Homo-di-fict: Creations Turn Against Humanity in South Park Town

Homo-di-fict: Creations Turn Against Humanity in South Park Town

Filiz Erdoğan Tuğran (Ondokuz Mayis University, Turkey) and Aytaç Hakan Tuğran (Istanbul University, Turkey)
Copyright: © 2020 |Pages: 14
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-0951-7.ch061

Abstract

In digital age, with all the technological process narrative advertising is trying extraordinary new methods especially in animation movies and series. In this study a new word is going to be used to define fictional animation characters with the term of “homo-di-fict”. In the case of 19th Season of South Park Series, the producers build a “homo-di-fict” which is entirely made from advertising and put her in a plot like a real animation character. So this plot placement causes some important developments in the mail topic of the South Park series. This study aims to examine the correlation between animation and narrative advertising and wants to find how animation “ad” character change animation series plot in the case of South Park.
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-You have created a monster and it will destroy you!…

-You are my creator, but I am your master; obey!1

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Introduction

South Park is an adult animated sitcom that has been aired continuously since 1997. Ever since its debut the show has drawn great interest and started to be regarded as a cult series. In the show that is about the events taking place in a small town called South Park in the American state of Colorado, the narration is presented through four main characters. “The series focuses the seasonal lives of an isolated rural community, with a particular focus on four eight year-old boys” (Nixon, 1999, p. 12). These are South Park Elementary School students Cartman, Kyle, Stan and Kenny. Occasionally, with the addition of some secondary characters the stories are branched off. Ever since its initial airing, South Park has consistently criticized countries and politicians. It has often featured celebrities in its episodes and criticized them by using them by setting them forth as elements of humor. The season that we will be examining the present study is the most recent, or the nineteenth season of South Park. Throughout the history of the show, the ten episodes of season nineteen were the first to follow a continuous storyline. The reason of choosing the case of South Park to analyze narrative advertising in the present study has been the attitude the show sustained throughout the said season towards advertisement. All along the season, almost every resident of South Park decides that in order to live a more decent and better life they need to adopt higher-quality consumption. However, this decision and the prominence given to consumption are not presented obviously, but in a rather subtle and way that can be read between the lines. And in order to achieve this, the residents use advertisements as a tool. “As one of the main veins of the modern capitalism, the world of advertisement encourages consumption to be perceived as a feast and the internalization of the new habits and cultural forms acquired through it” (Best & Kellner, 1998, p. 31- Trans. Marmasan, 2014, p. 232). At a point, South Park residents come to realize something is going off, yet it proves not to be easy to change their consumption habits easily.

Background

Within the scope of the study, it will be tried to make a deduction concerning narrative advertising through the case of the series South Park. The reason for choosing this animated series for analyzing narrative advertisement is due to its rather bold discourse. “Dougherty also contends that cartoons are great way of introducing controversial ideas” (Macgillivray, 2005, p. 136). Within the scope of the ten episodes of the 19th season of the series, narrative advertisements starts to take a significant place in the lives of South Park residents. The changes narrative advertisements cause on the townspeople will be evaluated through the method of script analysis. The season in question will be divided into eight parts where narrative advertisements gradually become part of the South Park residents and each part will be set forth by means of script analysis. During the analysis, new definitions will tried to be made through the Leslie character, and deductions will be made from the homo-di-fict concept created particularly to define her.

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