Parody is protected under US law.
People can (and do) sue, but they lose every time because it’s easy for their well resourced corporate legal team to prove the show is parody and thus, protected free speech.
Also public figures have to prove “actual malice” in a defamation or libel case. Actual malice is an incredibly hard thing to prove.
Simple answer is they are careful about what they say and have good lawyers that review it.
A few examples.
Calling Tom Cruise a fudge packer in the context of him being in a bathhouse could eaisly open them up to liability for calling him gay. But doing it in a fudge factory while showing him putting fudge in a box gives them a clear defense that they meant it literally.
Simmaraly telling him to come out of the closet while he is actually in a closet provides cover.
Making things so absurd that a reasonable person wouldn’t believe it and know it’s a joke also works. So having Barbara Streisand aquire an artifact that makes her into a giant robot monster works but something plausible wouldn’t.
Having Kanye open up and admit he is a gay fish is absurd enough to provide protection. However they probably couldn’t get away with him simply coming out as gay.
Of course the genius of south park is they use these legal protections in ways that make the story funnier and not just for cover.
Simmaraly
You meant “Similarly” (like “similar” but with an “ly” at the end).
I did. My mobile keyboard sucks and changes things when I start a new word. I often miss it.
Telling people to suck on Chef’s Chocolate Salty Balls was one of my favorites parts of my fucked up childhood.
Reminds me that Scientology sent “private investigators” after Matt and Trey to find dirt on them, but ended up with nothing
https://www.avclub.com/scientologists-spent-a-long-time-investigating-south-pa-1798228087
You can’t damage the credibility of people who don’t claim to have any. And, in attempting to do so, you can only increase their credibility.
Matt and Trey don’t claim to be any more than a few jackass comedians with a TV show. Scientology’s MO really doesn’t work against guys like that.
keep in mind, we’re talking about the show that toppled Scientology.
just, for the record… part of how it’s able to make fun of shit is because they’re usually correct about the stuff they’re mocking.
Saying ‘Biden is a baby-sacrificing pedophile’ is defamation. saying ‘trump is a rapist and a fascist’ is not.
further, both parody and satire are in fact protected speech. at least, for the moment.
IANAL, but I’m pretty sure calling someone a rapist who hasn’t been convicted in a court of law of being a rapist could get you into trouble. Now the fascist part is completely subjective so you could probably get away with it.
Nope. I sincerely believe Trump is a rapist.
That’s not defamation because I have good reason to believe that.
Remember, the presumption of innocence is not a matter of fact- it’s an assumption that dictates procedural principles until it is in fact proven. But, if you rape some one… your a rapist. Period.
Simply believing a thing is true will not protect you from a defamation suit. You have to know he is, not just believe it. I suppose this varies from country to country.
I’m not obsessed with Donald Trump like most people seem to be, so I don’t follow his news much. I don’t have good reason to believe he’s a rapist, and prefer to wait until he’s convicted in a court of law, and would hope others would give me the same benefit of the doubt.
No, the fact that a judge ruled that he raped someone is what protects one from a defamation suit. At that point you’re just quoting the judge
Jury. A jury in 2023 found him liable for sexual abuse/defamation where Carol was awarded $5 million.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-rape-carroll-trial-fe68259a4b98bb3947d42af9ec83d7db
The verdict was split: Jurors rejected Carroll’s claim that she was raped, finding Trump responsible for a lesser degree of sexual abuse.
This year, another jury awarded her an additional $83 million for defamation.
I read three articles, and watched an NBC video, not one of them stated he was found liable for rape.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/19/trump-carroll-judge-rape/
This is what I was going off of. Sounded to me like rape. I’m no lawyer tho.
We don’t need something to “sound like rape”. If he was guilty of it, meaning there was sufficient evidence, in the jury’s opinion, the jury would have found him guilty of it. I’m sure they weren’t looking to do him any favors. Obviously the defense failed to prove their case relative to rape.
Now, did he do it? Probably. He’s a career criminal. But the line has to be drawn somewhere, and for me, if you’re found guilty of it, be it a criminal court room, or a civil one, that’s when I can safely say a person is what they’ve been found guilty of being.
Take emotions and opinions out of it, and just stick to the facts. He’s guilty in a civil case of defamation and sexual abuse.
Southpark isn’t sued as far as I know, but they have received massive criticism and even death threats from terrorists organizations.
They must be doing something right then
I always find it funny that this got them in trouble
This didn’t
But I’m still pissed this didn’t get aired:
what was the problem with the bear?
Mohammed was in there. There’s a big thing about Mohammed not being able to be down, so they have to hide him any way they can. The official release has a censor over the “lesson speech”, which is dumb AF given the message they’re censoring.
It got aired, the entire speech at the end was just bleeped out. I remember watching this live after all the hype, and in was pissed at cc for doing this. Buncha pussies
It’s a very fine line they would have to walk. It must be believable to the average person that the claims are true. It must not actually be true. It must be done with (the appearance of) malice. It must not be done as a criticism/satire of the target and their actions.
And on top of that, their publicist/PR must think a lawsuit will get them more than they lose. Once it’s aired, it is out there forever. It could then be the one that everyone seeks out and shares with friends, as “the one that Tom Cruise sued to get rid of”. This is known as “The Streisand Effect”.
As others have pointed out, US first amendment laws generally protect shows like South Park because it’s generally understood that the characters in the show that resemble real people are parodies, and the show runners aren’t stating a fact that the real person said or did a thing in reality.
Funnily enough, the UK has much stricter laws about defaming people - the country has a strict class system, and it wouldn’t do if poor people could embarrass rich people - there is a significant carve out for “vulgar abuse”. If I was to go on TV and (for sake of example) called Boris Johnson three shit-stained jugs of fetted piss wearing a trench coat, that would be ok, because people understand that to be a euphemistic insult, not a literal statement of fact. If I went on TV and said that he was a drunk, that wouldn’t be - unless I can prove that he is an alcoholic, he could sue me for libel. The outcome of this is that an equivalent show to South Park could be made in the UK, it would just have to be utterly filthy
In Penn & Teller: Bullshit, they did something similar. They pointed out very early they would be more vulgar than most people expect. This is because words like fraud, quack, scammer, etc were specific allegations that could land them in court. But words like asshole were not, and were much safer.
Relevant QI fact: youtube
Sorry YouTube link - you know the game
The outcome of this is that an equivalent show to South Park could be made in the UK, it would just have to be utterly filthy
I never wanted to see a hypothetical show as badly as this
I’ll sue you in England!
the country has a strict class system
Yanks pretending their country doesn’t have a class system on the internet has to be one of my favourite delusions.
Our class system is based entirely on how much money you have. The UK still has a legal aristocracy based on how much land your direct ancestor owned 800 years ago.
Have you not read the intro text?
South Park true understanding is only for people that achieved thinking out of the box.
Hijacking this, but, do people actually watch south park? My friend showed me a couple episodes, one was about cartman having a kanye on his shoulder that made him antisemitic, and the whole episode was pretty stupid. Also showed me a… parody? Of multiverse stuff, maybe? Had some sort of willy wonka figure and imaginationland and a bunch of off brand characters, and then they all died in a big war, that one was pretty stupid. Also showed me a one about the being evil and killing jesus on christmas, or something like that, which was also pretty stupid. Other friend showed me a dog the bounty hunter parody, also struck me as pretty stupid. They were all just really dumb, there was nothing really insightful about any of this subject matter in particular, it was just like I was watching whatever they were making satire of, but if it was decroded by like a couple IQ medians.
I dunno, most other adult-oriented animated comedies are also pretty bad and hacky, and also feel the need, a lot of the time, and especially in their “cultural commentary” episodes, to have something at the end which ties everything into a takeaway for the viewer, totally unironically. Like a children’s book that needs to have a moral or message. In south park, it’s always an extremely writer’s-POV here’s your takeaway “I am talking directly to the audience”, kind of way, which I find, just straight up pretty bad most of the time. I dunno, I really don’t understand how people watch this shit. It’s like a show that would come on inside of some other show as a shorthand that the people watching it are really dumb.
Yes people watch south park, and have their entire lives.
Is the show always good? No, some of the more recent stuff has been pretty downright terrible actually. Will I keep watching it? Yes. Crack Baby Basketball was probably the best commentary ever on why players at the college level can’t be paid. Do I always agree with them? Nope. I don’t know how you didn’t like the Kanye episode though, Cupid Ye was hilarious, and they were pretty much just straight making fun of him and immortalizing his breakdown.
They were blatantly wrong about climate change, which they addressed with the return of ManBearPig and Al Gore. They did trans issues almost a decade before anyone else did with Mr. Garrison’s Fancy New Vagina.
South Park has always been about fighting censorship, without them, it’s fair to say that we would not have had a ton of TV moments, largely because they cleared the way for others.
It’s fair if you didn’t like them, not everyone is into watching Santa do coke with Jesus and Randy. The whole show is basically about offending people and there have even been episodes I can’t get behind because it’s my turn. But to me, South Park will always be entertaining because sometimes they’re just plain silly, and sometimes there’s a deeper context.
The BP oil spill episodes, Crack Baby Basketball, Nascar is for Poor People, and episode 200 and 201 are all excellent commentaries on different issues. For just random hilarity, Die Hippie Die, Scott Tennorman Must Die, and the most recent Christmas Special are just silly episodes.
And if you don’t like it, that’s fine, not everything is for everyone.
