From BP to DP

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0qrTLGkK_E&NR=1

This video is show’s South Park criticizing Tony Hayward and the BP oil spill. This video presents the apology from BP because of the oil spill in the Gulf. There are several choices made by South Park to reveal their view on the BP spill. Although it’s obvious that the BP spill was something bad, South Park highlights how they think the apology of Tony Hayward was insincere. By reinventing his apology, and emphasizing his response to the spill being “I’m sorry,” the audience not only sees humor in this, but this choice that South Park makes is revealing a particular ideology and that ideology is “you don’t f#@k Mother Earth.” We see this being shown in South Park’s choice at the end of the clip to have Hayward say “We don’t just fuck the earth, we DP it.” Now for those who do not know what DP is, I’ll save you the trouble of googling it because it means “Double penetration.” This is a great choice of words because this is not the first time BP “drilled” into the earth and caused a spill. Even the image of two drills going into the earth is brilliant in terms of drawing an analogy to the sexual act of double penetration. Of course this sort of content can be aired on Comedy Central because the audience is more liberal, and this particular network allows for more freedom of expression as opposed to other networks like Fox or TBS, which air Family Guy (needless to say Family Guy doesn’t come close to pushing the lines like South Park does). In the end, South Park brings people to the discussion table because after watching South Park episodes a lot of people are inclined to learn more about the topics discussed. I know after I saw this episode, I got online and decided to do research, to better understand why I was laughing, and this is exactly what a Media literate person should do.