Rocking Chair Babies

Of all modern popular culture touchstones, I have to say that the South Park phenomenon interests me about the least. I find Stone and Parker’s alleged iconoclasm pretty boring. That’s just me.

This morning I watched an exchange on Fox News between two vacuous talking heads, though, that made me realize that they really are a couple of useful idiots for the right. The gasbags were going on and on about how silly it was for Sean Penn to get angry about a purported message in their new puppet movie in which they tell young people not to vote. It sounded like typical FOX blather, and I assumed that Penn was being his usual wingnut bait. But, the gasbags then took the South Park silliness and applied it to an indictment of Rock the Vote and other youth outreach groups in general by condemning the youth vote in general as uninformed, mostly by using liberal arguments as examples. It became apparent that there is a subtle GOP youth suppression campaign going on, for reasons that are obvious.

Here’s Parker and Stone’s response to Sean Penn’s letter in today’s Salon.

According to Stone, “when you read it, the letter comes from such a high place of arrogance, you know, [deep, serious voice] ‘You guys are young guys! If you don’t have children, you can’t say anything about anything!’ And the whole voting thing. All we ever said was that we thought that uninformed people should not vote — on either side of the political spectrum. It doesn’t matter who you’re gonna vote for. If you really don’t know who you’re gonna vote for, or are uninformed, or haven’t really thought about it? Just stay home. Don’t let people fucking shame you into going to the polls.”

Added Parker: “If you have absolutely no idea, fuck it.”

“If you really don’t know or you’re just going to vote for George Bush because he’s already in office, or you’re gonna vote for John Kerry because he’s on the cover of Rolling Stone, don’t do that,” Stone said. “That’s lame. Just stay home. That’s all we ever said.”

An irreverent attitude that one might expect from ones so young. That 44 year old asshole Sean Penn is being a mean old man.

But, Parker is 35 and Stone is 33. Getting a little long in tooth to be protesting on the basis of their youthful impudence, don’t you think?