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Yahoo
41 minutes ago
- Yahoo
South Park's savage takedown shows Trump has picked a fight he can't win
Of all the dubious achievements of Donald Trump's time in office, the most surprising may be this: the US president has made South Park relevant again. The long-running animation – just days ago signing a record-breaking $1.5bn deal with Paramount to produce 50 new episodes over the next five years – used its long-awaited season premiere to launch a characteristically pugnacious critique of the president. Over the past weeks and months, Trump's antagonism towards his country's arts and media sector has intensified. Part of this has manifested in legislation – such as the cuts to PBS and NPR, the US's public service broadcasters, which were passed by congress earlier this month. The National Endowment for the Arts has undergone drastic cuts this year, slashing government investment in the humanities at a local level. At other times, Trump's ire has taken the form of litigation: Trump last year sued Paramount, the parent company of the network CBS, over what he contended was misleading editing in an interview with his opponent Kamala Harris ahead of the 2024 election. This month, legal action was also launched against The Wall Street Journal, NewsCorp and Rupert Murdoch, over the publication of the president's alleged birthday letter to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The fight with Paramount has an extra wrinkle: a proposed $8bn merger with Skydance Media, which requires the approval of the FCC, the federal regulatory body, to go ahead. Much of Paramount's recent decision-making has been interpreted as an attempt to pre-emptively pander to the forthcoming owners, and to the FCC, now under the leadership of Trump's hand-picked chairman Brendan Carr. This includes the announcement earlier this month that Stephen Colbert's popular TV stalwart The Late Show, long vocal in its criticism of the president, was not being renewed beyond next year. It was also announced that Paramount had agreed to settle what some have called the 'patently unconstitutional' Trump lawsuit for $16m – prompting claims of 'bribery' from Democratic senators. Titled 'Sermon on the Mount', the new episode of South Park folds these various controversies into one unwieldy blob of satire. One minute, you have South Park's breakout character, foul-mouthed schoolboy Eric Cartman, bemoaning the defunding of NPR. Later in the episode, Trump sues the town of South Park, with the figure of Jesus Christ – sent by Trump to impose himself in the local schools – telling the locals: 'You guys saw what happened to CBS! You really want to end up like Colbert?' The episode ends with the town being instructed to pay Trump $3.5m, and record a PSA of 'pro-Trump messaging'. These are, at least, the more tasteful criticisms of Trump that South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone deploy. Elsewhere, they resort to sledgehammer irreverence, South Park's usual weapon of choice. In one scene, Trump has a sexual encounter with Satan; another sees the cartoon president bare his genitals and reveal that he has a micropenis. Rumours that Trump appears on the widely discussed "Epstein list" are also mentioned. It's significant, perhaps, that South Park should enter its new era on Paramount with an episode that's so unapologetically anti-Trump. Where much of the entertainment industry has always skewed left-wing, South Park has always teetered somewhere in the middle, spitting its acid in both directions. It has a storied history of shunning political correctness, while never tipping over into right-wing reactionism. Parker and Stone's comic ethos – that both sides of any debate are usually just as fatuous as each other – has seen the show, and its creators, weather substantial criticism down the years. But they've stuck to it. South Park is, if not a voice of reason, then at the very least, a voice of uniform scepticism. You have to wonder what the bosses at Paramount are thinking right now; South Park hasn't just bitten the hand that feeds it, but torn it clean off the arm. (And in any case, it won't need feeding again for another five years.) The White House went so far as to issue a statement hitting out at South Park, branding it a 'fourth-rate show' that 'hasn't been relevant for over 20 years and is hanging on by a thread' – criticisms that might hold more water if the ink on a billion-dollar licensing deal wasn't still wet. Parker and Stone were unrepentant during an appearance at Comic-Con after the episode aired, while an administration source told Deadline that the president was 'seething'. There's a lesson in here, when it comes to Trump. For all the legislative power he wields, and the not-inconsiderable influence he may hold over parts of the entertainment industry, a war with television is not one he can win. The more he tries to impose himself, the more mud will be flung his way. And some of it, inevitably, will stick.
4 hours ago
Trump signs bill to cancel $9 billion in foreign aid, public broadcasting funding
WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump signed a bill Thursday canceling about $9 billion that had been approved for public broadcasting and foreign aid as Republicans look to lock in cuts to programs targeted by the White House's Department of Government Efficiency. The bulk of the spending being clawed back is for foreign assistance programs. About $1.1 billion was destined for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which finances NPR and PBS, though most of that money is distributed to more than 1,500 local public radio and television stations around the country. The White House had billed the legislation as a test case for Congress and said more such rescission packages would be on the way. Some Republicans were uncomfortable with the cuts, yet supported them anyway, wary of crossing Trump or upsetting his agenda. Democrats unanimously rejected the cuts but were powerless to stop them. The White House says the public media system is politically biased and an unnecessary expense. Conservatives particularly directed their ire at NPR and PBS. Lawmakers with large rural constituencies voiced grave concern about what the cuts to public broadcasting could mean for some local public stations in their state. Some stations will have to close, they warned. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said the stations are 'not just your news — it is your tsunami alert, it is your landslide alert, it is your volcano alert.' On the foreign aid cuts, the White House argued that they would incentivize other nations to step up and do more to respond to humanitarian crises and that the rescissions best served the American taxpayer. Democrats argued that the Republican administration's animus toward foreign aid programs would hurt America's standing in the world and create a vacuum for China to fill. They also expressed concerns that the cuts would have deadly consequences for many of the world's most impoverished people. 'With these cuts, we will cause death, spread disease and deepen starvation across the planet,' said Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii.
News24
4 hours ago
- News24
‘Desperate' and ‘irrelevant': White House slams ‘South Park' Trump parody
South Park's season premiere mocks Donald Trump with controversial AI-generated scenes, drawing sharp criticism from the White House. The White House denounced the show, calling it 'desperate' and 'irrelevant' despite its 27 years on air. The episode comes as Paramount secures a $1.5 billion streaming deal and navigates merger talks with Skydance. The White House lashed out at the creators of South Park on Thursday after the bawdy satire skewered Donald Trump in an episode featuring an AI-generated version of the US president crawling naked through a desert. In a no-holds-barred season premiere, the animated Trump character is also seen begging Satan for sex, only to be rebuffed - in part because his penis is too small. The White House was not amused. Spokesperson Taylor Rogers said: This show hasn't been relevant for over 20 years and is hanging on by a thread with uninspired ideas in a desperate attempt for attention. 'President Trump has delivered on more promises in just six months than any other president in our country's history - and no fourth-rate show can derail President Trump's hot streak.' The adult animated series, which frequently touches on hot-button issues in American life, is now in its 27th season and remains one of the world's most valuable TV shows. The season premiere begins with the foul-mouthed Cartman appalled that NPR has been taken off the air by the president, while Randy, a parent, is disturbed by the presence of Jesus in public elementary school. Complaints to the fictional White House receive only a threat from Trump to sue the mountain town of South Park for billions of dollars. Meanwhile, animated Trump is threatening to bomb Canada 'like I did Iraq.' 'I thought you just bombed Iran,' the Canadian prime minister replies. 'Iran, Iraq, what the hell's the difference?' replies Trump. The episode, which sees the fictional Trump ride roughshod over many aspects of American life, ends after the town of South Park makes a financial deal with the president, including an agreement to make public service announcements. The AI-generated short that follows - ostensibly one of those announcements - shows an overweight Trump staggering through a desert as a narrator casts him as a latter-day Jesus. The short ends with a naked Trump as the narrator says: 'Trump. His penis is teeny-tiny, but his love for us is large.' Watch it here At a Thursday panel at pop culture event Comic-Con in San Diego, South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker revealed internal discussions over depicting a fake presidential phallus. 'They're like, 'Okay, but we're gonna blur the penis.' And I'm like, 'No, you're not going to blur the penis,'' Parker told the audience. After 'a whole conversation with a lot of grown-up people for about four ... days,' Parker said they decided to add eyes to it to avoid it being blurred. View this post on Instagram A post shared by South Park (@southpark) Merger The episode aired days after creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone reportedly penned a $1.5 billion streaming deal with Paramount that gives the company global rights. The deal comes at a sensitive time for Paramount, which is trying to secure government approval for a multi-billion-dollar merger with entertainment company Skydance. The CBS parent caused a furore this month when it agreed to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit Trump had brought over an interview the storied 60 Minutes current affairs program aired with Kamala Harris ahead of last November's election. The payment was criticised by Democrats as little more than a bribe to help smooth the merger, with Paramount initially dismissing Trump's lawsuit as meritless. Last week, CBS sparked fury after it cancelled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, whose host is a pointed critic of the president. The network insisted it was a financial decision, but opponents have painted the move as the latest example of American institutions bowing to Trump.
