South Park: Joining the Panderverse Special Review
To paraphrase TeamFourStar’s version of Perfect Cell, “Multiverse theory’s a pain.” Or, in the case of South Park, “Panderverse theory’s a pain.” The idea of multiple alternate realities existing in parallel goes back to the philosophers of Ancient Greece, but it was in modern times that it became a scientific concept. Then, storytellers realized that they could use it to tell stories about different versions of the same character as much as they wanted. It was fun for a long time, but then Disney decided to use it for the MCU. Now it feels like everyone in Hollywood is using the multiverse to retell the same stories without putting in the legwork to make them unique, and people are getting sick of it. And when people get sick of something in current culture, South Park can’t help but make fun of it. Thus, we get the long-running satire’s latest special, Joining the Panderverse. It manages to mock Disney pandering to audiences, the ongoing strikes in Hollywood, and especially Kathleen Kennedy.
They really lay into Kathleen Kennedy.
Cartman Thinks Kathleen Kennedy is Wrecking Everything
The special starts off with Cartman having a nightmare. All of his friends are replaced with adult, racially diverse, female versions of themselves who act just like them, but also complain about the male patriarchy. For someone like Cartman, this is the equivalent of Hell, and he goes full-blown conspiracy theorist. Cartman tells everyone (who don’t listen) that Disney is replacing everyone they know to pander to audiences. Or rather, Kathleen Kennedy is doing it.
Some background: Kathleen Kennedy is a successful producer who’s spent years working with Spielberg on films like E.T. and Jurassic Park. Since 2012, though, she’s worked for Disney as the President of Lucasfilm following Disney’s purchase of it. Thanks to how divisive the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy wound up being, Kathleen Kennedy became the fandom’s public enemy number one. So, South Park cranks that hatred up to eleven by having Cartman blame her specifically for why Disney’s tanking so hard lately.
To be fair, Kathleen Kennedy garners so much hate because, as the head of Lucasfilm, she’s an easy target. In truth, her leadership is only one of the reasons behind Star Wars general lack of direction under Disney, with many people to blame. That said, as one of those people who thinks she’s mishandled Star Wars, getting to see South Park tear into her was hilarious. It gets even funnier, though, when it’s revealed it’s not even the Kathleen Kennedy from the South Park universe ruining Disney. It’s an alternate version of her that looks and acts like Cartman.
It only gets funnier from there.
South Park Thinks People are Using the Multiverse Theory to be Lazy and Pander
In keeping with the special’s title, South Park spends a lot of time looking at how overused the Multiverse Theory’s become in pop culture. When Cartman tells the boys that he thinks he’s having dreams about alternate realities, it elicits a collective eye-roll from everyone. The boys keep calling a lazy way to breathe new life into tired franchises, a not-so-subtle jab at the current state of the MCU and its Multiverse-Saga. However, whereas some would see this as mocking the multiverse concept as a whole, I feel South Park‘s only complaining about the lazy writing itself.
For those who don’t know, Marvel and DC have been using the multiverse concept for decades, and it’s led to some of their best stories, like Days of Future Past for Marvel, or DC Comics Elseworlds line of comics. The problem that South Park has is that people are using the multiverse concept without putting in the legwork to develop their alternate realities. In this case, Cartman winds up in a world where everyone is genderswapped, racially diverse versions of themselves who like complaining about the patriarchy. It’s soulless pandering without depth or substance.
In other words, South Park is saying that Hollywood should either put in the extra work, or stop relying on the Multiverse for big movies. It’s not working, much like how college isn’t working out for many people these days.
The B-Plot Should’ve been an A-Plot in a Separate Special
While all this is going on, the B-plot of the special has little to no bearing on the story as a whole. With AI starting to take over people’s jobs, Randy and the other adults of South Park realize something bad: they wasted their time in college. All the years they spent studying and learning the skills they needed for their jobs, only for people learn them on their smartphones whenever they want. Now, they don’t know how to do basic repairs. Meanwhile, the job of being a handyman becomes a goldmine, with the people working it becoming rich enough to buy their own spaceships.
As someone who spent years earning a Bachelor’s Degree in college only to struggle to find work, this part of the special spoke to me. The opinion on college has gotten progressively worse in recent years with people thinking it’s no longer worth the money. That sentiment’s echoed by the adults of South Park who lament how AI is taking over their jobs and leaving menial labor to become big business. In addition, it’s also a nod to the ongoing strikes in Hollywood, with many writers and actors motivated by the fear of being replaced by AI.
That said, it felt like the B-Plot didn’t mesh well with the focus on Disney and Kathleen Kennedy. It seems like something that should’ve been the focus of its own episode or special. In addition, it feels like South Park’s conclusions about AI making many high-paying jobs obsolete seems premature. There are high-paying tasks that AI can’t do, and may never be able to do. So acting like all the money will be in menial jobs feels like jumping the gun.
It’s still funny, though.
Couldn’t Stop Laughing at the Kathleen Kennedy Jabs
So, maybe it’s unfair to blame Kathleen Kennedy for a lot of the problems that Lucasfilm is having. I can admit that thanks to South Park. On the other hand, it was super funny to see South Park satirize the sheer amount of hate she’s getting. That, and how storytellers are being lazy with the concept of the Multiverse. That was also funny.
As a whole, this was one of the best South Park specials to date. It got a lot of genuine laughs from me for the Kathleen Kennedy jokes and the jokes about the Multiverse concept being abused too much. Thankfully, Marvel seems to be planning on hitting the reset button for the MCU very soon.
