The Tao of South Park: Dissonant Visual Culture and the Future of Politics

A self-consciously oppositional institution that appropriates (and protects itself with) a lucrative brand identity and history of comedic or animated commentary, South Park is an example of how popular culture can interact not only with and react against dominant ideology, but also how such cultural productions are sanctioned and desired by a media system that requires audience loyalty. In South Park silences and traumas become apparent as silences and as traumas, internalizing their own repression and displacing it into poignant social commentary. This does not prove agency or effect, and indeed can be self-destructive, but it does demonstrate that because culture is made of shifting and evolving texts it is both possible to demonstrate the potential for and locations of emancipatory politics. The Tao of South Park seeks to chart such shifts and evolution, bridging gaps between community, media and the political.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Communications

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Gournelos, Theodore Peter

Contributors dc:contributor

• Kent Ono

• Mass Communications

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3314778

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/86591