Review Of The South Park Episode “Best Friends Forever”
In the South Park episode “Best Friends Forever,” the creators of the show satirize the Terri Schiavo Case that extended from 1998 to 2005. At first, I had no knowledge of the case and didn’t realize what was important about this episode of South Park. After being informed of the context of the episode, what seemed like random events in the show made more sense.
During the Terri Schiavo case, when she was in “a persistent vegetative state”, Terri’s husband fought against her parents to take her off of life-support. Terri’s husband, Michael, claimed that she wouldn’t want to be kept alive by a machine if she had very minimal chances of survival. She didn’t leave a living will, so he petitioned on the grounds that he knew what she would have wanted, just like Cartman did in South Park. Because Michael was Terri’s husband, he would have inherited her estate if she died, giving him an ulterior motive for removing her feeding tube.
In “Best Friends Forever,” this estate is symbolized by a PSP. The show exaggerates Michael’s materialism by trivializing the estate with a PSP. Knowing that there was an estate to be inherited, the PSP makes more sense in the episode. The show further satirizes Michael by comparing his status as husband to that of a “BFF. ” This is because while Michael was still married to Terri, he had a relationship with another woman and even fathered a child with her. By understating his position in the relationship, the show satirizes the fact that he shouldn’t really have much of say in Terri’s situation.
On her parents’ side, they argued that Terri was a devout Catholic and should be kept alive according to God’s will. “Best Friends Forever” satirizes this by using irony, making it God’s will that Kenny dies—the opposite of what Terri’s parents claimed. The position of the Republicans, with Governor Jeb Bush represented, is satirized with the devil whispering in the politician’s ear. I think the devil might be representing religion and that the Republicans, or Jeb Bush, don’t do any of their own thinking, but blindly follow what they’re told.
Researching the Terri Schiavo Case gave me much more insight on “Best Friends Forever. ” Being “in the know” allowed me to realize why the show’s creators included an epic battle between heaven and hell and why they made Cartman so obsessed with the PSP.
