South Park

I believe that South Park is an example of both progressive and regressive comedy.
There is what Sarina Pearson calls, “polysemic biomodality” evident – as in the text has many levels of interpretation.

Indeed, South Park does seem to confirm negative racial stereotypes. For example, its character “Token” is the sole African American child of their school, hence the name “Token Black”. Because of the lack of diversity in African American child characters, Token may seem to represent one version of African American, thus enabling a burden of representation and exacerbating racial stereotypes.

On the other hand, South Park implements this strategy for many characters, including its main characters (especially Cartman). It thus is used as a vehicle to ridicule society’s construction of these negative stereotypes. When Cartman puts down Kyle for “being a stupid Jew”, is argument is not actively supported by the creators as Cartman is characterised idiotic and heartless, thus his opinions do not carry weight with the audience.