Show and Tell - "Member Berries"

I did my show and tell on a clip from South Park about member berries. In the clip, Randy explains the consequences of a civilization “membering” the good times. He explains to Garrison how member berries cause the users to remember all the good times from their past. Randy even shows how member berries caused the Roman empire to collapse, because they became so lazy and just membered all the good times. This relates to our class discussion about accelerationism and the writings of Thoreau. Thoreau talked about the simplicity of earlier years, which were brought up by the member berries. South Park is saying that the past wasn’t as good as we remember it, and returning to the past is no way to build a future. They imply that membering the good times is the reason why Trump was elected president. Another topic brought up by the clip is the remake. Randy claims that the new Star Wars was not as good as the old one, even though we want to think that it was. During class, we went into a discussion about what made the first Star Wars’ so special, and why the new one lacked that same distinguishing factor. This is kind of the culture remake. It’s hard for a remake to have the same sentimental value as the original. In an earlier episode of South Park, JJ Abrams remakes the national anthem in order to unite the nation. Much like the remake of Star Wars, this new national may seem like it’s doing good, but in reality is just causing us to falsely remember old times. Due to this, Randy claims that JJ Abrams is responsible for rigging the whole election, much to the surprise of Garrison (who is portraying Trump). I felt like this was a good clip for show and tell because South Park does an incredible job with social criticisms. They take real situations and turn them funny, but there is always an element of truth behind all of their stories. Obviously, there were no magical berries causing society to want to turn to the past (in terms of the election), but a lot of the people who voted for Trump were remembering the America that was. These people most closely share the thoughts of Thoreau, while Randy believe that civilizations must keep progressing and leave the past in the past. While many examples in South Park are extreme, they do bring up interesting talking points that can be interpreted in a number of ways.