• TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Huh? I know you can disagree with the article, but this author who’s been bullied literally writes:

    The irony is that the character Timmy is presented with warmth in South Park and given character depth by co-creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker.

    An equal in the show’s unflinching satire, his disability isn’t necessarily the brunt of the joke.

    Timmy is an accepted member of the class: he fails to complete homework, faces adversity and causes trouble with his disabled best friend Jimmy. His personality is conveyed through the different intonations in which he delivers his name.

    One episode, Timmy 2000, sees him win a battle of the bands as frontman for a metal group. The adult characters are shown to respond in an over-protective and condescending way - a striking criticism of the way society often treats disabled people.

    Nearly 20 years ago, a poll by Ouch! - the former name of the BBC’s disability section - crowned Timmy as the most popular disabled TV character.

    Seattle Times’ late disabled critic Jeff Shannon described Timmy as the most “progressive, provocative and socially relevant disability humour ever presented on American television”.

    “Without telling viewers what to think, South Park challenges [the audience’s] own fears and foibles regarding disability, and Timmy emerges triumphant,” he wrote in 2005.

    In interviews Stone and Parker have spoken of how carefully and purposefully they integrated him into the show.

    But two decades later, the fact remains that on meeting Timmy, certainly at first glance, many find him outrageously offensive.

    You really don’t have any idea what you’re talking about on this one.

    • vzq@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      I addressed this in my comment didn’t I?

      I explicitly addressed this in my comment because I knew people were going to post this because it’s in the article.

      So I addressed it in the comment.