Below is the link to my blog on South Park. I decided to go with the method of letting the blog run its course. Then for the final Mid-Term product the blog will be further along and I will write a paper on the blog as well. I will discuss the topics, discussions and posts that went on the blog, the interactiveness of the blog itself, amongst other elements. Finally I will discuss how these things relate to the techniques, concepts, and readings we have dealt with in the class.
http://balfordsouthparkblog.blogspot.com/
3 comments:
Obviously you're just getting started (which may create problems for you, or not - we'll see), so I only have a couple comments to offer - but here they are.
1) Your post about Imagination Land was really interesting. It's worth mentioning (have I already done so in class?) that our contemporary habit of both believing in and valuing something called "the imagination" is historically recent: many would associate it with the Romantic movement -- e.g., Coleridge, Wordsworth, Goethe, Beethoven, etc.
2) On a related note, as someone who actually doesn't watch South Park, I've read several claims, partially based on the t.v. show and partially based on the other movie that the creators did, that the show is basically hard-right in its politics, despite its crudeness. I doubt that everyone agrees, but I wanted to point out that satirizing things (both in the choice of what you satirize and how) generally has political implications...
3) I read this right after Dan's paper on WoW; it was a good combination.
I just watched the WOW episode of South Park that was linked from your blog. Pretty funny- as I have lived with a WOW player for quite a while now and can relate to elements of the story.
I do like South Park- and while it occasionally grosses me out or offends me- I do think that it does a very good job of satiring the obsessiveness of WOW. There are a few things that I noticed: one, the boys only interact through the game- even bringing their computers together and all facing away from each other in order to play. That's something I remember from when Doom became popular- I would walk into a computer lab at my college at 3 in the morning and 2-3 of my friends would be holed up in separate areas of the lab playing against one another. Basically interacting primarily mediated thru the game and only cursing each other when one would kill the other. There's something interseting in this phenomenon to me- I'm just not sure how to express it. Two, the characters are playing with different traits/genders in the show. Why is Kyle a female character? What do you think that Trey and Matt are trying to say about Kyle? Why is that funny? Why is Cartman a dwarf? My husband switches between 2 characters in the game- when I asked why he told me it's because different characters have different powers so in some cases its to your advantage to play a different gender or "race". Why do you think the characters are depicted as they are in the show? Or is there a reason at all? Three, why doesn't the loner creepy guy have any lines? Is he that lost of a cause? Four, I think you could make some interesting points about the relationship of Stan with his father in the cartoon through their relationship in the game...Five, the graphic depictions in the game seemed pretty accurate- do you think Blizzard (or whoever the designer is of WOW) provide "footage" to South Park? Did they have to get permission to use the graphics the way they did? What do you think the game designers think of the episode?
The Simpsons ("simpsons did it!") also had a WOW episode that did not look so much like the game but the implication or inference was pretty clear (as I recall, Bart was the lethal character). Have you seen that? Just curious...
It seems as though some of yoru fellow bloggers aren't really answering a lot of the questions that you are posing in a really "critical" way. I would be really interested in hearing your views on some of these issues- and perhaps those of some of the WOW players in our class...Maybe you can invite Dan to post on your blog? Just a thought...
Overall, I think it's a really interesting project.
Good luck!!!
Thanks for the feedback and it definitely helps me to see the direction I want to go in with the supplement paper to go along with the blog. I think i will focus specifically on the WoW, since that is the episode that I got the most feedback, comments, and interest. I will focus specifically on the impact of this game and the technology, technique, and motives behind it, as seen through the eyes of the creators of South Park and what the episode tries to convey. I will discuss the relationships between the characters and the role that each of them plays in the whole WoW phenomena and how each is individually affected by it.
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