Going through some old stuff, I found some reports I wrote in college. I’m posting them to my blog, because what a waste for me to spend all that work and throw it away! Plus, I did go to school on the G.I. Bill, so I figure it’s only fair to share my work with the tax payers.
This paper was an easy one (I needed a break as I generally try to push myself). We had to find a tv show or movie that is satirical, so I chose one of my favorite episodes from “South Park” – “Reverse Cowgirl“, Season 16, Episode 1!
*I had a classmate once asked to see a paper I had written. It turns out he basically copied the paper and just changed some words here and there. He got in trouble for that because the system found too much similarity to mine (luckily, I turned mine in first). So don’t get any funny ideas!!!*
South Park and Real Life
Perhaps the creators of South Park were inspired by Lord Byron’s quote on satire: “I’ll publish right or wrong. Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.” “Reverse Cowgirl” is the first episode of the 16th season of the popular television show “South Park.” Trey Parker, who has been a driving force of South Park since its inception in 1997, wrote and directed the episode while providing some of the vocal talent. “South Park”, known for its work in parody and satire, highlights America’s willingness to give in to government usurpation (the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA in this case), the battle of the sexes, and our need to sue.
Clyde’s mother, Betsy, dies when she sinks into a toilet because Clyde fails to put the seat up. Throughout the episode, the argument of whether or not it is the man’s responsibility to lower the toilet seat or the woman’s to check it is brought up over and over. Studies show men and women will act alike under neutral circumstances. One study even showed when gender wouldn’t be revealed, men wouldn’t be as aggressive as women (apa.gov).
Gender presumptions effect us as well. Men are presumably better in math and are pushed more in that direction, but more recent studies taken from grades two through eleven, girls and boys are equal in math. Females are at 48% in math degrees, but men dominate physics and engineering (Quaid). Parents or guardians could deter their daughters from pursuing math, since they may believe since she is a female, she won’t excel in it. Psychology professor Harry Reis claims that gender stereotypes are detrimental to relationships, stating, “When something goes wrong between partners, people often blame the other partner’s gender immediately…having gender stereotypes hinders people from looking at their partner as an individual” (Ferro). One group that is gender neutral is the TSA.
The Toilet Safety Administration a.k.a. The TSA
After Betsy dies, the TSA (here, the Toilet Safety Administration), first installs seatbelts on toilet seats, then sets up checkpoints in bathrooms, and finally installs security cameras to make sure people are safe while using the toilet. Although the episode didn’t touch on one of the major follies the TSA has had numerous reports done on them, such as when 11 month olds are prevented from boarding planes (Miller) or when a six year old girl is given a pat down at the Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans (Golden), the TSA has been stretching itself into other areas. Then things get more intrusive.
On October 18th – 20th, 2011, TSA agents under the Visual Intermodal Protection and Response (VIPR) accompanied state and local law enforcement at weigh and bus stations. The TSA’s blog claims TSA agents were there to help with inspections and hand out brochures to truck drivers during the exercise (Burns). The newscast provided by reporter Adam Ghassemi showed at one point five TSA agents waiting for a truck to pull up. During Bill Gibbon’s sound bite, TSA, local law enforcement and military personnel stood behind the Homeland Security Commissioner. Such an innocent exercise should not harbor such extreme needs.
Baseline Budgeting
It is not a secret that government agencies will waste money if they haven’t spent their budget to ensure the same budget for next year. The 2012 budget proposal from the Department of Homeland Security requests the security fee of $1.50 per leg per passenger be increased since the cost of airport security has increased 400% since the TSA’s inception (dhs.gov). The Consolidated Appropriation’s Act of 2012 from gpo.gov shows the TSA’s budget for airline security alone was almost $5,253,956,000, which doesn’t include funding for Federal Air Marshals. This massive amount of money that, if the TSA fails at spending, could be diverted to even more so to get into our personal lives. There are even people who attempt to sue the TSA over incidents, and such attempts are much more plausible than others.
Clyde’s friends, Stan, Kyle and Jimmy, escort Clyde to a lawyer to sue the person who invented the toilet, claiming that person is to blame for the death of his mother. In America, the suing fever over frivolous events is not as uncommon as one would think. The Recording Industry Association of America tried to sue about 20,000 people for illegally downloading music, including Gertrude Walton. Unknown to them, she was dead for a year (lasalle.edu).
A Funny Lawsuit Attempt
Of course, a list of frivolous suits would be incomplete without a man trying to sue himself. Robert Lee Brock claimed that his drinking violated his religious beliefs and landed him in jail. Since he couldn’t work and he caused himself emotional pain, he sued for the state to pay him $5,000,000 (OrlandoSentinal.com). One would think being mistaken as a celebrity would be a compliment, but not in the case of Allen Heckard. Falling just a bit short of Michael Jordan’s height, Mr. Heckard attempted to sue not only Jordan, but Nike as well, for a combined $832 million, claiming that Nike catapulted Jordan to his celebrity status (Time.com). Fortunately, none of these cases went through.
The most unfortunate piece from the episode is when Stan’s father, Randy Marsh, states at the town hall meeting “Yeah, I think we’re just going to have to live with the TSA.” As long as the masses are uneducated, they will continue to roll over through obedience, continue to let gender split us apart than bring us together, and waste taxpayers’ money tying up the court systems with nonsensical lawsuits.
Works Cited
Burns, Bob. “Myth Buster: TSA Not Setting Up Checkpoints on Tennessee Highways.” Blog.tsa.gov. Blogger. 25 Oct. 2011. Web. 30 Jul 2013.
“Editorial: Losing the beat.” Lasalle.edu. Lasalle University, 21 Feb. 2013. Web. 30 Jul 2013.
Ferro, Shaunacy. “Science Confirms the Obvious: Men and Women Aren’t that Different.” Popsci. Bonnier Corporation, 06 Feb 2013. Web. 30 Jul 2013.
Ghassemi, Adam. “Tennessee Becomes First State to Fight Terrorism Statewide.” Newschannel5. 21 Oct. 2011. Web. 30 Jul 2013.
Golden, Fran. “TSA Gives Pat Down to 6-Year-Old-Girl in New Orleans.” News.travel.aol.com. n.p. 14 Apr. 2011. Web. 30 Jul 2013.
“Men and Women: No Big Difference.” American Psychological Association. 20 Oct. 2005. Web. 30 Jul 2013.
Miller, Leslie. “No-fly list” keeps babies off planes. Seattle Times. The Seattle Times Company. 16 Aug 2005. Web. 30 Jul 2013.
“Prisoner Sues Himself But Neither Side Wins Suit.” Articles.orlandosentinel. Orlando Sentinel, 10 Apr. 1995. Web. 30 Jul 2013.
Quaid, Libby. ‘Math class is tough’ no more: Girls’ skills now equal boys‘. USA Today. Associated Press, 25 Jul 2008. Web. 30 Jul 2013.
“Top 10 Outrageous Legal Battles.” Time.com. Time, Inc, n.d. Web. 30 Jul. 2013.
United States. Department of Homeland Security. Fiscal Year 2012 Budget Request. Washington: GPO, 2006. Print.
United States. Cong. House of Representatives. Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012. 112th Cong., Washington: GPO, 2011. Print.
If you found this helpful or entertaining, please consider your support to BLoafX.com at the support page. Links to Amazon on this site are linked to my affiliate account with Amazon. Any link you click to Amazon that results in a purchase will generate a percentage to me.
Please subscribe to my blog. Every time I get a blog post, you’ll get an email notification! It’ll be a variety of posts, so maybe you’ll learn or see something new often! Thank you for your support!