‘South Park' premiere skewers Trump and Paramount in fiery return
The delayed Season 27 premiere of the satirical show revolved around the ending of 'wokeness' and a Trump character suing residents of South Park for $5 billion after they protest Jesus appearing in local schools.
'I didn't want to come back and be in the school, but I had to because it was part of a lawsuit and the agreement with Paramount,' the Jesus character says, referencing Comedy Central's parent company and litigation around its pending sale.
'You guys saw what happened to CBS? Well, guess who owns CBS? Paramount. You really want to end up like Colbert? You guys got to stop being stupid,' Jesus continues, before referencing the Trump character. 'He also has the power to sue and take bribes and he can do anything to anyone. It's the f**king president, dude… South Park is over.'
The town agrees to settle and produce pro-Trump PSAs.
The Trump character is portrayed as a sensitive bully who threatens to tariff or sue anyone who disagrees with him in the episode. Never a show to shy away from controversy, one scene superimposes a photo of the president over animation, depicting Trump in bed with Satan.
'It's weird that whenever it comes up, you just tell everyone to relax,' the Satan character tells the Trump character about the Epstein case.
Longtime 'South Park' viewers will remember that the creators did something similar in 1999, when they depicted Saddam Hussein in a relationship with Satan. Wednesday's episode includes Satan telling the Trump character that he reminds him of a guy he used to date.
Just weeks ago, Parker and Stone expressed their dissatisfaction about the planned acquisition of Paramount Global by Skydance Media and its impact on their contract negotiations.
'This merger is a s**tshow and it's f**king up South Park,' the two wrote in a post shared on social media. 'We are at the studio working on new episodes and we hope the fans get to see them somehow.'
The season premiere this week coincided with an announcement that the two creators had reached a $1.5 billion deal to stream all 'South Park' episodes on Paramount+ with an order for 50 more episodes to air on Comedy Central.
A person familiar with the matter confirmed the $1.5 billion valuation for the 'South Park' streaming deal to CNN.
CNN's Brian Stelter contributed to this report
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CNN
44 minutes ago
- CNN
We asked experts to explain the Sydney Sweeney jeans drama
People in entertainment Genetics Race & ethnicityFacebookTweetLink Follow The great ongoing American conversation escalated into a great American bar fight this summer, as a long and increasingly unhinged national back-and-forth about race, politics, sexuality, the nature of both the Trump administration and fame itself was triggered by … a jeans ad. What happened? American Eagle released a campaign starring the exceedingly charismatic actress Sydney Sweeney. In one ad, she is seen clad in a revealing version of the Canadian tuxedo, veritably busting out of a not really buttoned jean jacket. But though the mere facts of her physical existence have ignited multiple national debates previously, in this case, the reason people are talking (and talking!) is that the ad's script had her making puns about genes and jeans. 'Genes are passed down from parents to offspring,' she says in one ad. In another cut, in which the camera aggressively zooms in on her cleavage, she claims: 'My body's composition is determined by my genes.' Some viewers immediately connected the genetics commentary to her brilliant blue eyes and blonde, fine hair. After all, it was just last October that Donald Trump was identifying 'bad genes' as a cause of invented or real crime committed by immigrants. Many felt that the ad was playing into this dark, not-very-concealed conversation about genetics in America. 'This is intentional. This is pointed, and you're calling out to the consumers that you hope to attract here,' said Cheryl Overton, a long-time brand strategist and communications executive. 'If American Eagle is really out there trying to target Americans to the right or to the far right, so be it. If that's who the product is designed for now, that is their right as a company to do that. But you have to know that folks are educated, folks are nuanced, and folks are willing to call brands out.' That calling-out was quickly followed by a louder and nastier wave of disdain that people would dare suggest the ad was intentionally about race — or that everyone was being stupid for talking about jeans anyway. 'There's been a lot of conservative finger-wagging, like, 'This is just a jeans ad,' said Emma McClendon, a fashion historian and assistant professor of fashion studies at St. John's University, who literally teaches a class on denim. 'But I think that that just plays also on stereotypes of fashion being frivolous, and this just being jeans. The reality is that there's nothing more intimate to our identity than how we outfit our bodies.' At the beginning of this week, a spokesperson for the White House weighed in, saying that all this ruckus was why Trump got elected, calling the criticism 'cancel culture run amok.' US Vice President JD Vance finally entered the fray at the end of the week, suggesting that the lesson Democrats 'have apparently taken is we're going to attack people as Nazis for thinking Sydney Sweeney is beautiful.' At last, as the week wound down, American Eagle issued a statement that was bound to make everyone a little unhappy. 'Great jeans look good on everyone,' they assured us. Do they? While American Eagle enjoyed a brief $2-a-share surge in its stock price during the controversy, all the rest of us got were a bunch of questions. Here are some answers. 'Our leadership team passed around some articles about it, and we were discussing whether we thought the American Eagle team when it first came out, did they understand? Were they trying to do something edgy and sexy that came across racist and didn't recognize that?' asked Kimberly Jefferson, senior vice president of client relations at PANBlast, a public relations firm that serves brands in the tech sector. 'A quick look at their leadership team: They're a very white organization. So did they just miss it? Or is this intentionally playing to at best, a conservative, at worst, a racist ideal system that is pervasively growing in America? We went back and forth on that. How intentional was this?' 'It seemed clear to me that they were aligning themselves with a white nationalist, MAGA-friendly identity,' said Shalini Shankar, an anthropology professor at Northwestern University who studies youth and advertising. 'I think that this is them trying to rebrand themselves for the present moment, and language is very deliberately used here. People don't invoke genetics casually. It's just, it's very, very easy to sell denim without ever referencing it.' Master of tension. And engines. Grab Syd's jeans before they're gone. 'This one is just the consequences of bad and, dare I say, lazy writing. I don't think it was funny or clever,' said Alyssa Vingan, fashion writer and former editor of Nylon and Fashionista. 'And I do think obviously it's cheap humor to have somebody like Sydney Sweeney, who's blonde with large breasts and a small waist, say she has good genes because she's hot. I don't think that it was much deeper than that. Unfortunately due to the climate we're in and things going on in America at large, it does read very, very, very poorly and insensitively.' 'There's something to the fact that this company is called American Eagle, she's in jeans, with a car, with a dog,' said McClendon, the fashion professor. 'In the current political climate, and then with the invocation of genetics, it feels like it's just playing on this broader, larger cultural social grappling we're having right now with what it means to be American.' They absolutely did mean it, said Emily Keegin, a freelance photo director — and lots of us are just pretending otherwise. 'It's interesting to see how the news organizations that we consider to be left or more liberal, like the New York Times, The Atlantic, New York Magazine, their op-eds about this from yesterday and the day before are downplaying the situation or saying that it's not a big deal, or that it was just a mistake, or something, like it was overlooked. It means that the institutions are willing to give a pass to these things that maybe they shouldn't be.' Probably not, but do you even remember all that now? 'Maybe two weeks ago? It was such a huge thing, and now everyone's moved past that,' said Hailey Knott, who is a social media manager for a global nonprofit and who worked at American Eagle for two years. 'You know that CEO stepped down because of all of that controversy. And now nobody even — in my opinion — cares about that anymore.' 'Rarely do you ever see something blow up so quickly as the kiss cam incident,' said Cyndee Harrison, a reputation and branding strategist and crisis communications specialist. 'But their response, I thought it was masterfully done. They had humor and they were creative and they just brought everything back into brand alignment. In my opinion, American Eagle had a perfect opportunity to follow that same playbook: Acknowledge, reframe and move forward with clarity.' They did not. 'Did it achieve the goal of getting people to talk about them and think about them? It did. The jury is still out on whether it's good for their business, whether it's going to increase sales, or whether it's bad for their business,' said Alison Weissbrot, executive editor at Adweek. 'I feel like this is a masterclass in attention economy,' said Sam Gauchier, a vice president at Michele Marie PR. 'I feel like American Eagle is riding the wave of controversy on purpose, just knowing that the outrage has become a form of its own currency — because everything at the end of the day is about how much money we can make as a brand, the amount of sales, the amount of clicks on an article, all of those things.' 'Advertising is having a really hard time for a reason. You know, people are getting laid off for a reason, and it's not just AI. It's incredibly hard to make a dent in our media landscape,' said Keegin, the photo director. Posters up. Secrets out: Sydney Sweeney has great jeans. Get them at the 🔗 'This is the modern formula for outrage marketing,' said Molly McPherson, crisis and reputation strategist. 'You spark debate, you drive engagement, you ride the wave. And then when the dust settles, American Eagle gets the clicks, the coverage and also the crash.' 'This wasn't a mistake per se as much as a kind of provocation that I think landed as it was intended to and that we should expect to probably see more of this type of messaging, given how — in many ways — successful this one was,' Shankar said. 'I'm honestly not a believer in all press is good press,' said Knott, the former American Eagle employee. She means because someone always has to clean up the consequences. 'This is a PR crisis for them, and it's coming at them from social media. The senior leadership team, they don't have to see that. The social media team does. So they're the ones taking the brunt of that.' Until Friday's company statement, the company's top post on Instagram, for around five days, was of a Black woman in American Eagle clothing. Some of the comments were 'keep it white ❤️ ❤️🇺🇸' and 'Love me some lib tears' and a lot of people saying 'damage control.' 'I think it's extremely telling that American Eagle hasn't posted on social media since Sunday or said anything, because in my experience, when I worked there, they're posting at least three times a day on social media platforms,' said Knott, of the week before Friday evening's statement. 'So if they're scaling back to zero times a day, it's a problem.' A post shared by American Eagle (@americaneagle) Not posting was probably wise. 'I think if this had been a client of mine, I feel like the first thing I would say is don't rush — take a beat, read the room, get curious about what people are upset about,' said Gauchier. She also found it telling. The brand silence 'also helps me think that this is calculated,' she said. 'I think we're all so sick of these brand apologies that feel very AI-written or written by the law firm, and don't really have any heart or soul. I think what people want to hear is: How'd you get here? Do you hear why folks are concerned? What will you do moving forward to make sure that your storytelling is welcoming to all? But if this is a strategy to give the middle fingers up to those of us who are quote, unquote, woke, message received. Mission accomplished,' said Overton. 'They are immediately very clearly pulling directly from the visual vocabulary of the Brooke Shields ad,' said McClendon, referencing the controversial 1980 Calvin Klein ad campaign. But 'the Brooke Shields ads were really purely about sex. The whole genes/jeans thing –– that's new,' she said. (Interestingly, Shields herself said she did not see her Calvin Klein ads as overly sexualized.) 'You can absolutely celebrate someone's body, and I mean, she is a beautiful specimen of humanity. But you can still celebrate that while being mindful of the narrative that you're shaping,' said Harrison. 'This isn't necessarily 'woke messaging,' it's just modern mindfulness around concepts like identity and beauty and belonging.' Highly sexualized ads are on brand for the moment, said Adweek's Weissbrot. 'We're kind of seeing a return of male gazey advertising,' she said. 'So I do think that, as the country kind of grapples with this rightward shift, advertisers are trying to figure out: What is the mood of the country? Do we appeal to what is the current zeitgeist, for better or worse? Or are we still going to try to meet different groups where they are?' American Eagle might, however, have scared other brands off sexy campaigns, or at least might have put a fork in this campaigns '90s-basement slightly porny aesthetic. 'If I was Gap and I had a campaign coming out and someone was like, 'Wow, that looks just like the Sydney Sweeney campaign,' I'd be like, 'Okay, no, like, we gotta redo this. We gotta, like, rethink this,'' said Keegin. Surprise, we already are. Dunkin' posted an ad this week with a sexy youthful star saying 'This tan? Genetics.' (Among many linking that campaign to the American Eagle campaign was a Dunkin' account Instagram commenter, who wrote: 'I'll be walking into Dunkin' sporting my AE jeans.') A post shared by Dunkin' (@dunkin) 'Whenever I'm working with clients and they have a new campaign coming, I always ask them, like, 'Okay, what is the goal of your campaign? Do you want more visibility? Do you want more sales? Do you want more conversion? Like, what is it exactly?' And if visibility is what they're looking for, then, you know, obviously I wouldn't gear them towards this specific strategy. But I wouldn't be surprised if other brands say visibility is what we're looking for, and someone might have the idea of doing something that blurs the line,' said Gauchier. Experts agree that Sydney Sweeney is always winning. She emerges from this national dust-up only more powerful than ever. 'Certainly, it makes me very uncomfortable to think that Sydney Sweeney, this particular human being, should be targeted,' said Sayantani DasGupta, a senior lecturer in narrative medicine at Columbia University who went to TikTok to talk about the ads. 'It's not about blaming or pointing fingers. It's about saying, we all live in this society. We all are both creating and perceiving these images, and we're all ultimately going to be impacted by them.' 'She is a massive movie star who is very smart about who she positions herself next to, the business decisions she makes, and also she is not really a public-facing figure in any way. She remains enigmatic in a way that if she was more personally online, if she expressed her feelings more, then I think she could easily get herself into trouble with stuff like this. But she's not,' said Sam Bodrojan, a freelance film critic. 'She is able to create conversation around her and create controversy around her, while also fundamentally never being a subject of ire directly. She is a subject of jealousy or envy or a broader symbol of something else — but nobody is ever really asserting that she is a bad person, and if they are, it just makes her more marketable.' These ads are a throwback to advertising that is proven to work because of reasons we might not like. Much of this type of advertising went out of fashion, but the success of this campaign means we might see more again. Rachel Rodgers, an associate professor of applied psychology at Northeastern University, did a study on the ads for American Eagle's flagship brand, Aerie, and how those ads impacted body image in 2019. The answer was: It made them feel good about themselves! They liked the 'best friend vibe' and seeing women whose diverse bodies looked like their own. Her belief was that the new ads featuring Sweeney would succeed — by making women feel bad and ugly. 'We know that typically, idealized and sexualized media images are detrimental to body image and to mood,' she said. 'They typically make people feel worse about themselves and are designed to do so, because that's one of the things that drives consumption.' For the campaign, the brand also made a limited run of jeans for Sweeney for which the proceeds would go to benefit the Crisis Text Line. 'The thing that has been lost, for me, is that this whole initiative is to benefit domestic violence and a domestic violence charity,' said Overton. 'That is something that has really been lost in the sauce with all of the accolades and criticism. If that was the talent's intention, if that was the brand's intention, they're failing on that.' No. We are done. May we suggest next learning about the demise of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting or the sport of wife-carrying?
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
American Eagle Defends Sydney Sweeney Ad Campaign Amid Controversy: ‘Her Jeans. Her Story… Great Jeans Look Good on Everyone'
American Eagle is standing by its controversial ad campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney, which includes various commercials with the tagline: 'Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans.' The campaign creates a pun around 'great genes,' which ignited outrage online over American Eagle glorifying the Emmy nominee's white heritage and thin physique. Some users on social media even compared the ads to 'Nazi propaganda.' 'Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans' is and always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story,' the company said in a statement posted on social media. 'We'll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone. More from Variety JD Vance Urges Democrats Angry Over Sydney Sweeney Jeans Ads to Keep It Up: 'Continue to Tell Everybody' Who Thinks She Is Attractive That They're 'a Nazi' White House Says Liberal Outrage Over Sydney Sweeney's American Eagle Jeans Commercial Is 'Moronic' and a 'Big Reason Americans' Voted for Trump Katy O'Brian Says Sydney Sweeney 'Didn't Care' About Getting Hurt During Fight Scenes in Christy Martin Biopic: 'She Was Like, "If You Break My Nose, That's Fine"' Sweeney's American Eagle campaign caused so much chatter online that even Trump's White House weighed in on the backlash, with communications manager Steven Cheung calling the backlash a prime example of 'cancel culture run amok.' 'This warped, moronic and dense liberal thinking is a big reason why Americans voted the way they did in 2024,' Cheung added. 'They're tired of this bullshit.' Vice president JD Vance also mocked liberals for creating a hysteria around the American Eagle campaign, saying on an episode of the 'Ruthless' podcast: 'My political advice to the Democrats is continue to tell everybody who thinks Sydney Sweeney is attractive is a Nazi. That appears to be their actual strategy.' Vance continued, 'I mean, it actually reveals something pretty interesting about the Dems, though, which is that you have, like, a normal all-American beautiful girl doing like a normal jeans ad, right? They're trying to sell, you know, sell jeans to kids in America and they have managed to so unhinge themselves over this thing. And it's like, you guys, did you learn nothing from the November 2024 election? I actually thought that one of the lessons [Democrats] might take is we're going to be less crazy. And the lesson they have apparently taken is we're going to attack people as Nazis for thinking Sydney Sweeney is beautiful.' Even Stephen Colbert, who frequently speaks out against Trump and the White House, called the backlash against Sweeney and American Eagle overblown 'Now, some people look at [the ads] and they're seeing something sinister, saying that the genes-jeans denim wordplay in an ad featuring a white blond woman means American Eagle could be promoting eugenics, white supremacy and Nazi propaganda,' Colbert said this week on 'The Late Show.' 'That might be a bit of an overreaction.' Sweeney has yet to publicly comment on the outcry over the advertisements. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week What's Coming to Disney+ in August 2025 What's Coming to Netflix in August 2025
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
Jimmy Kimmel Stands Up for Stephen Colbert with an Emmys Billboard Ad
"I'm voting Stephen," the billboard read in reference to the ongoing Emmy votingNEED TO KNOW Jimmy Kimmel is sticking up for Stephen Colbert amid Paramount/CBS' decision to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Jon Stewart, Seth Meyers, and more have previously come to Colbert's defense The network is facing allegations of political censorship due to Colbert's criticisms of President Trump's administrationJimmy Kimmel is standing up for Stephen Colbert amid the cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Kimmel, 57, appeared on a billboard ad in Los Angeles encouraging Emmy voters to vote for Colbert, 61. The billboard features a headshot of Kimmel beside an announcement of his own Emmy nomination for Outstanding Talk Series. In large white text below, the billboard read, "I'm voting Stephen." Variety was first to report the news. The billboard comes amid Paramount's decision to cancel Colbert after 10 seasons. In a statement from CBS previously shared with PEOPLE, the network said, "This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. It is not related in any way to the show's performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount." Colbert took over the show in September 2015 following David Letterman's departure. The cancellation came days after Colbert openly criticized the network's parent company for its sizable settlement with President Donald Trump. Following the network's announcement to cancel the popular program on July 17, several late-night hosts have shown solidarity for Colbert, including Kimmel and Jon Stewart, who hosts The Daily Show. Immediately following the cancellation news, Kimmel shared a clip of Colbert from the July 17 broadcast. "Love you Stephen," Kimmel wrote. He also called out the network behind the decision. "F--- you and all your Sheldons CBS," Kimmel added. In a fiery statement on July 22, Stewart, 62, said, 'If you're trying to figure out why Stephen's show is ending, I don't think the answer can be found in some smoking gun email or phone call from Trump to CBS executives or in CBS' QuickBooks spreadsheets on the financial health of late night." He continued, "I think the answer is in the fear and pre-compliance that is gripping all of America's institutions at this very moment, institutions that have chosen not to fight the vengeful and vindictive actions of our pubic hair doodling Commander in Chief. This is not the moment to give in." Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Seth Meyers weighed in too. 'For as great a comedian and host he is, Stephen Colbert is an even better person,' he wrote in a post on his Instagram Stories. 'I'm going to miss having him on TV every night but I'm excited he can no longer use the excuse that he's 'too busy to hang out' with me.' Members of the Television Academy have until Aug. 27 to cast their votes. Read the original article on People
