The Second Persona

The second persona is a technique of criticism authored by Edwin Black, who more or less describes it as an evaluation of global perspective, creating an ethical judgement from an implied audience. South Park, in general, has a specific type of audience their show reaches. Most viewers of the shower are teenage to middle-aged men. That being said, most of the appeal is based upon comedic masculine rhetoric, and has a very burlesque type of framing. However, they do not shy away from controversial topics such as politics or religion. In the episode, "Debate", they are mocking the presidential race between George Bush and John Kerry in 2004 by representing them as a "giant douche" and a "turd sandwich".

Besides the types of audience mentioned earlier, we can use the second persona too see what other audiences the episode is trying to appeal too. During the episode, the giant douche and turd sandwich are competing against each other to see who will become the elementary school's next mascot, where they face off in a presidential style debate. This is mocking the credibility of both John Kerry and George Bush, by portraying them as a turd sandwich and a douche, the writers are exemplifying that neither president will be fit to run the country. This appeals to the portion of their audience who are politically engaged. It seems to be a tradition around every election year, where many Americans are unsatisfied with who the candidates for president are. Many times people vote for someone not because of the great feats they will accomplish, but who will screw up the least. Through the second persona, we can see how the creators of South Park view politics as a comedic American discourse. 

South Park Episode Using Rhetorical Situation

An aspect learned in class that can applied in this context is that of Bitzer's rhetorical situation. One of the first steps in this process is determining what the exigence is. The exigence is a pressing matter that has a need behind it, which often motivates people to take a certain course of action. In this episode of South Park, the school children in town are using cat pee to get high (called cheesing), this becomes evident to the adults in the community from a newscast on T.V. The news story imitates the typical "what are kids using to get high these days" type of broadcast. This is the exigence which prompts Kyle's dad Gerald to call a town hall meeting, gathering up the parents and adults of the community to discuss which type of action must be taken to prevent kids from "cheesing".

The next step in Bitzer's rhetorical situation is defining the audience intended to hear the message. In this particular episode, the audience to Gerald's speech is the entire adult community of South Park. He begins his speech by providing statistics as to how many children in America have tried cheesing, this gets the audience scared and wondering what course of action should be taken. This is a perfect segue into the next step in the rhetorical situation, which is identifying the constraints and limitations. 

The beautiful thing about South Park is that it has very little constraints as to what they can and cannot do, which gives the writers of the show a great deal of freedom in how they construct each episode. After Gerald's speech, the townspeople agree to ban all cats from South Park. The next scene cuts to the Drug Enforcement Agency going into homes all over town confiscating cats. This is what makes this show hilarious because obviously in the real world that would never happen. But what this does exemplify is the rhetorical situation as described by Bitzer.