‘South Park’ Parodies ‘Star Wars’ in a Brilliant Way: “Everything Is Kathleen Kennedy’s Fault!”

South Park is an adult animated series known for its blunt satire, which, despite the bluntness, often comes off as brilliant and absolutely beautiful. The series has been on for almost three decades, and in that period, there was practically no relevant social or political phenomenon that the series hadn’t parodied.

The most recent South Park special decided to continue with the practice of parodying relevant social and political moments by mocking the Star Wars franchise, which has been criticized in recent years due to its alleged forcing of diversity, which divided the fandom and also gave South Park a brilliant opportunity to actually reflect on this issue.

The special, which lasts double the usual episode, mocks Star Wars in a brilliant and somewhat beautiful way, focusing on the key issues that divided the fandom and presenting them in the manner of South Park‘s best parodies of all time, which also explains why we had to report on this!

In case you’ve forgotten after Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm, the Star Wars franchise ended up with the House of the Mouse. Kathleen Kennedy, who was one of the most important people in the franchise while Lucas still owned it, remained as head of Disney’s Lucasfilm as well, but changes had to happen.

The new Star Wars content was different, lighter, and more in line with Disney’s other mainstream products, while at the same time being socially aware and advocating minority rights. This led to a lot of fans calling the new Star Wars content woke, which – as it usually does – sparked a debate online.

Many individual incidents happened (the scripts of the Sequel Trilogy, Gina Carano’s firing, and so on), but the overall impression that Star Wars was not the same anymore left lingering and most dissatisfied fans blamed Kathleen Kennedy for the decrease in quality, as she was the one in charge. She has also not been afraid of speaking her mind publically, and her ideas often angered a lot of the fans.

South Park, as it generally does, used all these facts and packed them in the special, which was titled South Park: Joining the Panderverse. The episode brilliantly depicts the irony of the current situation, and while it attacks Disney’s policy, at the same time, it mocks those who target only Kennedy, while ignoring the rest of the people involved, which implies that Kennedy is targeted solely because she is a woman. Here is a clip from the episode to illustrate what we’re trying to say:

The Clip from South Park Blaming Kathleen Kennedy for ‘Why Disney Movies All Suck Now’ pic.twitter.com/WjSQ3sxnpX

— Geeks + Gamers (@GeeksGamersCom) October 27, 2023

As you can see, South Park does a really great job satirizing the current situation, and while the series’ irony is not an issue per se, it is painfully evident that many fans are actually taking this parody seriously and are reacting to it in accordance with that view. Of course, this scene, as the whole episode, is just a parody that intentionally satirizes these events by portraying them as absurd and as exaggerated as possible.

This is the gist of this article. South Park did an excellent job here and we hope that the series will continue making us happy with its satire for many years to come.

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