South Park: "Let Go, Let Gov"

'South Park'':"Let Go, Let Gov". ''' Season 17, episode 1 (25 September 2013). Trey Parker, dir., script.

See for "Shitter," brain implants that upload one's every thought to the Internet, except apparently used only by Alec Baldwin and Eric Cartman. Far more important, though, is a single shot when Cartman penetrates into the Heart of Darkness of the US National Security Agency's operation tracking Americans: plugged in at the center of a very large computer is a splayed out and tortured Santa Claus, now not just keeping track but unwillingly reporting on our behavior. The possibilities of "He sees when you've been sleeping; / He knows when you're awake" (etc.) are satirically literalized and pushed to a grotesque end (reductio ad finem), combined with an image of the comically horrific superimposition of restraints and the cybernetic on the Kris Kringlular. Note also Butters' getting a following who identify an omniscient, protecting "Gov" with God, and going to make confession and get absolved at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

RDE 21/I/16, RDE, Title, 22Aug19