"Cartman Sucks" is the second episode of the eleventh season of the American animated television series ''

South Park ''South Park'' is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone and developed by Brian Graden for Comedy Central. The series revolves around four boys Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormickand th ...

''. It originally aired on March 14, 2007. The main plot deals with

Eric Cartman Eric Theodore Cartman, commonly referred to by his surname Cartman, is a fictional character in the adult animated sitcom '' South Park'', created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. He is voiced by Parker, and is one of the series' four main chara ...

's efforts to recover an incriminating photograph that may call his

sexual orientation Sexual orientation is an enduring pattern of romantic or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. These attractions are generall ...

into question, whereas the subplot, which focuses on

Butters Stotch Leopold "Butters" Stotch is a fictional character in the adult animated television series ''South Park''. He is voiced by series co-creator Matt Stone and loosely based on co-producer Eric Stough. He is a student at South Park Elementary School. ...

, explores childhood gay

conversion therapy Conversion therapy is the pseudoscientific practice of attempting to change an individual's sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to align with heterosexual and cisgender norms. In contrast to evidence-based medicine and cli ...

Plot

Cartman Eric Theodore Cartman, commonly referred to by his surname Cartman, is a fictional character in the adult animated sitcom ''South Park'', created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. He is voiced by Parker, and is one of the series' four main charact ...

has developed a hobby of getting

to spend the night at his house and taking degrading photos of him as he sleeps. The next morning Cartman then shows Stan,

Kenny Kenny is a surname, a given name, and a diminutive of several different given names. In Ireland, the surname is an Anglicisation of the Irish language, Irish ''Ó Cionnaith'', also spelt ''Ó Cionnaoith'' and ''Ó Cionaodha'', meaning "descendant ...

and

Kyle Kyle or Kyles may refer to: Places Canada * Kyle, Saskatchewan, Canada Ireland * Kyle, County Laois * Kyle, County Wexford Scotland * Kyle, Ayrshire, area of Scotland which stretched across parts of modern-day East Ayrshire and South Ayrshir ...

a photo of him with Butters's penis in his mouth, thinking that this makes Butters homosexual. However, Kyle points out that a male who performs oral sex on another male is the one perceived to be the homosexual, thus making Cartman the homosexual. As a practical joke, Kyle then convinces a horrified Cartman that taking a similar picture with his and Butters's positions switched would "cancel out the gay polarity". Cartman goes over to Butters's house, then tricks him into allowing himself to be blindfolded and opening his mouth. As he is about to insert his penis into Butters's mouth, Butters' dad Stephen walks in on them and panics. After Cartman flees without waiting to explain, Stephen declares that Butters is

bi-curious Bi-curious is a term for a person, usually someone who is a heterosexual, who is curious or open about engaging in sexual activity with a person whose sex differs from that of their usual sexual partners. The term is sometimes used to describe a b ...

. Butters, totally unaware of what Cartman was planning to do, just asks him what that means. Stephen explains that it means that Butters is "confused". Butters, having no idea what he is talking about, admits that this is so. Stephen takes him to Camp New Grace, a

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

camp, whose organizers repeatedly reinforce the idea that the boys there are "confused". At camp, the boys are miserable, the counselors are uncaring, and suicide is common. Butters befriends his roommate and "accountabili-buddy", a nervous and insecure boy called Bradley. When camp authorities find Bradley's 1979 male underwear catalog they are both punished. After Bradley realizes that he has a crush on Butters, he comes to the conclusion that he is beyond hope and decides to end his life. Butters and the staff of the camp find Bradley on the outer ledge of a bridge and try to persuade him to come down. When Butters finds the staff to be unsympathetic, he excoriates them, telling them that he is sick of people telling him he is confused, and that he was never confused until he was brought to the camp. He also voices his belief that the staff's assertions of "confusion" are simply a projection of their own confusion. Somewhat encouraged by this expression of confidence and pride, Bradley decides not to commit suicide and comes down. Seeing that Butters is happy being bi-curious, Stephen admits that he is

as well and that he enjoys his curiosity. The statement prompts a shared laugh between the two, but Butters winds up legitimately confused as he has no idea what his father was referring to. Meanwhile, having discovered that Kyle was tricking him, Cartman decides to throw away the picture of him with Butters's penis in his mouth and never bring it up again. However, Stan, Kyle and Kenny, pointing out that they already know about it, blackmail Cartman into being nice to them or they will tell everyone. Cartman refuses and decides to

photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in raster ...

the picture so it would be Kyle with the penis in his mouth. When Cartman cannot find it, he convinces himself that Kyle has stolen it in order to show it at school during show and tell. Kyle's attempts to convince Cartman that he has not stolen it are unsuccessful, as are the other avenues through which Cartman attempts to recover it from him. Resolving to prevent Kyle from having the satisfaction of showing it off, Cartman himself shows a copy of the photo to the entire class during show-and-tell, attempting to pass it off as an 'artistic statement against the

War In Iraq This is a list of wars involving the Republic of Iraq and its predecessor states. Other armed conflicts involving Iraq * Wars during Mandatory Iraq ** Ikhwan raid on South Iraq 1921 * Smaller conflicts, revolutions, coups and periphery confli ...

', but even Mrs. Garrison is shocked. Suddenly, Mr. Mackey comes to the classroom and relays a message to Cartman from

his mother ''His Mother'' is a 1912 American silent film produced by Kalem Company. It was directed by Sidney Olcott with Gene Gauntier and Jack J. Clark in the leading roles. It was one of more than a dozen films produced by the Kalem Company filmed in Ir ...

: she found the original photograph under his desk at home. Cartman's humiliation is completed as Kyle simply glares at him with a look of bored disdain.

Production

The scene in which Cartman tells the boys that he put Butters's penis in his mouth was cut from the sixth season episode " Asspen".

Reception

IGN ''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...

gave this episode a score of 9.0 and said:

Whenever South Park builds an episode around Cartman's misdeeds, it's bound to be good. One of the best examples of this being "
Scott Tenorman Must Die "Scott Tenorman Must Die" is the fourth episode of the fifth season of the American animated television series '' South Park'', and the 69th episode of the series overall. It first aired on Comedy Central in the United States on July 11, 2001. In ...
". In that classic episode, Eric's naivety got him in trouble. The same happens here, as he plays a prank that has unintended consequences – and gets in even bigger trouble when he believes Kyle's reasoning behind "canceling it out".

The episode was released on the two-disc DVD collection ''A Little Box of Butters''.

Australian rating controversy

In 2011, the

Australian Communications and Media Authority The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is an Australian government statutory authority within the Communications portfolio. ACMA was formed on 1 July 2005 with the merger of the Australian Broadcasting Authority and the Austr ...

made a complaint against

Austar Austar was an Australian telecommunications company. Its main business activity was subscription television but it has also been involved with internet access and mobile phones. It was founded in 1995 under the name Community Entertainment Telev ...

for falsely rating the episode an M rating, instead of MA15+ (equivalent to TV-14 and TV-MA, respectively), as it featured strong sexual material and

self-harm Self-harm is intentional behavior that is considered harmful to oneself. This is most commonly regarded as direct injury of one's own skin tissues usually without a suicidal intention. Other terms such as cutting, self-injury and self-mutilatio ...

, which normally require an MA15+ classification. ACMA saw that the episode contained strong visual and verbal sexual references and, although they were stylized depictions of

oral sex Oral sex, sometimes referred to as oral intercourse, is sexual activity involving the stimulation of the genitalia of a person by another person using the mouth (including the lips, tongue, or teeth) and the throat. Cunnilingus is oral sex per ...

, their imagery was still considered to be strong for an M rating. Moreover, visual depictions of suicide, while justified by the storyline, were also deemed strong in nature, when the M classification only allows for moderate impact. Breaching the ASTRA Codes of Practice, Austar recognized that it had classified the episode incorrectly, given that the Classification Board previously classified the Episode MA15+ for the Season 11 DVD.Austar slapped over South Park classification
By David Knox, June 29th, 2011

References

External links