Analyzing a Scene in South Park: Post 1

For my first blog on animation, I'm going to take a look into a specific scene in a South Park episode that helps narrate the story. The point of this particular scene in the episode "Grey Dawn" points out the racism and hatred of one of South Park's main characters, Eric Cartman. Cartman and classmate, Kyle Broflovsky (a Jewish boy), have been in many wars of words and even a couple of fist fights. Cartman is also a known racist towards African American's, as shown in one episode where he called his one black classmate a "black a-hole," except in full terminology. So this sets up who Cartman is.

In this episode, they boys of South Park are directed to stop old people from driving. All of the elderly people in this episode go to Country Kitchen Buffet before the day starts, so the boys were trying to think of a plan to keep them from getting inside the buffet. Of course, Cartman is the first to think of a plan. Keep in mind, if you don't already know, these character were initially made with colored paper trimmings, and now hold similarities to the styles of shows, such as Looney Tunes and Family Guy.

So the boys were all sitting around a camp fire and Cartman starts to say his idea. As soon as he starts to explain his idea, it cuts from the fire place to scenes identical to what he is explaining. His plan was to have the boys all "cleverly" disguised as black people. In this scene, you see they boys dressed in black outfits with black paint on their faces that doesn't even cover their entire faces. They then break into the building, and Cartman straps a bomb on to Kyle's chest and they "say their tearful goodbye's" as Kyle walks into the buffet and Cartman detonates the bomb and the buffet and Kyle are no more. You can watch this episode at southparkstudios.com and by clicking "episodes" at the top of the website.