South Park, known for skewering pop culture, has had a rocky relationship with the LGBT community. Some jokes and gags have definitely crossed the line into derogatory content, but the show has also has a history of lampooning the religious right and what we now refer to as the alt-right (as versus rednecks).
A preview for the new video game “South Park: The Fractured But Whole,” allows you to pick your gender identity. But if you choose anything other than cisgender, the game’s difficulty level increases and you face new challenges the white boys don’t. You can also choose to increase the difficulty level manually, but your character becomes a person of color. You will also earn less money as a girl, person of color, or trans person.
In an early portion of the game, your character “New Kid,” visits Mr. Mackey, the school counselor, to talk about “sex.” What follows is an amusing – and rather uplifting – scenario telling players it’s okay to be transgender or nonbinary.
If you “choose” to be nonbinary or trans, as you leave the school you get attacked by a pack of rednecks who yell “Well, well, well. If it ain’t one of them gender neutrals. We don’t take kindly to your types around here. Let’s welcome this thing to our town!” You and the usual gang of South Park kids have to battle the rednecks to continue.
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Watch a game play segment of the scene below and let us know what you think.
