Summary Of The Thirteen Episode 'The F Word'

South Park is widely regarded as a contentious television program, but the season thirteen episode “The F Word” “was remarkable for breaking with the usual satirical format and proposing serious arguments for reconstructing the language we use to describe homosexuality” (Schulzke, 2012, p. 24). In his article on South Park, Schulzke argues that one of the show’s few unambiguous social positions is its stance on equal treatment for homosexuals, and that this specific episode makes a credible case to change how the word “fag” is defined and used. Many examples across multiple seasons, starting in the fourth episode, are explored to show the position that the program has taken on equality of rights and treatment for homosexuals. Later, when discussing “The F Word”, he suggests that although the writers may not have known it, they use multiple concepts, such as “meaning as use” and “social construction of meaning” (Schulzke, 2012, p.28) in an attempt to look at and redefine the hate word, and then acknowledge that the final value of a word comes from the linguistic community. Also suggested is the strength of the message inside of the episode, namely, that the multiple repetitions of the theme, whether blatantly stated by the characters or shown more subtly through different segments should more than suffice to display the message of the episode to a large majority of viewers.

In the following section, I would like to strengthen Schulzke’s sociological support of the episode, and qualify his argument that the episode’s message “outweighs its potential harm” (Schulzke, 2012, p.

30).

In the article, Schulzke cites Searle’s work on the construction of social facts through language. The evidence of this taking place within the episode is very strong. The kids, not aware of the neoclassical definition of the word “fag”, construct in their society the association of the word with Harley riders, which then transfers into the wider community as adults begin to accept the new meaning. In his observation of Searle’s work, however, we do not see an argument for how society is able to come to terms with this change so quickly. Although the episode does, as Schulzke suggests, remove the association of the word “fag” with homosexuals in its universe, he has no explanation as to why the social change is so swift. The use of the word starts with children, who have no prior association with the word, so it is understandable that they gave it their own association, but the word quickly becomes redefined inside of adult society as well, and the mechanisms of this change is not discussed inside of the article. However, support of this can be found with the work of Howard S. Becker.
Becker wrote that culture was a consequence of any group of people acting together, and was continually changing, with new conditions creating new culture. In the episode, these new conditions come with the arrival of the Harley riders, annoying both young and old in the community. This sets the stage for the children using the word to describe the Harley riders, as well as for the later acceptance of the new meaning of the word by the adult community. As the adult’s meaning of the word comes into conflict with the children’s meaning of the word, two mechanisms of culture lead to the shift of usage. Culture is a stronger driver than personal opinion, and the mechanism of cultural inertia is built so that overlying features of culture are much more fluid than basic structure (Becker, 1982), so it is plausible that the adults of the community, who are clearly accepting of homosexuals in the episode (seen in their refusal to accept the use of “fag” as a hate word, among other places), are willing to change their culture to match that of their youth. When cultures come to new situations, they improvise on top of their pre-existing standards (Becker, 1982). Updating their word “fag” reflects the effect of their new condition, where they update it, working with their acceptance of homosexuals, on to a new circumstance (Becker, 1982). Although Schulzke does a good job explaining how language can change within a culture, his argument can be further supported by other works.
Schulzke’s argument for the positive message of this episode applies very well to the homosexual minority, but I feel that Schulzke does not effectively touch on the effect that this redefinition has on defining the Harley community, and how this weakens the episode. This episode, which does an effective job at removing the hate word “fag” from its association with homosexuals, falters at the end by defining the word to mean “loud, obnoxious and inconsiderate individuals” and “members of the Harley community” at the same time, suggesting that the Harley community is comprised of such individuals. This definition is a classic example of stereotyping as defined by Joel M. Charon, a judgmental category that is not carefully created and does not encourage a search for understanding differences among humans. In the episode, the Harley riders are shown as being hungry for attention, not intentionally annoying people, but hoping to look cool in the town of South Park. The response of the town is to define all Harley riders as annoying and as people who should not be in their community. They base their whole view of Harley riders, defining all Harley riders as “fags” in their dictionary, based on a select group, and do not attempt to understand why the Harley riders act as they did in the first place. In shedding the meaning of the word “fag”, they have created a new stereotype, which although affecting a less controversial topic, is still a stereotype none the less, drawing from the power of the episode.
As a whole, Schulzke does an effective job displaying the positon of the South Park writers on homosexuality, and displaying the mechanisms that make the display of definition-change valid. The episode effectively highlighted that words can be detached from their meaning if a society has motivation to do so. Also, I agree with his stance that this episode intended a positive message, but note that it is held back by its inclusion of a new stereotype. Hate words can and should be redefined to help deconstruct stereotypes, but this must be done carefully.