character from tv show is tastelessly funny but contributes nothing to thoughtful conversation

I saw the South Park episode that featured Nurse Gollum several years ago -- she's the one who horrifies everyone because she has a dead fetus attached to her head. I don't watch tv these days as I don't pay for cable television access, and in the megalopolis around New York City you don't get any reception unless you pay.

So when I saw this show at a friends house, South Park -- well I remember it as being very funny. But not having seen an episode didn't make me feel like I was missing out on life. What if your friends saw a hilariously scathing show that you didn't see, you might feel left out of the laugh they share in remembering what it was they saw. But the conversation doesn't really get much deeper than, 'wasn't that funny.' There is so much more food for thought outside of even the funniest shows. Unless I'm wrong, and the imprint of the visual and the impression made is more valuable than I am giving it credit for.

Of course this is satire, and it has an important social function. It's important that hypocrites are exposed, and the bullshit of society is revealed to the masses, and I think that's what South Park is brilliant at. The ugliness of the show is but a reflection of the kind of world we live in now, which is a whole lot uglier still.

But also because of it's topicalness, satire gets dated faster than most other arts. Aristophanes plays are still done today, but I don't know why, they are not in the least bit funny to a modern audience. And satire has always seemed to me somehow easier than drama -- its easy to mock people. Even if you're brilliant at it, it's not pure art -- it's too functional and timely, not timeless.

But on the other hand -- we may well be at the cultural end of history because of mass visual media, which has frozen our impressions of things -- through films and stock footage and television shows -- and allows them to be played the same way each time. So, unlike in the recent past of a few decades ago, I am of the generation where I can expect almost everyone I meet to have the most of the same cultural references as me. So, this being the case, the Satire of today, as opposed to that of before this period, may remain funny 'forever.'

The Simpsons has been around for 20 years and is still producing new shows. And I think many of the old ones would still hold up pretty well -- if I saw them on my friends' television sets again today.