And even though a White House representative publicly stated that South Park “hasn’t been relevant for over 20 years,” the timing of a new, costly ad campaign to promote Noem and the DHS sure seems to suggest otherwise.
After the episode aired, Noem blasted the cartoon parody, telling Glenn Beck that it’s “lazy to just constantly make fun of women for how they look. Only the liberals and the extremists do that.” Which is a bit of an odd statement to make because A) it implies that she was totally cool with the episode’s preponderance of puppy murder and racist attacks; and B) her boss, noted non-liberal Donald Trump, could probably sue Trey Parker and Matt Stone for ripping off his “bleeding” facelift bit.
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Noem eventually tried to act like she was in on the joke that clearly enraged her, later adding laser eyes to her South Park caricature for a social media post and encouraging people to join ICE — even though the episode that the character was from literally spent 22 minutes beating audiences over the head with reasons why absolutely no one in America should ever try to make their nut by joining ICE.
While taking a page from Joe Biden’s 2024 presidential campaign somehow didn’t work, now the Trump administration is reportedly planning an “ad blitz” to promote Noem’s “mass deportation campaign.” Back in February, the DHS budgeted “as much as $200 million” for promo spots praising Trump and threatening migrants. And last week, the agency pledged up to $50 million on an “International Campaign Follow-on” to the “Stronger Border, Stronger America” ads.
The high-priced PR push certainly seems to be a reaction to the South Park roast, as The Daily Beast speculated. But a DHS spokesperson denied that this was the case, telling the outlet, “To the Daily Beast’s chagrin, these ads are working, and illegal aliens are leaving in droves.”
Of course, if the government really did opt to spend $50 million in taxpayer money purely to try and repair damage largely caused by a cartoon that has also featured giant irradiated testicles, Kaiju Barbra Streisand and a talking piece of shit, would they really admit it?
