South Park & Family Guy Representations of Arab & Middle Eastern People

Matthew W.
Hughey Mississippi State University* Sahara Muradi Capgemini LLC**

ABSTRACT
LAUGHING MATTERS: ECONOMIES OF HYPER-IRONY AND MANIC-SATIRE IN SOUTH PARK & FAMILY GUY
Keywords: Racism, Representation, Animation, Irony/Satire
The so called Arab, Middle Eastern, and South Asian (hereinafter AMESA) worlds are oft-described as barbaric, untrustworthy, antidemocratic, violent, and filled with religious militants. Many claim that animated cartoons propagate this bigoted point of view, and that engagement with progressive and antiracist systems of representation are rarely combined in mainstream media formats. Using episodes from the animated series Family Guy and South Park culled from 2001 through 2007, we highlight the presence of a new cultural moment in post-9/11 culture that we call the economy of hyper-irony and manic-satire. Through this framework, we find that animated cartoons simultaneously reproduce and confound racist and essentialist representations of AMESA people.
REFLEXIVE STATEMENTS
Matthew W. Hughey, Ph.D.
Current media representations of Arab and Middle-Eastern people are largely characterized by violently negative imagery that is, or should be seen as, troublesome for any population claiming principles of equality, democracy, and liberty. While focus on such racism is largely overlooked, so are the ways in which that racism is contested or, at the least, destabilized. Within this milieu, I feel it is a human imperative to illuminate how the contemporary construction and reception of meaning impacts the negotiation of race. With the popularity of shows like South Park and Family Guy, understanding the ways in which they portray Arab and Middle-Eastern representation can be efficacious in telling us more about how racism is both reproduced and contested.
HUMANITY & SOCIETY, 2009, VOL. 33 (August: 206-237)
With unilateral representations of Middle-Eastern cultures adorning American screens for years, being an evil other has haunted me throughout my childhood. As countless classmates inaccurately identified my family as Arab, backwards and uncivilized, the misled individuals I encountered influenced my interest in the media portrayals of Middle-Eastern people. However, post-9/11 representations and discourse offered greater exaggerations and created an even more hostile and discriminatory environment. While the distorted media images and messages increased in quantity, few media outlets reached beyond bigoted representations. In watching episodes of Family Guy and South Park, I found solace in and was pleasantly entertained by the social critiques and commentaries offered by the animated series. By both exaggerating and challenging other media depictions, these series provided me a new terrain to explore in my pursuit of understanding the mediated ideologies that influence racial attitudes. Philosophers and critics have often talked of the paradox of horror and the paradox of tragedy. Why do we eagerly seek out art forms that arouse unpleasant emotions in us like pity, sadness and fear? I think that, for at least certain forms of comedy, there is an equally important paradox of comedy. Why do we seek out art that makes us laugh at the plight of unfortunate people in a world without redemption? The laughter here seems to come at a high price. -Carl Matheson (2001: 125) In the wake of 11 September 2001, mainstream U.S. televisual representations of people of Arab, Middle Eastern, and South Asian descent (hereinafter AMESA) adopted particularly negative and racist tones. Moreover, those parts of the world are often presented as places of distrust, anti-democratic, backward, violent, and filled with religious militants (Salaita 2006; Spigel 2004).1 Such racist framing is a descendent from the genealogy of Orientalism (Said 1978) and Islamophobia (Runnymede 1997) that situates people, places, and ideologies constructed as Arab, Middle Eastern, South Asian, and even Muslim on the margins of a discourse that privileges the normalcy and superiority of the tripartite relationship of Whiteness, Christianity and U.S. nationalism. Feagin (2006, 2001, 1991) calls such meaning-making patterns the White Racial Framean ideological scaffolding that includes important racial stereotypes, understandings, images, and inclinations to act (Feagin & Cobas 2008: 39). Accordingly, recent findings indicate that rises in patriotism
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MATTHEW W. HUGHEY AND SAHARA MURADI 207
and nationalism are correlated with increases in pro-White racism (Skitka 2002). Within such a milieu, cartoons and animated images are thought to serve as primary vehicles for the proliferation of de-humanizing sentiments. We engage this arrangement by asking how popular animated series employ representations of AMESA people vis--vis the over-the-top satirical comedy of South Park and Family Guy. It is widely believed that animation both reflects and (re)produces particularly racist caricatures of non-White identities (Bdeir 2004; Shaheen 1982; Singh 2002; Smooden 1993). While there is rich and detailed scholarship that examines racial and ethnic stereotypes in cartoons and comics (Barrier 1999; Chaney 2004; Cholodenko 1991; Cohen 1997; Gale 2005; Hendershot 1998; Peary & Peary 1980) there is a modicum of work that examines how these same images produce rich and revealing comedy, biting social and political commentary, and even counter-hegemony. Accordingly, this article interrogates the visual and textual representations of AMESA subjectivities as featured in post-9/11 episodes of Family Guy and South Park to reveal how these signifiers resonate with dominant racist schema, while simultaneously challenging those frameworks.2 Family Guy and South Park are important to study for not only their widespread popularity and acclaim, but also because they stand as landmark cultural objects of satirical humor which sociological critique should take seriously for at least three reasons. First, satirical humor is integral to varying contexts of social relationships and interaction. In some contexts such irony is light-hearted banter, while in others it is deeply offensive. Second, forms of irony that involve systems of domination and resistance, such as racism and nationalism, can have serious implications. Third, these two shows can reveal much about how existing social relations are reaffirmed and normalized through popular culture (Lockyer & Pickering 2008: 809). In what follows, we first advance our conceptual framework we call economies of hyper-irony and manic-satirea concept that captures how post9/11 culture (re)produces political comedy in ways that blur the line between satire and that which is satirized. Next, we briefly track the proliferation of cartoons and animated images that feature AMESA representations, and advance our argument for using AMESA representations as touchstones for analysis. Third, we review our data collection and analysis procedures. Fourth, by drawing upon specific AMESA representations and references within South Park and Family Guy, we then illuminate how the economies function within four distinct registers. We conclude with suggestions for further study.
208 HUMANITY & SOCIETY
ANALYTIC FRAMEWORK: AND MANIC-SATIRE
POST-9/11 ECONOMIES OF HYPER-IRONY
Cartoons and animated pictures have long been an outlet for political commentary. And in todays cartoon world, the devices of satire and irony may function as their most potent weapons. Throughout the twentieth century, as cartoon animation increased in popularity, satire and irony increasingly highlighted individual and/or social vices, follies, and abuses by way of ridicule, derision, and mock approval. However, after 11 September 2001, several months would pass before animated cartoons dared to satirize the event. In many ways, the fall of the twin towers was perceived as an event unparalleled in history, part and parcel of what writers from de Toqueville (1831) to Lipset (1997) have called American Exceptionalism. As Der Derian (2001) writes, 9/11 quickly took on an exceptional ahistoricity. Spigel (2004: 240) echoes Der Derian in writing: In the week following 9/11, televisions transition back to normal consumer entertainment was enacted largely through recourse to historical pedagogy that ran through a number of television genres, from news to documentaries to daytime talk shows to prime-time drama. The histories evoked were both familiar and familiarizing tales of the American experience as newscasters provided a stream of references to classroom histories, including, for example, the history of U.S. immigration, Pearl Harbor, and Vietnam. They mixed these analogies to historical events with allusions to the history of popular culture, recalling scenes from disaster film blockbusters, science fiction movies, and war films and even referencing previous media events, from the assassination of JFK to the death of Princess Diana. History had become, to use Michel de Certeaus formulation, a heterology of science and fiction.
After various fictions of the past allied with the urge to restore the business routines and marketing practices of everyday life, cultural critics made hundreds of pronouncements that the U.S. entered a more somber and serious age. In many ways, the moment was all too reminiscent of Theodor Adornos famous maxim: writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric (1983: 34).3 For example, a reporter for the trade journal Television Week, wrote: In the wake of the terrorist attack on the United States, its hard to believe Americans once cared who would win Big Brother 2 or whether Anne Heche is crazy. And its hard to believe that as recently as two weeks ago, thats exactly the kind of
So too, Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter announced in utter simplicity, Its the end of the age of irony (in Beers 2001). However, Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture and television stated: Those irony pronouncements were coming from people who profoundly misunderstood the nature of American popular culture No matter how horrific the event, to expect an entire culture to change in one day is like going on a diet and expecting to lose 100 pounds in one day. Cultures absorb events like 9/11. American culture is a powerful solvent. (in Lubrano 2006)
pabulum, along with the latest celebrity/politician sex/murder/kidnapping scandal, that dominated television news. We cannot afford to return to the way things were. (Chunovic in Spiegel 2004: 242)
Perhaps more so than any other mainstream cultural form, various animated cartoons mopped-up the meanings of 9/11. South Park and Family Guy navigate a post-9/11 cultural context in which the common usages of irony and satire are no longer as effective or clear-cut. Todays comedy reflects what we call economies of hyper-irony and manicsatire.4 Under such a regime of meaning, political comedies like that of South Park and Family Guy, as well as other comedic icons like Stephen Colbert, Sasha Baron Cohen, Sarah Silverman, and the hit film Team America: World Police (2004) rely upon, and simultaneously produce, a blurring of the line between authentic and satirical racism/nationalism.5 In this sense, economies of hyper-irony and manic-satire are particularly double-edged: Family Guy and South Park can succeed at using over-the-top commentary to demonstrate post9/11 anti-AMESA nationalism, but they can also fail horribly at it. Instead of satirizing racist patriotism, these shows can impersonate it. Hall (1992, 1990) emphasizes that media is largely a discourse made from the discursive residue of colonialism (Hall 1992), whereby AMESA representations funnel dominant ideologies like propaganda (McAllister, Sewell, Jr. and Gordon 2001). However, Hall (1980) also stresses the strategic and negotiated qualities of media representations that allow for audiences to actively decode them. Hence, economies of hyper-irony and manic-satire not only enable the transmission of racist stereotypes, but also enable counterhegemonic meaning conveyance. Moreover, many scholars (Feuer 1992; Fiske 1992; Kaplan 1992; White 1992) contend that media images are neither stable nor homogeneous. Crouteau and Hoynes (1997: 167) state: Certain cultural practices may express issues and ideas from a prior social formation, whereas other artifacts embody progressive elements that look forward to future forms of
The economy of hyper-irony and manic-satire reflect the dialectic between structural materialism and cultural idealism; representations and the meanings they organize are neither essentially progressive nor reactionary. In their production, distribution, consumption, and re-production, they are often simultaneously both (Gray 2004). In this sense, the power to make meaning of these representations operates akin to Gramscis theory of hegemony and counter-hegemony (1971). Hegemonic ideologies preserve, legitimate and naturalize the interests of the powerful in that they marginalize and subordinate the claims of other groups. Hall (2001: 175) writes hegemony defines within its terms the mental horizon, the universe, of possible meanings, of a whole sector of relations in society or culture [and] carries with it the stamp of legitimacyit appears coterminous with what is natural, inevitable, taken for granted about the social order.
social and material practice. In this context, cultural artifacts and texts have the potential to criticize and challenge the status quo by carrying ideological positions that are out of phase with the current, dominant mode of ideological production.
Strinati (1995: 168-169) writes,
In this sense, the repetition of specific representations of people, things, and ideas that tell us how the world both is and should bewhat Hall (1979: 333) calls the attempt to frame all competing definitions of reality. Subsequent studies have explored the connection between media framing and hegemony (Ashley & Olson 1998; Carragee 1991; Herzog & Shamir 1994) in which images are projected, resistance to the dominant messages occur, and hegemonic ideology evolves over time to diffuse and incorporate challenges. Consequently, Gramscis approach sought to highlight the notion of struggle over meaning, an aspect on which Williams (1977: 112) also focused, lived hegemony is always a process It has continually to be renewed, recreated, defended, and modified. It also is continually resisted, limited, altered, challenged by pressures not at all its own. In this sense, hegemony occurs primarily through coercion and consent rather than direct, material force and is always possible but can
pop culture and the mass media are subject to the production, reproduction and transformation of hegemony . Hegemony operates culturally and ideologically through the institutions of civil society which characterises mature liberaldemocratic, capitalist societies. These institutions include education, the family, the church, the mass media, popular culture
never be total (Sayyid and Zac 1998: 262). With the understanding that satire and irony has exponentially increased to blur the line between the representation of hegemony and counter-hegemony, one can appreciate how irony and satire can simultaneously reaffirm the racist ideologies, while also presenting alternative and antiracist narratives.
This trend is even more conspicuous when considering the intersection of AMESA images and animated cartoons. Todays cartoon images are descendents from earlier popular media forms (radio, theater, music, movies and comics) that contained, what is today called ethnic or racial humor.certainly every form of motion picture, from epic drama to two-reel comedy, presented racial stereotypes, but because the animated cartoon so strongly relies on caricature and exaggeration, it has received a special amount of criticism. (Friedwald and Beck 1981: ix)
Once nearly invisible in North American media, scholars now emphasize that whether in newspapers and newsmagazines (Belkaoui 1978; Barranco and Shyles 1988; Mishra 1979; Suleiman 1965; Terry 1971; 1974; Whitehead 1987), editorials (Piety 1983), television news (Adams and Heyl 1981; Roeh 1981), entertainment and documentary television (Shaheen 1984), popular fiction (Sabbagh 1990; Terry 1983; van Teeffelen 1994), textbooks (Jarrar 1983), electronic media (Lind and Danowski 1998), or political cartoons (Lendenmann 1983), AMESA media representations are increasing. However, as Gross (2001: 4) observes when previously ignored groups or perspectives do gain visibility, the manner of their representation will reflect the biases and interest of those powerful people who define the public agenda. On a not so subtle level, much of U.S. media representations of AMESA peoples are portrayed in a negative light (Agha 2000; Lalami 1997; Little 1998; Qumsiyeh 1998; Said 1978). The problem is peculiarly American. Because of the vast American cultural reach via television and filmwe are the worlds leading exporter of screen imagesthe all-pervasive Arab stereotype has much more of a negative impact on viewers today than it did thirty or forty years ago (Shaheen 2003: 174).
WHY AMESA ANIMATION, WHY NOW?
In sum, the conclusive evidence from an array of studiesfrom television and print cartoons (Barrier 1999; Smooden 1993), animation history (Cholodenko 1991), cartoons and cultural values (Singh 2002), to the intersection of critical
theory and cartoon strips (Peary and Peary 1980)reveal that todays caricatured representations of AMESA peoples are replete with racism (Cohen 1997). It is important to realize that anti-AMESA cartoons and animation did not appear in a post-9/11 context. Rather, they have an unfortunately long history. Cartoons such as Popeye the Sailor Meets Sinbad the Sailor (1936), Popeye and Ali Babas Forty Thieves (1937) and Porky Pig in Ali Baba Bound (1940), portrayed AMESA peoples as criminals and illiterates.6 Such visual rhetoric continued into the 1980s and 90s, as shows like Johnny Quest, a Bullwinkle episode called sheik Faraut, and a Woody Woodpecker episode entitled Sheik El Rauncho contained explicitly anti-AMESA messages, but were largely overlooked.7 After 11 September 2001, Van Buren (2006: 537) reported that hundreds of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab cartoons were posted to Web animation portals by amateur and freelance animators, [that] indicated a trend rather than mere oddity viewings of the animations climbed into the multimillions at one portal alone by June 2005. In what may have been an attempt to counter anti-AMESA discourse in 2002, the Marvel Comics X-Men series introduced the character Dust or Sooraya Qadira burqa-garbed adolescent Afghan girl, able to morph into sandstorms and tear the skin off of her enemies. Despite her powers, Dust was framed as in need of rescue from Afghan men. In a storyline similar to Spivaks (1985) claim that imperialist rationales are often packed into racialized and gendered relations in which white men save brown women from brown men, the North American white male Wolverine saves Dust from molestation by Afghan men.8 In keeping her body fully covered by her burqa, Wolverine maintains one side of the North American bifurcation of Muslim women as either voluptuously exposed or as veiled with all but their exotic kohl-enhanced eyes gazing alluringly at the reader. In September 2005, a watershed AMESA cartoon event took place when twelve editorial cartoons, depicting the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Many Danish Muslim organizations held public protests and described several of the images as blasphemous and Islamophobic, including one drawing of the Prophet with a bomb in place of his turban. Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen described the controversy as Denmarks worst international crisis since World War II (Times Online, 15 February 2006). Also on 13 February 2008, several of the cartoons were reprinted in Jyllands-Posten, Politiken and Berlingske Tidende that resulted in an array of events such as peaceful demonstrations in Copenhagen, the Egyptian governments ban of four foreign newspapers for reprinting the cartoons, and the 2 June 2008 attempt to attack the Danish embassy in Islamabad.
Media representations have substantial influence. The American Psychological Association stated, The less real-world information views have about a social group, the more apt they are to accept the television image of that group (NCLR 1994: 19; Wilson & Gutirrez 1995: 50-53). UCLA child psychologist Gordon Berrys review of the research suggests, Childrens beliefs and feelings about minority groups frequently are influenced by the way they are portrayed on television (in NCLR 1994: 19). According to 2006 ABCWashington Post poll, the majority of people in the U.S. believe that Muslims are disproportionately prone to violence, with 46 percent expressing a negative view of the religion, 7 percent higher than in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The poll also found that 25 percent of people in the U.S. admitted to harboring prejudice towards Muslims and Arabs (Deane and Fears 2006: A01). Humor, irony, and extraordinary feats are re-fashioned to normalize racial stereotypes. In totality, these cartoons represent various sortssome geared for children, others as a means of political commentary, and still others designed to evoke biting cynicismyet, they are all indicative of a decisively anti-AMESA moment that cannot be disconnected from the end of the Cold War and resistance to U.S. hegemony, particularly by Muslims in those regions of the world that made Islam a useful scapegoat for U.S. imperialism. In many ways AMESA people became the new bogeyman of a North American collective imagination among laypersons, while texts like Samuel Huntingtons The Clash of Civilizations (1996) and Pat Buchanans State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America (2006) gave scholarly backing to the idea that various AMESA peoples are a threat of monumental proportions. Today, the cultural production of AMESA cartoon representations cannot be disconnected from a context of AMESA hyper-surveillance and defamation, such as: the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the newly Russian-backed Iranian nuclear program that has the makings of a nouveau Cold War, anti-AMESA violence in the form of targeted beatings of some AMESA store owners and college students, and statesanctioned xenophobic discourse. For example, former Attorney General John Ashcroft stated in 2002 that Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for Him. Christianity is a faith in which God sends His son to die for you (Morse 2002: A-2) and former State Representative Virgil Goodes (R-VA) commented in 2006 that the election of Muslim Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN), should wake up voters to adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration [or] there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran (Howsare 2006). However, anti-AMESA discourse is not without resistance. For instance after Goodes aforementioned remarks, pro-AMESA writers filled the pages of The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, and the
Roanoke Times in which, in the case of the latter, an editorial asked, How can one swear to uphold the Constitution while denying its protection to all Americans? (Roanake Times 2006). Anti-Arab representations in U.S. mass media have not escaped organized criticismArab American groups objected to an array of anti-Arab representations in the 1992 animated Disney film Aladdin Current censorship by television channels and other mass media companies of cartoons containing racist stereotypes, previously exhibited in movie theaters, illustrates the attention mainstream media companies now pay to community groups organized complaints about objectionable themes and characters. (Van Buren 2006: 541)
Groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Anti-Defamation League have attacked various anti-AMESA ideologies and organizations. There is also a noted resistance against racism among radio commentaries, blogs, online discussion groups, and even protests, most notably in the case of France in which anti-AMESA police brutality led to week long riots in November of 2005. Together, racism and its resistance underpin popular culture and make mediated cartoons with AMESA representations all the more controversial and polysemic.
DATA AND METHODS
The empirical results in this article demonstrate how AMESA representations are shaped by the systems within which they are created, distributed, evaluated, taught, and preserved (Peterson and Anand 2004). Such representations are cultural objects (Griswold 1992, 1986) that resonate with the larger society (Schudson 2002, 1989) and are expected to be received as appropriate humor (Douglas 1968: 366). Michael Schudson (2002: 145) writes: The relevance of a cultural object to its audience, its utility, if you will, is a property not only of the objects content or nature and the audiences interest in it but of the position of the object in the cultural tradition of the society the audience is a part of. That is, the uses to which an audience puts a cultural object are not necessarily personal or idiosyncratic; the needs or interests of an audience are socially and culturally constituted. What is resonant is not a matter of how culture connects to individual interests but a matter of how culture connects to interests that are themselves constituted in a cultural frame.
Both South Park and Family Guy possess an aura of resonance that is neither a private relation between cultural object and viewer nor a social relation
between cultural object and audience.9 Rather, these shows are a public and cultural relation among object, tradition, and audience (Schudson 2002:146) that resonates with audiences understanding of the global flows of race, nationalism, and religion. To analyze these shows, we coded the 148 episodes that aired between 19 September 2001 and 20 May 2007 (61 episodes from Family Guy and 87 episodes from South Park). Analysis of the episodes went through two stages. First, from July to September of 2007, all 148 episodes were watched and their transcripts read. We also watched each episode and took notes. Via the inductive approach of intensity sampling that selects purposefully to permit inquiry into and understanding of phenomenon in depth (Patton 2002: 46) we generated a list of 16 episodes that possessed either visual or rhetorical representations of AMESA peoples.10 An intensity sample, or extreme case sample, consists of information-rich cases that manifest the phenomenon of interest (Patton 2002: 230, 234). Since we are not interested in documenting the natural variation among representations of South Park and Family Guy, a random sample is unnecessary. Rather, the question of more immediate interest concerns the few illuminative cases and what they can tell about the subject at hand. Second, from February to July 2008 the 16 episodes were re-watched and transcripts re-read to determine the presence of specific racialized themes that support the overall structure of hyper-irony and manic-satire. With this form of inductive analysis, there is a focus on how the televisual elements are sequenced, why some elements are presented differently from others and how the past shapes perceptions of the present and vice versa. Moreover, this analysis consists of reflexive movement between concept development, sampling, data collection, data coding, data analysis, and interpretation.
ANALYSIS
Animation has long relied on one-dimensional representations such as stereotypes for narrative shorthand and comedy. This is due in part to the practice of cartooning that often used satirical caricature as a precise design strategy (Van Buren 2006: 539). Animated representations lend to iconographic construction, offering viewers a set of verbal and visual traits by which to identify racialized characters (Dyer 1984). In typical AMESA representations, meanings are conveyed through repeated sets of imagery used to depict peoples of the regions. These representations include men with untamed facial hair and dark eyes wearing tightly wrapped turbans and speaking in stereotypically thick accents. Additionally, the inclusion of symbolic objects and practices
Racial Allusions and Illusions
such as AK-47s and kneeling on a prayer rug, seemingly illiterate and uneducated interactions, and constantly furrowed brows and angry demeanors, all result in the propagation of what Tim Jon (2006) calls the evil Arab. More often than not, these depictions stem from repeated notions of various AMESA societies as displayed in other media outlets. Whilst constructions of AMESA characters in South Park and Family Guy contribute to the reproduction of racist ideologies, they also work to combat them. As viewers enter a cave denoted somewhere in Afghanistan in the opening segment of Family Guys PTV episode (6 November 2005), they are introduced to a lanky man with a full, long beard and dark skin who is dressed in a white tunic, white turban and brown sandalsa stereotyped cartoon version of Osama Bin Laden. The militant leader is shown preparing to make another of his rather infamous videos meant for U.S. audiences. He is surrounded by a cadre of followers who are portrayed in variations of his physical traits: shorter beards, fuller faces, and different color tunics and turbans. This image of AMESA figures as hairy, turban-wearing, dark men, who live in undeveloped rural areas, is congruent with dominant media representations of AMESA stereotypes; AMESA people are thought synonymous with a host of pathological characteristics (Barrier 1999; Cholodenko 1991; Singh 2002; Smooden 1993). In so doing, the imagery presents the viewer with a representational account of AMESA people that is not developed in a vacuum, but rather from the already conventional inventory of discourses (Hall 1983) established by White supremacist views of the AMESA other. As the scene continues, Bin Ladens character attempts to frighten viewers with his death to America threats, when he suddenly mispronounces Ramadan (the Islamic holy month of fasting), which causes him, and his companions, to break out in laughter. This scene reads as a continuation of the stereotype of AMESA peoples as unintelligent and uneducated. However, the scene is also a hyper-satirical commentary on Bin Ladens connection to Islam, as it is often noted that the militants objectives have nothing to do with the Islamic faith. The clip also challenges the viewers expectations that are cultivated in a media context saturated with racist discourse (Guerrero 1993; Hunt 2005, 2002; Rocchio 2000). In this light, Bin Laden and his companions are suddenly humanized as ordinary peopleas human beings that make mistakes, laugh and joke, and self-criticize. This instance of hyper-irony and manic-satire destabilizes one central reading and any attempt to use the medium as any one direct reflection into a supposedly monolithic North American cultural logic. Instead of Family Guy as a mirror, it is a prism. It does not reflect meanings, it refracts them in such a way the line between racism and antiracism is anything but clear.
As these scenes continue, the camera continues to focus on Bin Laden as he finds it more and more difficult to control his laughter in front of his followers. Jokes carry on in this manner as Bin Laden references various North American icons and personas from Dennis Rodman, to an overly large pair of sunglasses, to the quintessential comedic propa rubber chicken. Each of these references has North American cultural significance, meanings recognized only by those familiar with such comedic iconography. Bin Ladens use of symbols contradicts prevailing stereotypes, challenging media constructions of the social world. Such a contrast in stereotype functions to counteract the hegemonic notions of AMESA peoples being ignorant and evil, presenting audiences with an opposing perspective not commonly associated with AMESA regions of the world alongside a repeated racist physical stereotype. Many instances of this dynamic were apparent. In South Parks The Snuke (28 March 2007), a child of AMESA descent transfers into South Park Elementary and is targeted for being a terrorist. The child is introduced to the class as Bahir Hassam Abdul Hakeem.11 The choice of name both lampoons and accomplishes the North American construction of the AMESA Other. The execution of such construction is driven home by Cartmans threatened reaction to the arrival of the child. He immediately storms out the room and calls Kyle, who is sick at home, to perform a background check on him via the website MySpace.com. Not only does this segment satirically comment on the heightened sense of insecurity in the U.S., but also ridicules racial profiling. Further, the critique of racial profiling is driven by auxiliary appraisals that are critical of digitally-enabled voyeurism and surveillance (via MySpace), social networking websites promotion of hyper-individuality, and the George W. Bush administrations wire-tapping program that became embroiled in a flurry of judicial decisions regarding legal constitutionality. As the episode progresses, Cartman advances the idea that Bahir is in town to assassinate Hillary Clinton, who plans to speak at an upcoming political rally in South Park. In an outlandish plot typical of the animated series, Cartman claims that Bahir has already implanted a bomb inside Hillary Clinton and that he plans to detonate her at the rally. Throughout the remainder of the episode, Cartman attempts to capture Bahir to prevent his implementation of his plan. At the conclusion of the episode, the South Park writers comment on the xenophobia against AMESA peoples by referencing cold war conspiracy theories concerning McCarthyism and nostalgic notions of British imperialism. The audience is told that Russians were really behind the attack on Hillary Clinton, that they did in fact place a bomb inside her due to direct orders from Queen Elizabeth II, and that the Queen was planning to re-colonize the world via her eighteenth century-style naval fleet. Such over-the-top satire and outlandish plot devices, combined with the revelation of Bahirs innocence, are cap-stoned by
Working within the economy of hyper-irony and manic-satire, both animated series promote dominant and conservative viewpoints while simultaneously targeting and ridiculing them. For this reason, both shows tend to get away with dialectic themes of dominance/subordination, xenophobic patriotism/challenging state power, and criticisms of racial essentialism/reification of racial representations. In presenting such dialectic subject matter, the shows critically engage the aforementioned thematic through the challenge of White normativity and superiority one moment and the promotion or obfuscation of it the next.
(Critiquing) White Supremacy
Kyles moralizing at the conclusion of the episodeone should not be suspicious of just one race of people, because actually, most of the world hates us. Through this statement, the show pronounces that racial stereotyping, and the nations current penchant toward such behavior, is unethical and only produces greater geo-political divisions between us and them. While such a message can be progressive, critical, and serve to address the consequences of racist stereotypical representations, the story suddenly restabilizes racism. Cartman points out that his suspicions about Bahir prompted an investigation that led to the demise of the real terrorist plotters and that racism and bigotry saved America. While the previous statement by Kyle combats stereotyping, Cartmans comment presents the opposing viewthat the world will not become safe unless we profile based on race, nationality and religion. This contrast reveals two countervailing sides to the argument. Although series such as Family Guy and South Park present images that combat and challenge the racist imagery of other media outlets, they also promote and re-stabilize racist and xenophobic logics. They present audiences with the idea that stereotypes and the suspicions they produce are beneficial, even if they are politically incorrect, so that the ends justify the means. These examples propose that animated cartoons use stereotypical representations for multiple purposes and possess compound interpretations. While the AMESA representations in this medium may offer viewers both a recognizable figure and a glimpse at varying perspectives, these displays are not always perceived as constructively addressing misrepresentations. Despite the overall shift from overt racism to subtle prejudices (Meertens and Pettigrew 1997) and color-blind racism (Bonilla-Silva 2003), the exaggeration of stereotypes in South Park and Family Guy are recognizable as particularly resilient forms of racist culture (Goldberg 1993) that finds particular purchase and resonance among the already established white racial frame of North American audiences (Gallagher 1995; Feagin 2006, 2001).
Unlike the unilateral depictions of AMESA peoples, White, Westernized, and North American characters are displayed with an assortment of traits and characteristics. From individuals with demonizing intents to the heroic savior, the spectrum of shifting personas allows for an indefinable set of character attributes that are virtually indefinablepromoting a sense of Whiteness as the invisible norm. Meanwhile, non-white representations in Family Guy and South Park are often considered more deviant and constructed to recall positions of subordinance. In South Parks The Death Camp of Tolerance (20 November 2002), children are taught about the inappropriateness of racial stereotypes. The children are taken to a Museum of Tolerance, where they take a ride through the Tunnel of Prejudice, and racial slurs are thrown at them and waxwork representations of various minority groups (inclusive of AMESA, AfricanAmerican, Jewish, and Latino people) are displayed in stereotypical poses. Despite the existence of White stereotypes, the absence of a White representation in the museum signals the unmarked universality of White identity (Feagin 2006, 2001; Perry 2001). Such a representation presents, and stabilizes, the contours and characteristics of a racial weltanschauung in which normal, moral, and implicit identities are White, while negative deviations from this standard are marked with explicit stereotypical representation. During the confrontational interactions between White U.S. South Park and Family Guy characters and their AMESA co-stars (as well as other non-White minority groups), representations of White supremacy and dominance are heightened. In many of these instances, the cultural misunderstandings cause verbal and even physical disputes. One such argument occurs toward the end of South Parks Osama Bin Laden has Farty Pants (7 November 2001) episode, in which two Afghan children argue with Stan and Kyle. They bicker over whether Afghanistan or the U.S. started the war in Afghanistan and criticize one anothers endeared cultural values. When Stan attacks Afghan culture for their games that involve killing an animal as well as their oppression of women in an attempt to signify the backward ideology of the nation, the Afghan boys response reveals that Americans are not much better as they sit around watching millionaires on the Red Carpet at the Emmys. Although Kyle and Stan agree that their society is materialistic (Stan remarks, Hes got us there, dude), they redeem their sense of superiority with the final line of the show, America may have some problems, but its our home, its our team. If you dont want to root for your team, then you should get the hell out of the stadium. This exchange offers a heightened sense of authority and supremacy surrounding American beliefs, furthering the separation between North American and Eastern cultures, as audiences are made to believe that the sacrifice of an animal in holy traditions and the conservation of female purity outweigh the
harmless American fulfillment obtained from celebrity culture. At the same time, the statement offers a critique on American patriotism, especially considering the state of affairs between the U.S. and AMESA regions at that time. At the same time, Stans comment its our home, its our team is also a commentary about the absurdity of nationalism and patriotism based on blind allegiance to a flag and national ethos. Additionally, audiences can easily correlate such radical nationalist discourse with the child-like characteristics that are embodied in Stan (who is often chided for his immaturity and ignorance by both peers and adults). That messages seemingly supportive and critical of xenophobic nationalism are simultaneously prominent is telling. The illumination of the economy of hyper-irony and manic-satire is further demonstrative of the tenuous bind in which racial/national/religious animation is presently bound. The Osama Bin Laden Has Farty Pants episode debuted only two months after the events of 9/11. It was the first South Park episode aired after the attack when feelings of AMESA detestation and American nationalism were freshly renewed. Much of the episode utilizes hyper-irony and manic-satire to comment on the extent to which the U.S. had taken their newfound fear and contempt for various AMESA nations. In one scene from the episode, the four South Park boys send one-dollar bills to children in Afghanistan as suggested by President Bush. Once in receipt of the money, four Afghan children (constructed as ironic mirror-images of the four South Park children) decide to send a goat to South Park as a token of their gratitude. When the large package arrives, police cars, journalists and a S.W.A.T. team surround it to satirically present the anthraxattack anxiety of 2001. When the package is identified as a goat and a policeman confirms it is not hazardous by licking it, the crowd is strangely disappointed, as if finding an explosive or viewing destruction-as-spectacle would have satisfied their appetite, while also reinforcing their belief that Afghans are little more than evil terrorists. This scene not only applauds and makes fun of the federal and state agencies for their over-the-top attempts to provide security, it also comments on the countrys desire for turmoil, as well as the nations state of unrest that seems to use terrorism as a kind of entertainment and distraction. Simultaneously, the episode critiques the construction of an evil other in order to produce social unity and cohesion, delivering a harsh indictment of American unity (one might also say White unity given the construction of the town of South Park as almost exclusively White) that so easily falls apart without the presence of an outsider trying to disrupt that racial-national solidarity. Such a dynamic relates to the aforementioned notion of displaying patriotism in a questionable light, as if allowing the viewers to decide whether these newfound
feelings of ultra-nationalism and defense are absurd, based on emotionality and blind allegiance to a flag, or truly necessary and acceptable in their efforts of solidarity in a post 9/11 era. Several episodes of Family Guy also promote and contest the idea of White supremacy and normalcy through satirical commentary. This is often performed as a battle of wits, whereby the minority character is challenged by the one of the White stars of the series, or vice versa, and results in a lesson being taught about White superiority. Once such an instance occurs in the opening scene of the aforementioned PTV episode, when Stewie observes Osama Bin Ladens attempts to make a threatening videotape. With U.S. military forces outside of the cave, the toddler Stewie begins to fight the mob of terrorists around him, exemplifying his ability to outsmart his enemies. After defeating everyone in the cave, Stewie turns to Bin Laden, who charges at him with a sword. Using his wit and resourcefulness, Stewie takes the rubber chicken that Bin Laden formerly used as a comedic prop and slips it over Bin Ladens head. Now blind and frightened, he runs into a wall and knocks himself unconscious. This clever tactic, as well as its characteristic style of animation that recalls the days of the Roadrunner dropping an ACME anvil on the head of the unsuspecting Wile E. Coyote, can easily read as both a reinforcement of White authority and intelligence over the subordinate AMESA other, while it also transforms White fantasies of uncomplicated world domination and colonization (embodied in the character of Stewie) into comedic fodder. Similar occurrences appear in several of the episodes including South Parks Osama Bin Laden Has Farty Pants where Cartman cleverly defeats Bin Laden in a sequence that parodies the popular Looney-Tunes segments. Additionally, in Family Guys Road to Europe (7 February 2002), Stewie and Brian distract a group of AMESA people with a song and dance routine while they steal a camel from a Middle Eastern marketplace. In these instances, the presence of Western and North American characters does not simply serve to reinforce the capabilities of these individuals in putting the evil AMESA other in his place, but they also reveal a sense of an acceptably racist social order. The triumphs of the main characters reaffirm a common theme found in other media outlets where the White character remains triumphant. The writers of South Park and Family Guy often take a critical approach to U.S. international policy when addressing issues of war, terrorism and public policy. While such critique might find subtle expression in mainstream media, Family Guy and South Park explicitly attack U.S policy initiatives and target todays ongoing hysteria over terror. In an episode of Family Guy, entitled It Takes U.S. Policy and Custom: The Spectacle of the Other and Us.
a Village Idiot, and I Married One (13 May 2007), Lois decides to run for mayor of the city of Quahog after complaining about waste dumping in the local lake. Although Lois tries to explain to the citizens that she plans to save the lake, the only way she captures peoples attention is by dumbing-down her campaign. She begins to use controversial terms, such as Jesus and terrorists in meaningless ways and she answers questions about her policy plans by simply saying 9/11. She subsequently wins the election, and continues to use fear, nationalism, racism, and fundamentalist Christianity to raise funds to clean up the lake. While this episode clearly draws a parallel between Lois political administration and that of the George W. Bush post-9/11 administration, other instances exist in which the show explicitly supports U.S. policy. In Season 5s Saving Private Brian (5 November 2006), a commercial attempts to persuade Chris to join the U.S. Army. The ad asks, What can the Army do for you? and shows men in military attire accepting a Grammy, jumping into a pile of money, and sitting on a boat smoking cigars while surrounded by scantily clad woman. While Lois distracts Chris to keep him from joining, Brian and Stewie go to an Army recruiting office to complain about their misleading advertisements. However, the preponderance of guns at the office impresses Stewie and the two inadvertently enlist. After surviving boot camp they are sent to Iraq where, after an encounter with a confused suicide bomber, they attempt to obtain a military discharge by pretending to be homosexual and by shooting one another in the foot. However, democracy suddenly kicks in, the war abruptly ends in utopian fashion, and they return home. The shows premise mocks several aspects of U.S. military campaigns and foreign policy. Not only does it target recruiting efforts, but also sexual identity policies within the military. Similarly, the sudden and absurd realization of peace and democracy kicking in ridicules the Bush administrations claims that the Mission [was] Accomplished and that the ideology of democracy would serve as a cure-all for the supposed problems of Islam. These episodes reflect the conflicting notions of support for, and criticism of, U.S. policy. By using hyper-irony and manic-satire to present these issues, audiences can debate various standpoints, whether laughing along in agreement with the critiques or crying due to their realism. While South Park explicitly criticizes post-9/11 government policies/reaction (such as the package in Osama Bin Laden Has Farty Pants), the protests against the war in Im a Little Bit Country (9 April 2003), and Mr. Garrisons plot to create new means of transportation to avoid security check points in The Entity (21 November 2001), the show also reiterates U.S. policy by playing on the fears and expectations of attack and a nouveau cold-war with Iran. These instances reveal the consequential feelings of animosity and distrust towards AMESA people.
When Stan hands the aforementioned four Afghan boys a small American flag as a token of their visit to Afghanistan in Osama Bin Laden Has Farty Pants, the Afghan children suddenly burn it and cheer. The South Park boys are alarmed by the flag desecration. Kyle explains that everyone but terrorists likes America, and that the U.S. has done nothing but sacrifice its people for the wellbeing of other AMESA countries. Their discourse explicitly targets the agenda setting of U.S. media, whereby viewers are told that foreigners appreciate U.S. intervention and are actually enlightened by the destruction and rebuilding of their cities and infrastructure. Kyles unbelief mocks those who accept the messages that assert the war on terror is a blessing for backward nations. When the Afghan children explain their belief that the U.S. is on a quest to become a global empire with a government that wants to rule the world, the episode does not simply criticize dominant media messages, but also profoundly challenges the policy of exporting values to other countries. This South Park episode sheds light on the dominant racist representation of ethnic and racial subjectivities and well as how U.S. audiences are often told that AMESAaffiliated countries prosper from U.S. military campaigns (Jhally 1998). When constructing AMESA representations, each animated image (as a cultural object) is expected to resonate with as wide an audience as possible. As Michael Schudson (1989: 160-161) writes, If culture is to influence a person, it must reach the personthe general term I will use, to suggest more easily the sociological dimension of the phenomenon, is retrievability. That is, for a specific object in either South Park or Family Guy to gain recognition, it must hold availability via established frameworks of meaning and recognition. Accordingly, this medium presents material in ways that are sometimes easily retrievable, while at other times, it is beyond the grasp of North American audiences due to the particular arrangement of North Americans knowledge of AMESA-related culture (Lockman 2004; Mabro 1996; Said 1979). This allows the writers and producers of South Park and Family Guy to both reproduce and challenge stereotypical portrayals. Even as a particular episode takes aim at the dominant racism of North American views of AMESA Others, it can also miss the target if the audience decodes such representations in oppositional ways. Hence, many messages ricochet to reproduce the racism the shows creators may wish to lampoon. For example, in South Parks Osama Bin Laden Has Farty Pants episode, the Afghan boys discourse represents grammatically correct Persian or Farsi. As one of the commonly spoken languages in Afghanistan (alongside Pashtu and Dari), the representation of grammatically correct Farsi presents audiences with The (Mis)Education of the Audience
the ability to view the show as a disruption of common racist practices. That is, linguistic representations of AMESA peoples often take the form of gibberish; a collection of guttural locutions which frequently repeat words such as sherpa, derka, derka, haka, abaka, and Muhammad. However, to communicate a representation of antiracist-accuracy, viewers must be cognizant of the intricacies of the language. Without the ability to decode these particular linguistic symbols, correct Farsi prose becomes little more than intonations that hue closely to the aforementioned gibberish. For example, in the same episode of South Park, the audience is greeted with a representation of Osama Bin Laden where his verbal interactions with others are limited to the stereotypical intonations of jihad, derka, derka, and Muhammad. The simultaneous display of two forms of representations matters not if audiences do not decode them as such. Of course, cultural representations do not exist in a vacuum. Once a representation is made, it enters a field already occupied. If it is to gain a special kind of attention, it must displace or enter into dialogue with other symbols. A symbols power exists through its relation to other representations. Moreover, even if the representations of AMESAaffiliated language were recognized in relation to one another as both authentic Farsi and gibberish, the meaning of these representations remains unstable within the economy of hyper-irony and manic-satire. On the one hand, the representation of Bin Laden in this episodepurposefully drawn to mirror the outdated and exaggerated style of Looney-Tune animationread as a critique of dominant representations of AMESA others in which the search for Bin Laden dominated U.S. media landscapes. In this vein, it is a satirical commentary on North American processes of dehumanization, by which one is demonized and vilified in order to rationalize violence and conquest. On the other hand, such a reading cannot divorce itself from its dialectic opposite; the image gives the reader a reason to dismiss the humanity of the AMESA other. In this latter sense, the representation fits preconceived notions in which AMESA-related language, along with their ontology, is indicative of barbarism, ignorance, and savagery. In another example, the ability to retrieve knowledge of international politics directly affects the processes by which audiences decode the representations presented to them. The plot in South Parks two-episode sequence Cartoon Wars (5 April 2006 and 12 April 2006), revolves around a fictional Family Guy segment in which the Islamic Prophet Muhammad was censored by Fox producersmimicking the Jyllands-Posten cartoon controversy that surfaced in September and October of 2005. In the two-part episode, the citizens of South Park panic because the television show Family Guy plans to broadcast an episode featuring the Prophet Muhammad as a character. In response, they first hide in a shelter to escape the wrath of the terrorists response, while they later
decide to literally bury their heads in the sand as the episode plays, so as to show the terrorists that they had no part in Family Guys insult. Throughout the episode, the South Park characters Cartman and Kyle represent two sides of the debate, attempting to frame the issue for audiences. Kyle supports freedom of the press and voices the opinion that the censorship of cartoons is inappropriate, while Cartman argues that censorship should be used to safeguard the rights and lives of particular peoples. However, it is later revealed that Cartman does not believe in this argument, and is simply using the fear of attack by terrorists in order to take Family Guy off the air. While these two positions satirize popular discourse on the matter, there is little presentation of the context of the Danish cartoon event. The writers and producers seemingly assume widespread knowledge of the debate, failing to provide the audience with background knowledge and details about the cartoon controversy. Such an episode presents North American audiences with two intertwined narratives. First, detractors of an absolute free-press are framed as supporters of AMESA-related terrorism, rather than with a defense of the iconography of a religious symbol or with tolerance. Second, the denizens of the U.S. (vis--vis the town of South Park, Colorado) are framed as fundamentally unable to digest debates concerning censorship, religion, and freedom (especially given the towns decision to bury their heads in the sand and Cartmans deceitful use of censorship arguments to advance his personal agenda). Hence, it is unclear where South Park draws the line and what the audience should take away as the overall message. And such is the crux of the matter; by refraining from a clear and fixed representation of the Danish cartoon controversy and its nuances, the show enables a great many decodings of the two aforementioned narratives. Moreover, in the current moment of hyper-irony and manic-satire dominance, acts of irreverent parody are goals in and of themselves. It matters little as to the target of caricaturewhether it is censorship, religion, the media, or the mainstream populacein so long as the process of spoof, ridicule, and lampoon is engaged.
The events of 9/11 and their constant reconstruction in our collective memory have changed the landscape of the intersections of AMESA representations, animation, and comedy. The hyper-irony and manic-satire of the post-9/11 animation is, as Carl Matheson (2001: 109) writes, colder, based less on a shared sense of humanity than on a sense of world-weary cleverer-than-thouness. As we have shown, there is no clear or definitive meaning of shows like South Park and Family Guy, and the question as to whether they are either racist or antiracist is answerable only by way of contradictionthey are
CONCLUSION: DOUBLE-EDGED RACIAL-NATIONALISM
simultaneously both. Such shows are a paradox: anti-AMESA racism is simultaneously under assault as well as girded up via the comedic regimens of these animators and writers. First, the realization that popular culture now wields this double-edged sword of irony and satire necessarily gestures toward future questions that are open to empirical investigation. First, it is necessary to question the genealogy of hyper-irony and manic satire. In this vein, popular culture seems so riddled with hype, cynicism, and illusion that one must question the sociological importance of the foundation. The racial and political commentary of South Park and Family Guy derives from a long line of parodists and satirists, inclusive of the likes of Mark Twain, Richard Pryor, and Garry Trudeau. Without inductively mapping the historical trajectory of the effects of power, authority, and knowledge through various contexts, practices, and discourses, the current manifestations of hyper-irony and manic-satire can too easily lend to reification, effectively obscuring its historical development, present-day variability, and what insights it holds for future satirical discourse. Second, it is appropriate to consider how satire and irony can serve as a form of critical pedagogy and/or propaganda. Throughout the history of humor, the devices of satire and irony have found purchase in different educational purposes. Select Greeks and Romans used satirical comedy at symposia to demonstrate the elites supposed superiority over the masses. Areas of 17th and 18th century Europe used irony for the social and political purpose of challenging the elite. Satire on U.S. television and radio in the 1950s and 1960s exposed political rhetoric, misinformation, McCarthyism, and destabilized support for a costly war in Vietnam. However, according to Griffin (1994), satire lost much of its critical edge in the Reagan/Thatcher era; it ossified due to the development of the media at a time when social, political and cultural life was far too serious and polite. Examining, how satire is used toward education or indoctrination in todays world through a top-down approach could reveal much about the intentions of its creators. Third, and in bookending the latter, we would be well served to examine the effects of satirical comedy from the bottom-up. In specific, we must question if and how irony serves as either antidote or opiate for a cynical culture. In this regard, one could critically evaluate the claims of Kenneth Burke (1973: 65), whereby irony and satire are framed as homeopathic medicine capable of transforming poisons into medicines. Fourth, the role of comedy in relation to political economy is presently underdeveloped. It is no stretch of the imagination to claim that South Park and Family Guy help to make the cynicism of manic-satire and hyper-irony attractive and profitable. Transmittal of these shows via Comedy Central television broadcast, DVD consumption, and digital download, brings audiences to various formats that are supported by advertising revenue. So, too, the websites for these
shows (familyguy.com and southparkstudios.com) offer portable irony and satire through manifold commodities, from knick-knack kitsch and books to magazines and t-shirts emblazoned with pictures of Saddam Hussein and Satan as homosexual lovers. The commoditization of racial-nationalism enables the accumulation of capital for its vendors. Studying the processes by which particular racial and nationalist signifiers are extracted from their satirical context, made into commodities, sold on a global scale, and made so open to interpretation that they refold upon themselves, is worth investigation.12 Finally, it is worth investigating why and with what rationale the public and mass-media creators and distributors appear to treat irony and satire as an inherent moral good in and of itself. From such a vantage point, South Park and Family Guys heavy reliance on hyper-irony and manic-satire often seem like an admixture of religion, rhetoric, and aesthetics. Their irreverence toward everything in their path often seems zealous, if not evangelical. Taken together they are emblematic of how post-9/11 culture has taken on the character of Diogenes, an ancient satirist who once called himself a prophet of indifference (Malherbe 1977: 115). For many, it is certainly difficult to embrace the duality of post-9/11 comedy. Dominant representations of AMESA people rely on racist stereotypes but also provide a space and perspective to critique those representations that is often lacking in conventional media and public affairs formats. Future study should uncover more about the functions, meanings, and effects of our moment of hyper-irony and manic-satire. In the meantime, the effects of the economy of hyper-irony and manic-satire will remain unsettled, if not elusive and controversial.
*Department of Sociology and African American Studies, Mississippi State University, P.O. Box C, 207 Bowen Hall, Hardy Road, Mississippi State, MS 39762. **Telecom, Media and Entertainment, Capgemini LLC. 2250 Corporate Park Drive, Suite 406, Herndon, VA 20171.
1The terms Arab and Middle Eastern have long been criticized for their Eurocentric logic. By Arab many refer to the conglomeration of the twenty-four nations under the Arab League, and by Middle Eastern many use the International Air Transport Associations definition as it is used in world-wide airfare and tax calculations that included eighteen nations. We not do attempt to sort out what is essentially Arab, Middle-Eastern, or even South Asian (AMESA), but refer in this article to all representations of peoples from these areas as AMESA (Arab, Middle-Eastern, and/or South Asian). As representations of the AMESA Other generally confound the differences and internal diversity of these peoples, we do not conflate these three groups
ENDNOTES
or insinuate that all peoples from these areas are followers of Islam. Rather, our analysis reveals that South Park and Family Guy typically confound the aforementioned diversity among AMESA peoples, portraying them in stereotypical manner that relies on particular religious, national, and racial caricatures endemic to North America. 2South Park is a U.S. animated television series created, written and voiced by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. First aired on the cable network channel Comedy Central in 1997, South Park follows the adventures of four grade school boys who live in mythical town of South Park, Colorado. The show emulates stop motion animation with construction paper which was the original form of animation for the show but has since been replaced by computer animation. South Park satirizes (sometimes surreally) many aspects of U.S. culture and current events, and challenges deep-seated convictions and taboos, usually employing parody and black comedy. The series is known for very blunt and controversial handling of current events and popular culture. Since its debut in 1997, South Park has aired over 12 seasons and is the longest running animated show on Comedy Central. The show is also credited with putting Comedy Central on the map (Halbfinger 2007). The show has one three Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Animated Program, two for programming less than one hour, and one for programming more than one hour. Family Guy is a U.S. animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane that airs on Fox Broadcasting Company and regularly on other television networks in syndication. Created in 1999, the title character is Peter Griffin, an inept blue-collar worker who is the head of a middle class family that is frequently beset by the consequences of his antics. Family Guys brand of humor features many popular culture references and flashbacks to various points in history and geography. The show was cancelled in 2000 (shortly after its initial creation), subsequently brought back and then cancelled again in 2002. However, strong DVD sales and the large viewership of reruns on Cartoon Networks Adult Swim convinced Fox to resume the show in 2005. It is the first cancelled show to be resurrected based on DVD sales and to date is one of only a handful of shows in television history to be cancelled and later revived. Family Guy has been nominated for eight Emmy Awards with three wins and has also been nominated for a Golden Reel Award three times, winning once. 3Adorno later retracted this statement by stating, Perennial suffering has as much right to expression as the tortured have to scream ... hence it may have been wrong to say that no poem could be written after Auschwitz (1973: 362). 4We specifically use the word economies to recall Stuart Halls understanding of the process of mass communication: it is also possible (and useful) to think of this process [mass communications] in terms of a structure produced and sustained through the articulation of linked but distinctive momentsproduction, circulation, distribution/consumption, reproduction (1980 [2001]: 123). 5For instance, the most successful new comedians of this post 9-11 time are not The Daily Show's Jon Stewart (whose show opened under the Clinton regime), but rather his sidekick Stephen Colbert, whose humor depends entirely on his completely hyperironic and manic-satirical reproduction of the immorality, racism, and narcissism of a stereotypical right-wing talk show host. As Colberts performance at the White House Correspondents dinner in 2006 in which he ridiculed President George Bush, demonstrates, perhaps being over the top is one of the few ways left to convey resistance in the mainstream. However, such performance risks blurring the line between satire and that which is being satirized, as also made emblematic by that of the comedy of Sarah Silverman and films like Sasha Cohens Borat: Cultural Learnings of
America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006) (which drew official censure from the government of Kazakhstan), Ben Stillers Tropic Thunder (2008) (which lampooned both the tradition of Blackface minstrelsy and actors long-standing use of mentall-impared characters), and South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stones Team America: World Police (2004) that satirizes American foreign policy toward the Axis of Evil, while simultaneously satirizing liberal opponents of that policy such as filmmaker Michael Moore and various politically active Hollywood actors. 6Gendered and sexualized stereotypes and paranoia went hand in hand with racialized depictions: In the 1950s noted psychiatrist Fredric Wertham claimed that Wonder Woman was giving girls the wrong idea about a womans place in society, and that Batmans ward Robin was implanting homosexual thoughts in boys (Goldstein 2005). Such claims led to Congressional hearings and the voluntary censorship of comics. Moving forward to 2005, James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, lectured members of Congress on the threat posed by the animated cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants, which he claimed was a form of homosexual propaganda. 7In 1996, San Francisco television censor Paul Mular was asked about Arab images, he said it never even occurred to him that some people might find them objectionable (Cohen 1997: 75). 8In her groundbreaking 1985 essay, Can the Subaltern Speak? Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak coined the phrase white men saving brown women from brown men to describe the British abolition of suttee, or widow burning in India, in the 19th century. We do not cite such a phrase in order to collapse moral indignation into economic and/or colonial repression, but rather suggest they have a complex relationship to each other. As Miriam Cooke (2002: 468) writes: Imperial logic genders and separates subject peoples so that the men are the Other and the women are civilizable. To defend our universal civilization we must rescue the women. To rescue these women we must attack these men. These women are to be rescued not because they are more ours than theirs but rather because they will have become more ours through the rescue mission. The rhetoric of empire conceals race, ethnicity, and class so that gender becomes... [these Indian womens] major defining characteristic. 9Schudson (1989:170) writes that any given cultural object, as a valued symbol of representation, can come to have an aura. The aura generates its own power and what might originally have been a very modest advantage (or even lucky coincidence) of a symbol becomes, with the accumulation of the aura of tradition over time, a major feature. Such an approach to cultural objects also coincides with Lynn Hunts Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984) and Edward Shils Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981). 10South Park: (1)Osama Bin Laden Has Farty Pants Episode 509; (2) Probably Episode 411; (3) Do the Handicapped Go To Heaven? Episode 410; (4) Cartoon Wars: Part I Episode 1003; (5) Cartoon Wars: Part II Episode 1004; (6) The Death Camp of Tolerance Episode 314; (7) Toms Rhinoplasty Episode 111; (8) Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus Episode 201. Family Guy: (1) PTV Episode 417; (2) Road to Europe Episode 313; (3) Road to Road Island Episode 212; (4) Love Thy Trophy Episode 113; (5) The Courtship of Stewies Father Episode 419; (6) A Hero Sits Next Door Episode 105; (7) Petarded Episode 409; (8) Family Guy Viewer Mail #1 Episode. 11The conflation of differences within AMESA peoples is particularly apparent in the construction of this fictional name. Meant to evoke a singular Muslim or AMESA
connotation, the name is a combination of Hebrew (Bahir), made-up names based on traditional names (Hassam seems to be a play on Hassan and/or Hussein), and actual Arabic names such as Abdul Hakeem (meaning servant and judge, respectively). 12Fredric Jameson (1984: 59) calls this phenomenon pastichethe wearing of a linguistic mask, speech in a dead language. For instance, speaking of a particular language (such as wearing the Sadaam-Satan t-shirt) in an alien context, borrowing a symbol, and continuing to use it until the words lose their contextual meaning, is an example of pastiche. For example, this mass-produced individualism, predicated on the crisis of white masculinities, draws effectively from racism and patriotism. For a striking example of such pastiche, see Henry Jenkins (2007) on the curious story of Dino Ignacio, a Filipino-American high school student who placed an image of Bert (the Sesame Street character) in a photograph of Osama Bin Laden that was in turn captured on the Internet and used in thousands of anti-American posters and flyers across AMESArelated areas.
Adams, W. C. and P. Heyl. 1981. From Cairo to Kabul with the Networks, 1972-1980. Pp. 1-39. Television Coverage of the Middle East, edited by W. C. Adams. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Adorno, Theodor W. 1973. Negative Dialectics. Translated by E.B. Ashton, New York, NY: Continuum. Adorno, Theodor W. [1983] 1997. Cultural Criticism and Society. Prisms. S. Weber and S. Weber. Boston, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. Adorno, Theodor W. and Max Horkheimer. 1972. Dialectic of Enlightenment. NY: Herder and Herder. Agha, Oflat H. 2000. Islamic Fundamentalism and Its Image in Western Media: Alternative Views. Pp. 219-233. Islam and the West in Mass Media: Fragmented Images in a Globalizing World, edited by Kai Hafez. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press Inc. Ashley, L and B. Olson. 1998. Constructing Reality: Print Medias Framing of the Womens Movement, 1966 to 1986. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 75: 266-277. Bakhtin, M. M. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination. Edited by C. Emerson and M. Holquist. Translated by M. Holquist. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Balant, Ludgar K. (Producer). Simone Farkhondeh (Producer). 1991. Gulf Crisis TV Project: Manufacturing the Enemy [Videotape]. NY, New York: Paper Tiger Television. Barranco, D. A. and L. Shyles. 1998. Arab vs. Israeli News Coverage in the New York Times, 1976 and 1984. Journalism Quarterly 65(10): 178-181. Barrier, Michael. 1999. Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age. NY: Oxford University Press. Bdeir, Ayah. 2004. Thats All Sheikh: Arab Representation in U.S. Cartoons. Course Paper for Media Theories and Methods I Boston, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Beers, David. 25 September 2001. Irony Is Dead! Long Live Irony! Salon.com. Retrieved July 10, 2007. (http://archive.salon.com/mwt/features/2001/09/25/irony_lives/print.html) Belkaoui, J. M. 1989. Images of Arabs and Israelis in the Prestige Press, 1966-1974. Journalism Quarterly 55(4): 732-738.
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Keywords: Racism, Representation, Animation, Irony/Satire

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ANALYTIC FRAMEWORK: AND MANIC-SATIRE

POST-9/11 ECONOMIES OF HYPER-IRONY

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Strinati (1995: 168-169) writes,

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WHY AMESA ANIMATION, WHY NOW?

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DATA AND METHODS

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Racial Allusions and Illusions

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(Critiquing) White Supremacy

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CONCLUSION: DOUBLE-EDGED RACIAL-NATIONALISM

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