ABSTRACT

This article will consider the recent ‘remastered’ editions of the first twelve seasons of the Comedy Central animated series South Park (1997-), and the impact that this may have upon the meanings associated with the original episodes. The show is now produced in a high-definition format, and most circulating versions of new instalments present any swearing ‘unbleeped’. These choices were not present from the very beginning of the series, however, and retrospectively applying them to past works serves to complicate the linear production history of the show. South Park has been quite vocal in its criticism of the revisionist practices of directors such as Steven Spielberg and George Lucas (most notably in the episode ‘Free Hat’, airdate 07/10/2002). As such, this decision to submit to an apparently similar process raises questions about South Park’s ‘cult’ status, and the previous tendency to celebrate its (self-professed) ‘crappy’ aesthetics. The show’s remarkable longevity offers a valuable case study into the complexities and contradictions of preserving television history, while also attempting to maximize a text’s profitability and ‘afterlife’ in the online streaming marketplace.

摘要

本文将考虑喜剧中心动画系列南方公园（1997-）前十二季的最新“重制”版本，以及这可能对与原始剧集相关的含义产生的影响。该节目现在以高清格式制作，并且大多数流通版本的新分期节目都会出现任何咒骂的“不听话”。然而，这些选择从系列的一开始就没有出现，并且回顾性地将它们应用于过去的作品会使该节目的线性制作历史复杂化。南方公园在批评史蒂文·斯皮尔伯格和乔治·卢卡斯等导演的修正主义做法时一直直言不讳（最引人注目的是在“免费帽子”一集中，播出日期为 2002 年 7 月 10 日）。因此，这一决定服从一个明显相似的过程引发了对南方公园“邪教”地位的质疑，以及之前庆祝其（自称）“蹩脚”美学的倾向。该节目的非凡寿命为保存电视历史的复杂性和矛盾性提供了有价值的案例研究，同时还试图最大限度地提高文本在在线流媒体市场中的盈利能力和“来世”。