Oct 29, 2017 | 9:00 AM - 10:30 AM | Loft 2

Duru Gungor, PhD

From Jimmy Valmer to PC Principal: Representations of Social Justice in South Park

After twenty seasons, and innumerable controversies, the animated sit-com South Park is one of the living monuments of American satire. Its creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, have never been known to shy away from delving into conflicts concerning the distribution of wealth, rights and privileges across the globe, nor to have remained unresponsive to any major trends, be they in the arena of politics or popular culture. In fact, especially in the last several seasons, the show’s style may be summed up as a series of scathingly witty, dark, at times deeply depressive, and yet ultimately empowering, even world-affirming reflections on the madness of living today. South Park’s humor is less “cynical” than “kynical,” to borrow a distinction drawn by German cultural theorist Peter Sloterdijk in his highly influential Critique of Cynical Reason (1983); starkly put, this is the type of humor that opposes any ideology guilty of taking itself too seriously, and carries the act of opposition itself back to its ancient roots in the streets of Corinth, where Diogenes the Cynic was recorded to have urinated, defecated and more, as a legitimate commentary on civilization. Accordingly, the appearance of PC Principal as a brand-new character in season nineteen, amidst an ongoing debate about the so-called “social justice warriors,” is not surprising. PC Principal is by no means the first character to embody social justice causes; long before his introduction, the South Park team has been using characters such as Kyle Broflovski, Wendy Testaburger, Jimmy Valmer, Timmy Burch and Token Black to critique racism, ableism, misogyny, antisemitism, xenophobia, ethnocentrism, and white privilege. Therefore, PC Principal deserves some analytic attention, not in relation to a specific social justice cause, but rather as a direct and multi-layered commentary on the social justice backlash.

Caleigh Windolf, MA

We’re All Snowflakes Now: The Rise of the MRA Movement(s) and Social Justice Backlash in Contemporary Western Society

The rise of social justice backlash, and in particular the growing MRA (Men’s Rights Activists) movement, seeks, at this particularly contentious and troubling time in human history, to undermine and delegitimize major social phenomena such as the reality of rape culture, slut-shaming, the core intentions of feminism and the rise (and construct) of hyper-masculinity.

This paper will concentrate on the effects of MRA movement(s), not only on women but on the very construct of masculinity itself and its impact on boys and men. This construct will be examined through a lens of intersectionality, as this paper will explore the direct effects of MRA politics with regard to the LGBTQ community, women (cis and trans) of colour, cultural and socioeconomic influence, historical significance and, ultimately, identity politics.

Giving equal consideration (ie.- column inches and air time) to socially regressive ideologies is not only toxic to Western values of social progression and tolerance, but also to the landscape in which we navigate our day-to-day existence. This paper will also explore the research on these effects, demonstrating the statistical significance of the MRA movement(s) with regard to rape culture, slut-shaming, anti-feminism and patriarchal entitlement in the media, workplace, government, military and higher educational institutions, with a primary focus on North American research and statistics. The groundbreaking work of scholars Dr. Michael Kimmell and Dr. Jackson Katz will be considered.

Laura Fasick, PhD

When It's Always Personal and Never Political: Studies Ideas about Social Activism and Spiritual Growth in Global Literature

I teach in a university with a student body that is overwhelmingly white, rural, Protestant, and of Nordic ancestry. Often, classes in the university’s “Global Perspectives” category are these students' first invitation to read and to write about life in other countries.  In teaching “Global Perspectives” classes, I have been struck by students’ deep admiration for the spiritual courage with which characters in the books we read face enormous suffering.  Students will show intense emotional involvement with the characters’ pain under oppressive social structures and brutal exploitation.  Likewise, students will vigorously applaud the grace that many of these characters develop when faced with such oppression and brutality. Yet I have grown uneasy with this admiration.  Too often, the respect students feel for characters’ spiritual stature seems to negate any interest in struggles, whether fictional or real-life, against the preventable causes of the suffering. Issues of social justice fade away as students concentrate on how characters are ennobled by the fortitude with which they endure pain.  As a result, admiration for individual, fictional characters seems to promote indifference toward the social causes of that pain and the social remedies that might ease it.