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America’s biting animated satire South Park has taken aim at Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr, the man whose perceived government overreach is at the centre of the political storm triggered by Disney yanking talk show host Jimmy Kimmel off-air for a week.
In a new episode of South Park aired on Wednesday night, US time, Kyle’s mother Sheila travelled to Israel to yell at President Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump’s relationship with Satan took an unexpected turn and, after Kyle complained to the FCC about a popular app at school, Carr was taken to hospital suffering toxoplasmosis.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr was the subject of South Park’s ire in the latest episode.Credit: Comedy Central/Paramount+
“His bones are healing, so he may regain full range of motion, but if the toxoplasmosis parasite gets to his brain, I’m afraid he may lose his freedom of speech,” Carr’s doctor warned, in a line which referred directly to the freedom of speech argument which turned Carr’s remarks about Kimmel into a test of America’s constitutional First Amendment.
The new episode drew media interest because it was the first scheduled episode after the killing of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. An earlier episode, parodying Kirk as a “master-debater”, has already been pulled from a planned repeat after Kirk’s death earlier this month. (Though it remains available via the Paramount+ streaming platform.)
That said, Kirk himself took the parody in good spirits. After it aired, he posted a video on social media welcoming the satire. “Honestly, it is hilarious,” Kirk said. “We have a good spirit about being made fun of. This is all a win. We as conservatives have thick skin, not thin skin, and you can make fun of us, and it doesn’t matter.”
The episode was delayed a week, which fuelled speculation that its broadcaster Comedy Central may have been skittish about the episode’s content. That would seem unlikely as they have largely allowed South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone to take aim at anyone they please in the show’s almost-three-decade lifetime.
Strange times in South Park.Credit: Comedy Central/Paramount+
“Apparently when you do everything at the last minute sometimes you don’t get it done,” Parker and Stone said in a statement released last week. “This one’s on us. We didn’t get it done in time. Thanks to Comedy Central and South Park fans for being so understanding.”
The US trade publication Variety recapped the episode in detail, here.
The Kimmel political storm exploded in the US because Carr, who has oversight of licensing both America’s TV networks and the local station “affiliates” which take the network feed in hundreds of smaller markets around the country, criticised comments by Kimmel about Kirk’s murder. “This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney,” Carr said. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
Conservative-owned ABC affiliate groups reacted to those remarks by threatening not to air Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and Disney itself reacted by suspending him. Kimmel returned to the airwaves earlier this week .
“This one’s on us,” said South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone about the episode’s delay.Credit: Comedy Central/Paramount+
The problem for Carr is that America’s First Amendment, often misunderstood as an entitlement to “free speech” in general, is actually explicitly designed to prevent governments “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”
Carr’s remarks drew almost unilateral criticism in political circles, including from prominent Republicans. Senator Ted Cruz likened Carr’s interference to the mafia, while another Republican senator, Jerry Moran, said, “the conservative position is free speech is free speech, and we better be very careful about any lines we cross in diminishing free speech”.
Unsurprisingly, the White House backed Carr, a Trump appointee, with Vice-President J.D. Vance characterising Carr’s comments as “making a joke on social media.”
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Disney is also facing increased scrutiny over its handling of the matter, with shareholders now demanding answers and access to “emails between board members ... and any communications between the company and federal government or political organisations.”
In a letter to Disney’s studio leadership published by the news website Semafor, the shareholder group said there was “credible basis to suspect that the board and executives may have breached their fiduciary duties ... by placing improper political or affiliate considerations.”
The letter says the Kimmel fiasco “sparked criticism as an attack on free speech, triggered boycotts and ... caused Disney’s stock to plummet amid fears of brand damage and concerns that Disney was complicit in succumbing to the government overreach and media censorship.”
According to reports, Disney’s stock fell by over two per cent last week, shearing almost US$4 billion off the company’s market value.
South Park is now streaming on Paramount+
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