Safe Space (South Park)

"Safe Space (South Park)"
Directed by	Trey Parker
Written by	Trey Parker

"Safe Space" is the fifth episode of the nineteenth season and the 262nd overall episode of the animated television series South Park. The episode premiered on Comedy Central on October 21, 2015. It parodies the idea of safe spaces while also continuing the season-long lampoon on political correctness.

Plot

Cartman is shown crying after receiving negative comments for his appearance in a picture he posted online of himself wearing only underwear and lifting weights. PC Principal suggests having another student filter out negative comments on Cartman's social media accounts and having copies of only the positive comments on paper. Cartman agrees and asks Kyle, Wendy, and Butters to filter out the negative comments, with Principal threatening to give detention if they refuse. Kyle and Wendy refuse and are given two weeks of detention while Butters only agrees because his parents would ground him if he got detention.

Meanwhile, at Whole Foods Market, Randy is pressured by a cashier to give additional money for poor starving children while paying for groceries. The cashier continues increasingly pressuring him to make donations in his subsequent visits until he finally makes a donation but is then pressured and embarrassed more by the cashier for only giving one dollar to charity.

Principal invites Steven Seagal to give a lecture on body shaming, and Seagal admits that he has also been a victim of body shaming like Cartman has been. Principal forces Butters to help Seagal in the same manner he has been helping Cartman. Eventually, Butters is filtering negative comments for an increasingly large number of people, including Demi Lovato and Vin Diesel. He stays awake late at night and loses sleep filtering out negative comments on everyone's social media accounts.

Randy films a commercial featuring poor starving children to support his desire to make the supermarket a safe space. Cartman, Randy, and others sing an original song about their safe space, with the song introducing a character named Reality who threatens to destroy their safe spaces. Randy and others make a new commercial to support a shameless America where citizens are not criticized for any of their attributes or actions. In order to get the Whole Foods Market cashier to stop asking him for donations, Randy announces that he is hosting a charity dinner for his shameless America. Meanwhile, Butters begins having illusions where he sees Reality threatening him due to his lack of sleep and overexposure to negativity. This leads to him jumping out of a window at school and he is hospitalized. The charity dinner, hosted by model Gigi Hadid, is disrupted by Reality who insults the guests and makes people realize Butters' condition. In response, they make a new commercial where the money raised from the charity is spent on iPads which are given to poor starving children so that they can filter negative comments from everyone's social media and give everyone a safe space. At the town center, the citizens opt to have Butters publicly execute Reality by hanging him.

Critical reception

IGN's Max Nicholson gave the episode a 7.3 out of 10 and commented that the storyline with Randy and the supermarket donations "hit its mark this week. Not only was it relatable, but it also touched on some of the same points Cartman's storyline addressed, but in a finer, more innovative way" but felt the episode had a "vague stance". Writing for The A. V. Club, Dan Caffrey gave a B+ rating to the episode, noting the blend of the two storylines was "a strategy that, on top of being comedically surprising, often forces the viewer to keep their own feelings of superiority in check." Real Men Report's Sebastian Alvarez gave the episode a score of 8 out of 10, generalizing his review with the statement "Safe Space is classic South Park, meaning it's freaking awesome!"

External links

• Episode 1905: "Safe Space" Press Release South Park Studios. October 19, 2015
• Safe Space - Full Episode - Season 19 - Episode 05 South Park Studios. October 21, 2015