How does South Park get away with trashing identifiable people? Are they sued often?

sonovebitch@lemmy.world to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 301 points –
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In the United States, parody is protected by the First Amendment as a form of expression.

Yuuuup, and a lot of times the people that get parodied love it. It’s like fuck me! We made it to the point where South Park makes fun of us. Only person I know of that got pissed was Kanye but fuck that guy anyways

The best thing is he apparently actually didn't get the fish sticks joke which, if true, makes Parker and Stone the best satirists of all time on merits.

what was the joke meaning, i don't watch south park

Say it out loud.

"Do you like fish sticks?"

'Yeah

"Then you're a gay fish."

Kanye in the show didn't get it and thought people were calling him a gay fish. So if real Kanye didn't get the joke, and got mad because he thought South Park was calling him a gay fish... that's just incredible.

I still don't get it

Are you by chance kanye west? In all seriousness it's because fish sticks sounds like fish dicks

Oooooooooooh... I might not be Kanye, but it seems I am of similar intelligence.

Nah I think it's overthinking the thing while it's a juvenile joke. I got it after I thought about it a lot

Sounds like someone likes putting fish sticks in their mouth...

I might not be Kanye, but it seems I am of similar intelligence.

so you believe you're the greatest and smartest creature of all time? whoaaaa duuuude

Isn't that still a roundabout way of calling him a gay fish?

Fish sticks... Fish's dicks...

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You obviously didn't get the joke.

They were calling Kanye gay because he was the first rapper to wear a pink jumper and wear skinny jeans.

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The kids came up with the joke:

“Do you like fish sticks?” (Pronounced like “fish dicks”)

Then, when the person said yes, they’d call them a gay fish.

The joke becomes a meme, but Kanye West doesn’t get it, despite having it explained to him. He thinks the joke is directed at him personally, and does actual scientific research to find out why people think he is a gay fish. At the end of the episode, he accepts his fate, and decides to live as a gay fish (complete with a catchy autotuned song.)

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Nirvana famously said they knew they had made it when Weird Al did a parody of Smells Like Teen Spirit.

If I recall, Weird Al tries to get permission for all his parodies too, just further adding to the point that people mostly are good with that kind of attention.

That he does. The only snafu he had was with Coolio for Gangster’s Paradise. Apparently the label said yes but didn’t actually check with Coolio and he wasn’t happy about it. Weird Al apologized for the mixup and they made peace with it later. Weird Al said the only star that has consistently turned him down was Prince, who didn’t find the whole parody thing funny.

Many years later, Coolio said that he regrets his reaction and that he realizes it's an honor to get a Weird Al parody.

Didn't Paul McCartney refuse as well with the live and let die cover: "chicken pot pie".

Or is that just a joke I took too serious?

Edit 2: Never mind. The cover exists. Maybe he just didn't appreciate it

Edit 3: it's just not officially released according to wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_Pot_Pie

Yep that one is true as well. Paul is a vegetarian and didn’t want a song about non vegetarian food. He didn’t have a problem with parody in general, just that specific instance. Geez, I know way too much trivia about Weird Al :)

Edit: the song was created just never released.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_Pot_Pie

George Clooney liked the show so much he wanted to be on the show but they rejected his request initially since they don't let famous people play themselves. They in turn offered him the non-speaking role of Stan's gay dog. Clooney showed up and gave a full performance of barks.

George Clooney was instrumental in getting the show made in the first place. He liked their second Christmas short so much that he made hundreds of copies and gave them to all his friends, which helped them pitch the show.

And most of the ones who arent ok with it are aware of the "Streisand effect" and know that their best course of action is to either ignore it or pretend they are ok with it and wait for everyone to move on.

The Mormon church did this when the play Book of Mormon came out! Also amazing play if you have not seen it please do!!!! There is a reason it won a Tony!

And Kathleen "The Force Is Female" Kennedy.

I have to doubt a lot of people love being parodied on that show. They are pretty harsh.

I take it you don’t have a brother or any close guy friends. It’s kind of what we do. We rip on each other and buy each other a beer. Same with competitive sports. At the end of the day we respect each other but can make fun of each other and live laugh and love

This is not like ripping on each other with your guy friends.

And this is not like Weird Al doing a parody of one of your songs, which most musicians do see as a badge of honor.

These are pretty damning (and accurate) personal attacks. Pretty sure j-lo, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears were not happy with their portrayal.

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They are already working on weakening it.

That's a very limited scope ruling.

In terms of parody as a whole, sure, but in cases that involve trademarks it's huge. They completely killed the test that was set by the prior precedent case.

It should be noted that that really only applies to citizens being protected from the government (and primarily was created to protect the printing presses and media from the government). There is no legal precedent to indicate that it would apply between citizens.

There comes an issue when a private citizen seeks to use the engines of state to punish those whose speech offends them.

It's one thing to withdraw society and business from someone who offends you, quite another to demand that the state crush them for you. Of course, most states will do that to a greater or lesser degree. No state extends an absolute freedom of speech.

But all kinds of other laws protect citizens from other citizens. You can't hurt them, can't slander them, etcetc so there's really not much most people can do. The most of it is saying "they did a terrible parody of me" and not deal with them anymore.

That concept doesn't really apply very well here.

The government can't make laws restricting speech(with very limited exceptions) therefore other citizens can't legally go after you for protected speech. They're allowed to tell you you're an asshole, they're allowed to ignore you, but they don't have a court case.

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