Elon Musk has praised South Park special Joining The Panderverse, which targets Disney for “pandering” to audiences with token diversity.
In the episode, which premiered on Paramount+ on Friday (October 27), Cartman fears that he and his friends will be replaced by diverse women.
“I had a dream I was replaced by a diverse woman,” Cartman cries in panic. “Only this time, it wasn’t me, they were taking all my favourite people and replacing them with diverse women who complain about the patriarchy.”
After a portal to the multiverse opens up, Cartman is sent to a universe populated only by diverse women, while he’s replaced by a Black woman in the original South Park universe. When his friends Kyle and Stan say the change “doesn’t make any sense”, they’re accused of being intolerant by their school headteacher PC Principal.
The rip in the multiverse is caused by Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy, who used an artefact called the “panderstone” to remake the same ideas over and over.
In a scene showing a meeting with Disney CEO Bob Iger highlighting the company’s recent string of box office flops, an executive tells him: “We don’t understand it sir. We keep making the same movie over and over and pandering to everyone, but suddenly it’s not working.”
The episode skewers both Disney’s efforts and the backlash from right-wing YouTubers who complain about the diversity changes, which Cartman goes onto describe as “pretty lazy” too.
In a post on X, Musk praised the episode as “timely” with laughing emojis. In another post on Tuesday (October 31) he shared the episode’s trailer, adding: “The bellwether has sounded.”
The bellwether has sounded https://t.co/MvTE0Qa12V
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 31, 2023
This comes after South Park parodied Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in its 26th season earlier this year in an episode titled The Worldwide Privacy Tour.
South Park: Joining The Panderverse is the show’s fifth special for Paramount+, following episodes on the COVID pandemic and the “streaming wars”.
Another special is expected to air later this year.
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