Prime time for iconoclasts to program social movement

SOUTH Park Conservatives, according to a new book of that title, are an emerging breed of free-thinkers in revolt against the liberal (or, as we in Australia like to say, "soft-leftie") culture and politics of their baby-boomer parents.

Rather than observing the elaborate codes of political correctness bequeathed to them by their elders, these young iconoclasts prefer to ridicule them – just like South Park itself.

I'm intrinsically suspicious of generational arguments, having observed that people tend to get born every day, not in convenient cohorts ready to be labelled the "lost generation" or "generation X". That said, I welcome any political movement built around the wisdom of my hero, South Park's Eric Cartman, whose social observations include "Poor people tend to live in clusters" and "Kyle's mother is a stupid bitch". The humour of South Park is anarchic rather than conservative. But even that was a head-spin for Australian film reviewers when Team America, the puppet movie by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, was released here last year. Our own bearded critic, David Stratton, was angry that Team America dared to make fun of anti-war US actors such as Janeane Garofalo, who says in the film: "As actors, it is our responsibility to read the newspaper and then repeat what we read on television like it's our own opinion".

Still, if basing a new social movement around a popular TV show is the pathway to publishing and marketing gold, I want a piece of it. Alongside South Park Conservatives, I invite you to place the following emerging trends:

• Play School Paternalists believe in an orderly, highly regulated world in which everybody plays nicely and takes a nap at the same time. Devotees of sustainability, Play School Paternalists believe in a return to a pre-industrial economy of artisanship and cottage-industry, with everybody sitting around cutting out cardboard shapes and making handy stuff from milk cartons. In the world of the Play School Paternalist, forget about any kind of personal initiative or endeavour: a daily announcement will tell you which window we are looking through today.
• The Footy Show Fascist is clannish and tribal. Fiercely opposed to anything foreign - especially in the shape of a female sports journalist - he simply assumes his own code is universal: cultural relativism is definitely not on the agenda. Homophobic and misogynistic - but with a passionate interest in drag - The Footy Show Fascist is a lover of ritual, ceremony, uniforms and costumes. Everything is about the preservation of sacred traditions, such as "the biff", and everyone has a special name.
• As fervent anti-traditionalists, The Bill Utopians are those who refuse to accept that just because things have always been a particular way, there cannot be a clean break with the past. In the belief system of The Bill Utopian, everyone can simply wake up one morning with a different haircut and a new backstory.
• Finally, the SpongeBob Socialist is a throwback to the leftism that preceded the age of identity politics. Highly theoretical and Marxian, the SpongeBob Socialist argues that those who make the Krabby Patties, and generate the wealth in society, are ripped off shamelessly by the owner of the means of production, and of Bikini Bottom's sole honorific, "Mr" Krabs.

Slaving away day after day, night after night, in the Krusty Krab, the industrial worker has been conditioned into a false consciousness in which he is alienated from the products of his own labour. The sheer excellence of Krabby Patties is presented to SpongeBob by the forces of capital as something "natural", rather than the result of his own hard work. Otherwise, he might defect to the opposition, and assist the evil Plankton in setting up a rival enterprise. And when SpongeBob and Patrick do show signs of a pre-revolutionary consciousness - in the Neptune's Spatula episode - they are encouraged to direct their anger at the faded aristocracy represented by Neptune, rather than at the capitalist himself: Krabs.