You know what our country's lame-ass National Anthemreally needs? A full-on reboot, preferably presented by shoddily animated characters on a Comedy Central series with 20 years of subversion to its name. South Park is planning to deliver exactly that with this week's season premiere, the network announced Monday.
Comedy Central unleashed a 10-second clip from the season 20 premiere and another 30-second rebooted National Anthem tease, promising that the "Member Berries" episode would include plenty of timely anthem mockery:
With Garrison still out on the campaign trail as South Park's new season kicks off, things will surely get very interesting and reliably controversial. As those caught up on the previous 19 years of South Park subversion will remember, creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone pulled absolutely zero punches with its mockery of GOP candidate Donald Trump last season:
The highly questionable lyrical content of the National Anthem has become a source of heated public debate in recent weeks following a protest by San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color," Kaepernick told Steve Wyche after choosing to remain seated while the National Anthem played at the team's home opener. "To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder."
For those not up on the National Anthem's racist ties, University of South Florida history professor Dr. John Belohlavek has the breakdown. "[National Anthem writer Francis Scott Key] was a slave owner," Dr. Belohlavek toldWTSP in August. "So he was criticizing those slaves and hirelings [in the third stanza], those who would fight with the British to obtain their freedom. There were a number of slaves that did that in return of the British promising them their freedom."
South Parkreturns to presumably rip the National Anthem to shreds Sept. 14 on Comedy Central.
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