Here’s What ‘South Park’s First Thanksgiving Episode Taught Psychologists
In the very first holiday season that South Park ever skewered, Trey Parker and Matt Stone unintentionally taught disaster aid specialists what Americans really thought about those Sally Struthers commercials.When Parker and Stone first set out to put their spin on the Thanksgiving sitcom special, they decided that the best way to put their stamp on the holiday was to lambast the contradictions of America’s relationship with the bountiful feasts we enjoy. Americans are world-renowned for our over-indulgence in food, and, yet, when “Starvin’ Marvin” first aired in 1997, we also fancied ourselves to be the benevolent saviors of starving children across the globe for just 65 cents a day after calling into the 1-800 number we saw on TV during dinner.Through their ruthless parody of the widely-circulated Christian Children's Fund commercials featuring actress and activist Sally Struthers, South Park gave the celebrity-faced humanitarian organizations a scathing send-up, one which disaster psychologists studied to understand how the general public sees figures like Struthers and the organizations they represent.
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In The Handbook of International Disaster Psychology, psychologists Gilbert Reyes and Gerard Jacobs used “Starvin’ Marvin” as an example to illustrate how many Americans at the time viewed humanitarianism “as an overblown industry leeching off others' suffering and harming its purported beneficiaries.”
Well, to be fair, Struthers wouldn't do serious damage until “Starvin' Marvin in Space.”In “Starvin' Marvin,” Stan, Cartman, Kenny and Kyle donated to Struthers' charity organization after seeing a commercial in which she implored viewers to save starving children in Africa by sending her food and money. Of course, the boys only wanted to sponsor a starving child so that they could score a Teiko digital sports watch, but a mix-up at the charity ends up sending one of the actual children to South Park instead of the watch.
Meanwhile, viewers found out that Struthers, in one of the more mean-spirited celebrity depictions of early South Park, had been hording all the food that her organization collected and eating it herself.In the DVD commentary for “Starvin' Marvin,” Parker and Stone explained that the idea for the plotline came from the popularity of buffet chains like the one featured in the famous, "No, Starvin' Marvin, that's my pot pie!" scene.
“We always wondered what would happen if you took an African kid and showed him a buffet at, like, Circus Circus, and people just leaving tons of food on their plate,” Parker explained, referencing the glutinous Las Vegas casino and hotel, “Which I totally do.”
Furthermore, Parker explained, “Canned food drives were huge … I always wondered if, like, poor people were just so bummed to just get a bunch of canned food. Like, who cares? You get a bunch of creamed corn.”Parker and Stone probably weren't trying to make a political point about ethics of star-powered humanitarian spokespersons using the images of starving children to sell sponsorships on TV. Nevertheless, the lesson that the psychology community learned from “Starvin' Marvin” is that trotting out a privileged actor to guilt the public with a slideshow of suffering can give TV viewers the impression that the organization responsible for the commercial is full of it.And by “it,” I mean chocolate cake.
