John Dyro Professor Angel Matos Multimedia Writing and Rhetoric 23 Oct 2012 The Comedy Central show

South Park is infamous for its crude and offensive humor. Because it is on a cable channel and not on network television, the show gets away with offensive language and jokes that its counterparts, such as the Foxs also-crude Family Guy would not get away with. Due to its mature, and often immature, content, people may assume that South Park has nothing to say about important issues, such as religion or politics. On the contrary, the show often makes strong and poignant political points, weaving logic and emotion into its various plots and using strong characterization effectively to make its points. One example of a rhetorically charged episode of South Park is Butt Out, an episode in the seventh season of the show that depicts the battle between anti-smoking groups and big tobacco companies. This episode is full of wit, humor, impressions, and arguments, and effectively demonstrates why anti-smoking groups are hypocritical, while providing a shining example of how South Park uses rhetoric effectively. Butt Out is one of South Parks most sarcastic episodes. The sarcasm in evident in the episodes very title, which is a not-so-veiled comment to anti-smoking groups. The opening scene features the performance of an anti-smoking group called Butt Out, a tour group which sings and dances to teach children about the dangers of smoking. The group is annoying and cheesy, too caught up in wanting to be cool to actually make an impression. Their cheesiness actually drives the four

main characters of the show, all children, to take up smoking in an attempt to avoid being like the tour group. This short storyline takes only two minutes of the episode, but it already makes a strong statement against the way we present issues like smoking to children. When discussing important issues such as smoking, it is important for adults to treat children seriously so they understand the importance of what theyre being taught. South Park presents this message through humor: obviously fourth graders arent likely to smoke directly in response to a goofy song and dance group. However, the message remains the same: try to indoctrinate kids without respecting their intelligence, and it will backfire. After smoking and inadvertently burning down the school, the boys find themselves in the principles office, which is really just a desk on top of the burned ashes of the school. The boys parents are called in, but instead of being in trouble for burning the school down, the principle and the parents are furious about the boys smoking. Once again, South Park is using satire to make a point. In the face of the school being burned down, smoking would seem like a secondary offense, but the parents and teachers only care about their children smoking and dont seem to mind the school burning down. While of course it would be horrible for a fourth grader to start smoking so young, it would be worse for a fourth grader to burn down his entire school. South Park is demonstrating how irrationality can play into the decisions of teachers and even parents, and how stereotypes about certain behaviors can overrule rational responses to situations. The viewer has an emotional response to the irrationality of those authority figures who respond to the situation, and this emotional response is intended to turn the viewer against

people who treat smoking too harshly. This initial emotional reaction is meant to set up the negative emotions which will be felt against the next major anti-smoking character in the plot, Rob Reiner. The key twist to the plot comes in the scene in the principles office, when the boys parents, after initial outrage at the thought of their children smoking, come to the realization that the boys werent responsible for their smoking at all, but in fact were tricked into smoking by the big tobacco company located near the town. The parents decide to blame the tobacco company for no reason in particular; the tobacco company is not mentioned until this scene and it is apparent the boys decided to smoke of their own free will. While on the surface this joke may seem to simply poke fun at the stupidity of the boys parents, it in fact makes a serious point about a basic tenant of the anti-smoking movement: that tobacco companies are evil and responsible for causing people to smoke. The assumption that smokers were caused to smoke out of anything except their own free will is a preposterous one, and blaming smoking on anyone but smokers removes responsibility and makes excuses for people who do not deserve them. South Park uses emotion, namely the frustration viewers will feel in response to the sheer stupidity of the parents actions, to further instill in their viewer a sense of hostility towards the antismoking, anti-tobacco message. Even without thinking about the issues, a viewer still would feel negatively about anti-smoking campaigns, which is the rhetorical purpose of the episode. As many episodes of South Park do, Butt Out also took time to spoof a celebrity, in this case Rob Reiner, an outspoken proponent of smoking bans. Rob

Reiner is first seen attempting to exit a vehicle, which he finds difficult due to his enormous fatness. He is almost always eating, a not-so-subtle reference to the fact that obesity is just as dangerous to health as smoking. Rob Reiners voice is lispy and annoying, another attempt to arouse emotions of annoyance in the viewer. His stomach constantly bulges out of his shirt and he often chews with his mouth full of food. Rob Reiner, called in by the parents of the town to deal with the tobacco company which is poisoning their children, disturbs the boys with the questionable ways he aims to discredit the tobacco company. His first plan involves lying about the tobacco company providing children with cigarettes, and he drags the boys along with him as he infiltrates the processing plant. His second plan involves claiming Cartman, one of the four main characters in the show, is dying of lung cancer due to second-hand smoke and then actually murdering Cartman to make the claim seem legitimate. These plans drive the children to realize that Rob Reiners inclusion in the plot is not simply meant to mock him. He serves an important role as the embodiment of all that is wrong with anti-smoking campaigns. He is described as the greatest anti- smoking celebrity there is, a.k.a. a personification of anti-smoking groups. Reiners character is the most effective rhetorical device used by the producers of the show. Like many other aspects of the show, he is intended to arouse emotion in the viewer. Viewers are supposed laugh at his eccentricities and hypocrisy, as well as turn up their noses at his ruthless methods of getting what he wants. The show makes it easy for its audience to see the error in the logic Mr. Reiner employs, that doing bad things for a good cause is not acceptable, and that telling other people what is and isnt healthy for them is not the job of governments

or special interest groups. By taking the philosophy of anti-smoking interest groups and personifying it in a single character, the show can easily take shot after shot at the character and apply those insults to the entire group of people. The purpose of portraying Rob Reiner is of course partially to insult him; but more important rhetorically, the purpose of the Rob Reiner character is to personify all the worst traits of anti-smoking interest groups in order to serve as an easy example of why these groups are so wrong in their message. After being introduced to Rob Reiner as victims of the tobacco company, the boys are taken to the tobacco factory itself in an attempt to frame the tobacco company for providing cigarettes to minors. The tobacco company is also a rhetorical device used by the producers, meant to be the opposite of the dark, twisted house of usury Rob Reiner portrays it as. The Vice-President of the tobacco company eagerly gives the children, along with Rob Reiner posing as their Mother, a tour of the tobacco company, and describes the history of tobacco in America. The crux of his speech is that, now that health labels are printed on all tobacco products, the American consumer is fully aware of the dangers of tobacco consumption, and can now make a free and fully informed decision about whether or not to use tobacco. Individual responsibility and freedom are the main themes of episode; the writers point is that one group of people telling other people what is bad and what is good for them is inappropriate, and that a fully informed citizen deciding to assume the health risks associated with smoking is something the government should not get involved with. The tobacco company, with its kind (and musical) employees and its reasonable mission, is meant to be juxtaposed with Rob Reiner.

Introduced directly after one another, Rob Reiner is annoying, irrational, and sleazy; while the tobacco company is welcoming, instructive, and grounded. The viewer makes an instant comparison between the character and the setting, and inevitably views the tobacco company as more favorable. Juxtaposing these two rhetorical devices gives the shows argument more weight by combining the effects on the viewer of disliking Rob Reiner and appreciating the tobacco company. The rhetorical devices available to television shows are varied and wideranging. Pictures, sounds, clips, characters, and plot all combine to convey a message to the viewer. South Park is no different than any other show: it uses the resources available to it to convey to its considerable audience a message which changes from episode to episode. It is important for fans of South Park to realize that, beneath the crassness and the obvious skill with humor, the writers and producers of South Park, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, have an agenda, and that every one of their episodes conveys a certain message. An obvious example of this is Butt Out, an episode which may on the surface seem to exist solely to mock Rob Reiner anti-smoking groups, but which, through the use of many rhetorical devices, makes a strong point about individual freedom and responsibility, along with ethics and morality.

Works Cited: Butt Out South Park Writ. Trey Parker and Matt Stone Comedy Central, Web