[S19E5] Safe Space
"Safe Space" is the fifth episode of the nineteenth season and the 262nd overall episode of the animated television series South Park, written and directed by series co-creator Trey Parker. The episode premiered on Comedy Central on October 21, 2015. It parodies the idea of safe spaces while also continuing the season-long lampoon on political correctness.
[S19E5] Safe Space
Randy films a commercial featuring poor starving children to support his cause to make the supermarket a safe space free of "charity shaming". Cartman, Randy, and others sing an original song about their safe space, with the song introducing the personification of "Reality", who threatens to destroy their safe spaces. Randy and others make a new commercial to support a shameless America in which citizens are not criticized for any of their attributes or actions. In order to pressure the Whole Foods Market cashier to stop asking him for donations, Randy tells him that he is hosting a charity fundraiser dinner for his shameless America. The cashier then asks Randy if he will help put a hamster through college, and eventually Randy replies that his fundraiser is actually aiding the cause of sending hamsters to college, for which the cashier happily wishes him a good day.
Abilene Paradox: #ShamelessAmerica wants their social media profiles sanitised of all negativity by having Butters monitor their accounts. Had they just endured the criticism or just ignored it in the first place, they wouldn't be inviting more criticism by embarrassing themselves in an attempt to deflect it.
An Aesop: Understand the difference between bullying and criticism and learn how to take criticism in a healthy way. You can't expect everyone to worship the ground you walk on and people will criticize you for any reason. You can embarrass yourself and do some extremely regrettable things when nobody tells you what you're doing wrong. However, some people can be too thin-skinned and egotistical to take criticism and would rather silence free speech than accept the good with the bad.
Broken Aesop: This episode's moral is essentially to start taking criticism and that reality is harsh without safe spaces, even though the previous episode portrayed critics as obnoxious people that should just be kicked out. So the previous episode depicted people wanting to have their opinion heard as entitled, and now depicts people who don't want to hear other people's opinions as entitled (Though this probably has more to do with the fact that people in the previous episode weren't just speaking their opinions, they were actively using them to bully people into giving them stuff.) More eye-raising is the fact that neither Trey nor Matt have active social media accounts, and yet dub a character representing brash online criticism as "reality". In reality the real-life persona of individuals does not always correlate to an online brash one. Furthermore, the episode makes use of the Appeal to Worse Problems fallacy by depicting poor third world children for having to filter out harmful comments for first-world people. This is despite the fact that online abuse can actually be life-threatening with the same episode showing Butters nearly committing suicide due to being exposed to too much negativity and sleep deprivation. (For that last part though, that was probably the point to show how those people care more about inflating their egos more than the wellbeing of people in third world countries). The episode, as do most people who criticize the concept of a "safe space," assumed that its purpose is to keep out 'reality' rather than allow people that are marginalized and attacked to take a break from the negativity they face every day. Intentional or not, the episode is basically victim-blaming.
Brutal Honesty: Reality shames the #ShamelessAmerica for doing more to help themselves than solve the problem they organised the party for. He also bluntly tells them that criticism is an unavoidable part of life and they were doing it as well without realising. For example, Vin Diesel showing off his abs in response to fat-shaming is, in fact, also fat-shaming.
The Bully: The Whole Foods cashier humiliates Randy for not donating money to the store's supported charities. This becomes more and more elaborate and exaggerated to the point it is obvious he is just using his position to heckle him. He later brings both Vin Diesel and Stephen Seagal to tears with passive-aggressive criticisms/jokes when they try to protect Randy.
Bungled Suicide: Butters survives his suicide attempt via jumping off a window and ends up in hospital.
Can't Take Criticism: The celebrities take advantage of the concept of safe spaces in order to remove any form of negativity from their lives. As a result, they are thin-skinned and will jump to any means necessary to reassert their sense of dominance over others. As shown by their characterisation in the episode, their attempts to ignore and deflect criticism has made them foolish cry babies.
Call-Back: Randy is seen purchasing gluten-free beer.
Clueless Aesop: Is the episode shaming people for wanting a break from negativity? Or is the lesson is that you should be careful about what you post online because you may invite negativity with what you post? The theme of the episode is that PC Principal tries fighting cyberbullying by making Butters filter out any negative comments. It escalates from Cartman to all sorts of celebrities who are too egotistical to take criticism or too thin-skinned to handle a bad comment they can just remove themselves. On one hand, people like Cartman should be more self-conscious about what they post and should just disable comment sections than just filter the good comments from the bad ones. On the other hand, safe spaces can be a relief to some people if they are in unfavorable positions on the internet. The lesson could also be about moderation; safe spaces can be healthy but you shouldn't use them as an excuse to abuse others or feed your own ego by avoiding constructive criticism.
Comically Missing the Point: Demi thinks the starving kids are lucky to be able to be so thin.
Dastardly Whiplash: "Reality", a physical manifestation of the harshness of real life who wants to tear down the safe spaces of others.
Didn't Think This Through: None of the people who put up pictures on the internet thought for a second that they would receive any negative comments.
Disproportionate Retribution: PC Principle basically threatens detention to any of the students picked who refuses to cater to Cartman's fragile ego and moderate his social media for him. It's taken to extremes when he volunteers Butters to do the same for various other people.
#ShamelessAmerica has Reality executed for calling them out on how thin-skinned they are.
Downer Ending: The #ShamelessAmerica movement decides to alleviate Butters' burden by forcing poor kids in third-world countries to filter their comments and Reality is publicly executed.
Driven to Suicide: When faced with the choices of continuing to filter the toxicity out of Cartman and the other celebrities' social medias, plus Reality threatening to kill him for what he's doing, or two weeks of detention from PC Principal and a grounding from his parents, Butters decides to attempt to kill himself, although he manages survive.
Hard Truth Aesop: There is a difference between bullying and criticism. No matter how harsh it may be, criticism can be constructive and can be handled in a way that can improve your life. Bullying, on the other hand, is just needless cruelty towards someone in order to make yourself feel better. You can be a bully if you don't handle criticism appropriately and you can end up embarrassing yourself when you fail to process criticism healthily. Freedom of speech goes both ways; you're allowed to speak your mind but others are allowed to as well, respect their choices no matter how much you disagree with them.
While freedom of speech is integral to the internet, you should have enough common sense to know what you should and shouldn't post. Cartman posting a shirtless picture of himself online and receiving hate comments is cyberbullying. Cartman posting a picture of his penis and complaining about commenters not worshipping the ground he walks on is outright ridiculous and shows that he should be more careful with what he does online.
Hypocrite: Cartman takes offense to people making negative comments about his weight, yet has no problem saying (and doing) far worse things to other people, often on the basis of their race, religion, or gender. Everyone who uses Butters to filter their social media profiles. They claim that negative feedback is harmful, yet they're okay with piling all of it onto one emotionally fragile boy.
Reality claims that it was every insecure persons' fault the Butters tried to kill himself, even though he threatened to kill him.
Heel Realization: The #ShamelessAmerica group make a clear expression of disbelief when they realise they spent more on their celebration dinner than what they raised for charity.
Insane Troll Logic: Both Cartman and Demi Lovato believe that since the social media comments they read after going through Butters' filter don't contain any negative ones, everybody who sees their posts must like them and they're more popular.Kyle: There's more than two people on the internet.
Internet Safety Aesop: The whole episode is about Cartman, Randy, and various celebrities feeling victimised because they are receiving hateful comments online. However, after conscripting Butters to filter Cartman's social media so he doesn't receive negative comments, it goes downhill very quickly. Butters is quickly overworked since he now has to filter Cartman's social media as well as #ShamelessAmerica's because they've become increasingly careless about their activities (such as Cartman posting a picture of his penis and Lena Dunham uploading a picture of her anus). Reality calls them out on this as they can't expect everyone to worship the ground they walk on and they are cyberbullies as well since they are silencing free speech to reassert their sense of dominance and bullying Butters so he can clean up after them. Reality informs them that Butters has been hospitalized because he was overworked and overstressed from having to filter their comment sections.Reality: What a lovely charity event, I bet you're feeling pretty good about yourselves hmm. What have you done? You have raised $300 by spending half-a-million on Filet Mignon and crystal glasses. Look at you, Vin Dipshit. You say fat-shaming is wrong so in response you show off your abs-YOU'RE THE ONE FAT-SHAMING, IDIOT! What's the matter? You're sad that people are mean? Well, I'm sorry the world isn't one big Liberal Arts College Campus. We eat too much, we take our spoiled lives for granted; feel a little bad about it sometimes! No, you want to put all your shit up on the internet and have every person say "Hooray for you"-fuck you, you're all pricks.
Irony: If anyone in this episode needs a safe space, it's Butters.
It's All About Me: Randy makes a PSA about how wrong "charity shaming" is, surrounded by the malnourished children he doesn't want to give money to. Then again, all he wanted to do was simply turn down making a donation until the Whole Foods Cashier kept tormenting him for it.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Reality might be vicious and cruel, and at one point attacks Butters because he thinks he's the one building safe spaces, but in the end is furious at others for driving a child insane because they're not tough enough to deal with it themselves. The Whole Foods Cashier repeatedly mocking and shaming Randy, but is doing so to coerce the man who comes into the store every day to buy expensive luxury foods into donating money to starving children.
Karma Houdini: The Whole Foods cashier who goes out of his way to publicly humiliate those who don't donate (or only donate a dollar) is never seen getting any sort of comeuppance for his behavior. Randy only manages to get around him in his last appearance by claiming his fundraiser will support getting hamsters through college.
My God, What Have I Done?: After seeing Butters hospitalized, PC Principal realized that he put Butters through more than he can handle and is openly regretful. Of course, he proceeds to create a solution that is far worse.
No Social Skills: The real problem of the safe space people is less that they can't take critic and more that they think posting their assholes, dick pics, or themselves in underwear in social media is not gonna attract negative reaction.
Paper Tiger: Despite being action film stars, Steven Seagal and Vin Diesel turn out to be incredibly insecure and easy to drive into crying fits.
Prone to Tears: Deconstructed, #ShamelessAmerica is just a group of hypocrites who went to extreme lengths to exclude any form of negativity in their lives. They're arrogant enough to think they're better than everyone else, yet fragile enough to crumble like a house of cards once someone lightly criticizes them. When Reality calls them out on this, they seemingly agree with him, until they decide to just execute Reality for making them feel bad.
Real After All: After seeing the "Safe Space" music video, you'd first believe Reality was a fictional character made exclusively for the video, but then he tries to attack Butters. You could easily dismiss it as Butters slowly going insane, but then Stephen tells Randy about Reality crashing #ShamelessAmerica's gala.
"The Reason You Suck" Speech: Reality delivers one to #ShamelessAmerica at their gala.Reality: What a lovely charity event, I bet you're feeling pretty good about yourselves hmm. What have you done? You have raised $300 by spending half-a-million on Filet Mignon and crystal glasses. Look at you, Vin Dipshit. You say fat-shaming is wrong so in response you show off your abs-YOU'RE THE ONE FAT-SHAMING, IDIOT! What's the matter? You're sad that people are mean? Well, I'm sorry the world isn't one big Liberal Arts College Campus. We eat too much, we take our spoiled lives for granted; feel a little bad about it sometimes! No, you want to put all your shit up on the internet and have every person say "Hooray for you"-fuck you, you're all pricks.
Sadistic Choice: After being confronted by Kyle, Butters has the choice of either continuing to filter the social medias of celebrities and Cartman and keep on dealing with internet toxicity and Reality's death threats, or get two weeks of detention at school from PC Principal and then a grounding at home from his parents. Butters then decides to kill himself.
Sanity Slippage: Being forced to weather through all sorts of online negativity takes a serious toll on Butters, to the point that he runs around school naked and jumps out a window.
Sunk Cost Fallacy: The #ShamelessAmerica banquet raised $300, after spending $500,000 on food and drinks. Reality being the way he is calls them out on this.
Take a Third Option: Butters is stuck between either helping pampered celebrities (and Cartman) feel good about themselves 24/7 or getting 2 weeks of detention at school and a grounding from his parents at home. He tries to commit suicide instead.
Take That!: To the concept of Safe Spaces and thin-skinned celebrities who need their social media to be filtered to only receive positive comments.
Matt & Trey must really hate The Fast and the Furious films if they have the Whole Foods cashier insult Vin Diesel by reminding him he's the star of them.
Villain Song: "Safe Space", a song all about how people need to be sheltered due to their own insecurities and how they need to be protected from reality.
Would Rather Suffer: PC Principal approaches both Kyle and Wendy before Butters about filtering Cartman's social media and threatens to give them two weeks of detention if they refuse. They both immediately opt for the detention.
Butters has gone insane because of all the negativity he has had to deal with, plus Reality threatening to kill him. When Kyle tells him to quit filtering the social media of celebrities (and Cartman's) and simply accept two weeks of detention (which would also lead to him being grounded by his parents at home). Butters then jumps off a window in an attempt to kill himself.
You Are Grounded!: Should PC Principal give Butters detention at school, his Abusive Parents will ground him at home.
041b061a72