Ginger Kids

Ginger Kids is episode 911 of the Comedy Central series South Park. It aired on November 9, 2005.

Plot

In a class presentation, Cartman claims that "ginger kids"---those with red hair, freckles and pale skin---are creepy and evil, and that their appearance comes from a lack of a soul. He also claims that they cannot stand the sun, and that Kyle---who has red hair---is a "daywalker," a half-ginger. Kyle gets angry and gives a counterpoint report, and is further irked when Cartman's ideas lead other kids to discriminate gingers from the cafeteria---and so Kyle and the others get together in the night to dye Cartman's hair red, bleach his skin a lighter hue, and give him henna freckles, to make him "ginger," and he is then discriminated against too.

However, Cartman---who cannot stand being a minority, or the idea that he could be inferior to another---becomes, in his typical Hitlerian way, a bigoted leader of the "Ginger separatist movement", and begins to preach that they are, in fact, the "chosen race," calling for "Red Pride" and finally, the eradication of all non-gingers from the Earth. He then sends the other gingers forth in the night to attack all the non-ginger children they can, and chase Kyle and Stan into an old abandoned church, then bring them to their meeting place to throw them all into a pit of lava. These scenes may or may not be a parody of either the Resident Evil 4 video game and/or the Village of the Damned movies.

Kyle is chosen as the first to die, but before being killed he whispers to Cartman that they really made him look ginger, and Cartman freezes in terror. He then (with a tone suggesting totally making it up as he goes along) tells his followers that he suddenly had an epiphany and now realizes that everybody has to get along, and the others are freed. Kyle mutters to Cartman that he is a manipulative asshole, and Cartman (for once) agrees, but doesn't care as long as he gets to stay alive.

Quotes

• Cartman and the Gingers: "Red Power!"

Trivia

• Cartman's hate for Gingers might stem from Scott Tenorman, or possibly Kyle.

• When Kyle and Stan interview three ginger kids, their father remarks that he knows a person marrying a Japanese woman so that his kids won't be ginger -- a reference to Trey Parker's engagement to Emma Sugiyama.

• This episode marks the first time we see the new school bus driver (Miss Crabtree was killed back in episode 813). He appears to be a dark skinned man, perhaps of Mediterranean or Middle Eastern descent, and has no speaking part.

• Cartman's chant of "Better red than dead!" is a take-off of the anti-Communist slogan "Better dead than Red!" Although many countered McCarthyism in the 1950's with Cartman's exact rephrasing.

• The scene in which a group of ginger kids capture a boy as he is showering is likely a parody of the infamous shower scene from Psycho.

• Ginger is an anagram of a racial slur for black people.