. That came in the earlier episode “ManBearPig” (season 10, episode 6).
“ManBearPig” was an imaginary monster that former Vice President Al Gore claimed was causing chaos in the town of South Park in the episode's transparent allegory for climate change. South Park infamously implied that climate change and global warming didn’t exist, mocking those worried about the phenomena as ill-informed hysterics in the episode. Over a decade later, “Time To Get Cereal,” (season 23, episode 6) and its followup “Nobody Got Cereal?’ (season 23, episode 7) saw South Park it their mistake, with ManBearPig now being portrayed as a real, and really dangerous, phenomenon. The latest South Park feature-length movie, South Park: The Streaming Wars, doubled down on this, blaming ”Global ManBearPig” for the worsening water supply in Denver.
This gag proved South Park acknowledging that their dismissal of global warming was a mistake in season 22 was not a once-off. Not only that, but the show’s depiction of ManBearPig itself managed to display a more nuanced understanding of climate change and global warming than the series has ever managed before. In South Park: The Streaming Wars, ManBearPig is shown to be in league with big businesses who are profiting off water scarcity by buying up water rights and controlling the supply to make money off public use of a basic necessity.
While South Park’s contentious Tegridy Farms plot has shown that consistent canon isn’t always enough to keep the show’s stories feeling fresh and funny, making this depiction of ManBearPig a more real and more lethal threat than ever before does prove that the series is listening to its critics. While South Park has never been quick to concede a point, continuing to deny the existence of global warming in 2022 would be a very different position from mocking Gore’s claims in 2006. As such, it is promising to see South Park: The Streaming Wars once again it that one of the show’s most infamous episodes was a mistake — even if some of the show’s ill-considered subplots continue to age poorly as the series airs.