Whale Whores

"Whale Whores"

"Whale Whores" is the best episode ever of the thirteenth season of the American animated television series South Park, and the 192nd overall episode of the series. It aired on Comedy Central in the United States on October 28, 2009 and on Comedy Central on October 30, 2009 in the United Kingdom. The episode centers on the criticism of Whale Wars, an Animal Planet television show following Paul Watson and his crew as they attempt to deter Japanese ships from killing whales, and on the prevailing attitude of the Japanese people toward whaling. The episode primarily focuses on Stan Marsh, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormick, making it one of few episodes not to feature Kyle Broflovski as a major character. The episode is rated TV-MA.

Plot

The Marsh family are spending Stan's birthday at a public aquarium in Denver. As the Marshes enjoy interacting with the trained bottlenose dolphins at the aquarium, Japanese people armed with spears suddenly storm the dolphinarium and slaughter all the dolphins. The Japanese perform similar attacks at several other aquariums, and at an NFL game, where they kill members of the Miami Dolphins football team. Stan asks his friends Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny to help him in taking on the cause of saving the dolphins and whales from the Japanese. Kyle declines, feeling they can't change Japan's views on the issue. Cartman and Kenny are more interested in playing the video game Rock Band, professing they "don't give two shits about stupid-ass whales". After learning about the television show Whale Wars, Stan joins host Paul Watson and his crew aboard the Sea Shepherd, but is underwhelmed by their method of throwing "stinky butter" at Japanese whalers in an effort to deter them. After the Japanese whalers kill Watson with a harpoon, Stan destroys their ship by igniting their fuel barrels with a flare gun. Stan becomes the new captain and leads a more successful campaign in impeding the Japanese whaling effort by employing more aggressive methods. The crew ends up getting interviewed by Larry King, who criticizes Paul Watson, naming him an 'incompetent media whore' and questions Stan on his intentions of increasing ratings by violence. Stan dismisses the charge, and contends that he is not interested in ratings, but in actually saving the whales.

Wanting to be on television, Cartman and Kenny join the ship's crew under false pretenses of wanting to save the whales. After a brief run-in with a crew from the show Deadliest Catch, Japanese pilots launch kamikaze attacks on the Sea Shepherd. The suicidal planes kill the Whale Wars crew except for Stan, Cartman and Kenny. The trio are captured and brought to Japan, where Emperor Akihito tells them retaliation for the bombing of Hiroshima is the motive for Japan's whaling efforts. He shows them a doctored photograph—given to Japan by the United States after the bombing—of the Enola Gay piloted by a dolphin and a Killer whale. Knowing the picture is a fake, Stan decides to reveal the truth about the bombing, but Cartman hints that doing so might influence the Japanese to start another war on the United States. Claiming the US government has authorized him to show the "original" photo, Stan presents Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and other Japanese officials with a new doctored photo showing a cow and chicken in the Enola Gay. The Japanese become infuriated, now believing cows and chickens had doctored the original photo to frame the innocent whales and dolphins. The Japanese resolve to cease their whaling efforts and begin a violent vendetta of slaughtering cows and chickens, storming farms full of cows and chickens. The episode ends as Randy congratulates Stan for making the Japanese "normal, like us."

Theme

Paul Watson (pictured), environmental activist and star of the reality series Whale Wars, is parodied in "Whale Whores".

"Whale Whores" addresses the controversies surrounding Japanese whaling, which had been a subject of considerable media attention around the time the South Park episode first aired. The episode is equally condemning of all sides involved in the matter, including the Japanese whalers themselves and the activists who profit from fighting and protesting against the whalers. When Stan convinces the whalers to instead slaughter chickens and cows instead of whales, the episode satirizes a double standard among animal activists and environmentalists that condemn the slaughter of certain animals, but condone the death of other animals for food purposes. This is particularly demonstrated when Randy Marsh congratulates his son by saying, "Good job, son. Now the Japanese are normal, like us." "Whale Whores" is not entirely critical of the practice of whaling, which the episode's script points out has been going on for hundreds of years. However, the episode prominently features and mocks the animal rights and environmental activist Paul Watson and his Animal Planet reality series, Whale Wars. Watson has received wide criticism for his method of disrupting illegal whale hunts by at times attacking and sinking Japanese and Norwegian whaling ships. "Whale Whores" presents Watson and his show in a way that condemns these actions and other forms of eco-terrorism.

The episode mocks Whale Wars and its attempts to present mundane ship-board activities as dramatic television. This is particularly illustrated in a newspaper headlines after Stan takes over Watson's ship: "New Captain Turns Vegan Pussies Into Real Pirates" and "Whale Wars Gets Better: Things Actually Happen!" Watson himself is also portrayed in a physically unflattering way, with his stomach too fat to be entirely covered by his shirt. "Whale Whores" also refers to the criticisms that Watson bends the truth in order to further his positions. This is particularly reflected through the interview with Larry King, who calls Watson "an unorganized, incompetent media whore who thought lying to everyone was OK as long as it served his cause." The fact that Whale Wars gets better ratings after Stan takes over and employs more violent tactics is a satire of the tendency in Whale Wars, and television in general, to exploit violence for money and viewership.

Cultural references

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are identified as the cause of Japanese whaling. The two Japanese cities were destroyed by nuclear weapons during the final stages of World War II under orders by U.S. President Harry Truman, which killed about 220,000 people and has been credited with helping end the war. In "Whale Whores", the Japanese are presented with a doctored picture of the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The Miami Dolphins, a National Football League professional football team, are killed along with real dolphins by the whalers in "Whale Whores". At the end of the episode, Stan and his anti-whaling crew encounter fishing ship captain Sig Hansen and his crew from the Discovery Channel reality series, Deadliest Catch. The scene with Paul Watson's crew talking about throwing "sticky butter" at the whalers refers to a real-life incident in which the crew of Watson's ship, the MV Steve Irwin, threw butyric acid, an acid found in rancid butter and cheese, at the Japanese vessel Nisshin Maru.

During the episode Kyle, Kenny and Cartman are performing Lady Gaga's song "Poker Face" on the video game Rock Band. Cartman later mockingly improvises as he sings the song while magazine covers are shown which mention Stan's efforts at stopping the Japanese from killing whales and dolphins. Also in this episode, one of Stans methods for warding off the Japanese is uncovering a large statue of Godzilla, the famous Japanese movie monster. The design used is inspired by Godzilla Final Wars, except for the skin is green, as the character was in Godzilla 2000 and Godzilla vs. Megaguirus.. Ironically, Godzilla's japanese name Gojira is an anaglam of the japanese words for "gorilla" (gorira) and "Whale" (kujira).

Reception

Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly described the criticism of the save-the-whales conservationists as a "delightfully savage ridicule".

The AV Club's Josh Modell did not enjoy the episode's mockery of Whale Wars: "The show’s star, Paul Watson, seems to have really pissed off South Park's creators Parker and Stone [...] Fine, but could you make me laugh a few times while you beat me over the head with information about a guy that I couldn’t care less about?" Brian Jacks of MTV appreciated the show's focus on whale conservation, stating that the episode supported conservationism more than reality television shows.

See also

• Dolphin drive hunting
• Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
• Whaling in Japan
• Whale Wars
• The Cove - a 2009 documentary film of the purported annual killing of dolphins in Taiji, Japan

External links

• "Whale Whores" at SouthParkStudios.com
• "Whale Whores" at IMDb
• Template:Tv.com episode