'08
South Park parodied the media coverage of Britney Spears in a new episode on Comedy Central last night. I’m not a huge South Park fan, but the show started out hilarious and ended with a creepy message that had me nodding.
The episode starts with the kids sitting around watching a television debate between Obama and Clinton, which is interrupted with breaking Britney news. Reporters go crazy over the news that Britney is camping in Colorado and that she took a pee outside on a ladybug. The newscast states that Britney has since moved to a hotel. Cartman notes that she’s in their town, South Park.
Once the guys learn that the photo of Britney peeing earned $100,000 they decide to go find her at the local hotel.
Kyle: “$100,000 for a picture of Britney peeing on a ladybug. Imagine what a picture of her crapping on a squirrel is worth!”
The guys claim to be Britney’s kids to gain access to her hotel room and once she learns that she was tricked she gets depressed and shoots herself in the head.
Britney survives, but she’s headless. It’s gross, but you can’t help laughing.
They sneak Britney out of the hospital and help her stage a singing comeback, in which she can only grunt because she has no head. The people in the studio make fun of her and call her fat and a train wreck.
After that Britney performs on the MTV Music Awards, with people calling her fat and saying that she’s lipsynching. The fact that she doesn’t have a head is mentioned as an aside.
The guys try and save Britney and shield her from the paparazzi. Kyle eventually gives a lecture to the media about how it’s time to let Britney go before it’s too late. A photographer says “Son, you don’t seem to understand. Britney Spears has to die.”
It goes on from there, with the press explaining that “Our lust for torture and death is no different than it was in gladiator times. The only difference is now we like to watch people put to death through magazines and photographs.”
Photographers eventually surround Britney and photograph her to death in a scene that’s reminiscent of the public stoning in that famous short story by Shirley Jackson, “The Lottery,” in which a town holds a lottery to see who will be killed to ensure a good harvest.
Everyone in town acts normal afterwards and life goes on as usual. The news then breaks to a story about Miley Cyrus and the townspeople start chanting eerily, setting her up to be the next victim.
I enjoyed the way this episode skewered the media frenzy surrounding Britney and made them look like clueless swarming zombies. It really had a good message.
Here’s the clip where Britney shoots herself. Warning: it’s violent.
A clip where the news makes fun of Britney’s cameltoe.
And Britney is photographed to death. Again disturbing.
If you want to watch the whole episode, I’ve clipped it into three segments. Thanks to Redlasso for making the television streams available.
Britney Spears on South Park Part 1
Britney Spears on South Park Part 2
Britney Spears on South Park Part 3
Written by Celebitchy
Posted in Britney Spears, South Park
16 Responses to “Photographers kill Britney Spears on South Park (spoilers & cartoon violence)”
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south park is almost always genius. their scientology stuff is great… especially when Chef dies.
the only time they’ve missed the mark that i’ve seen is their Paris Hilton parody… they missed the mark on that one and went for the lowest common denominator. But yeah I knew their britney episode would be good.
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My favorite episode of all time is the musical telling of the Book of Mormon.
I love this effing show.
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Musical telling of the book of mormon??? Youtube is gonna be in overdrive this morning.
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As much as I dislike Britney I definately have a tiny bit of empathy & I thought the episode was funny (& sad). My favorite episodes are: 1. The closet-Tom Cruise parody 2. The Butters show 3. & definately the moromon one (dum dum dum dum dum)
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Yeah, I watched the first half of the episode and thought, “This would be funny if it weren’t actually true, and thus kinda sad.” And then when they were like “No, we’re actually TRYING to kill her,” I was like, oh. Makes sense. It was actually a pretty high-brow episode, for South Park.
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Remember folks…Tom Cruise tried to SUE the crap out of South Park for that episode. No sense of humor.
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Would have made a better story for those freaks if true, huh? too bad Britney is mending and back to wrok and seeing her boys and being kept form the FREAKS! Go Britney!!!
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This South Park episode has been the most pro-Britney sympathetic artistic expression I have ever seen and has changed my perception of her circumstances. I’m Seriously. I do worry about her and wish I could help her somehow, but the only way she can find peace is to try to get away from it all. I hope she can before they destroy her.
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And, yes, I know it was a warped retelling of the eminent Flannery O’Conner’s “The Lottery”.
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Sorry - Shirley Jackson wrote “The Lottery” - my bad!
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I think the 14 yr. old boys that watch southpark watch for the obvious surface humor (haha, she doesn’t have a head, yet still walks around, hILARious!) but what I love about the show is that every episode says so much more without saying it at all! Seriously, those guys are effing genius!
I think they were pointing out how we all crucify Britney in the news when in reality she isn’t well and she’s lost her mind (or in this case “head”). Very true. and sad.
**too bad their target audience probably won’t glean any higher message from this episode. they’re the ones who need to hear it**
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I watched this episode and it made me cry. It was dark and sad and very effective in pointing out just how great the media is at slow murder. I have a new-found sympathy for Brritney after seeing this and will not forget it.
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I think it’s sweet that someone got that much out of it Catlady
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I saw this last night and, while I enjoyed all the references to events in the news and the lampooning of the ridiculous media coverage, I found everything that happened after she blew her head off to be so disturbing it overpowered the humor. I love South Park and have seen most of the episodes, and what really struck me was how serious this episode was. It has to be by far one of the most sombre episodes they have ever done, which makes me think they really do want people to take Britney’s situation seriously. I was surprised, since they’re usually so irreverent. Good for them for having a social conscience.
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see what yall do to me
Megan:
AC:
headache:
Ur A Loser:
hellcat:
Phil McCracken:
Kayla:
mitsu:
brittney:
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This episode is absolute genius. The South Park guys have totally nailed it.
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