Theme
Writing for Newsday, television critic Tom Carson stated he felt the episode was "a really plaintive story about craving something, anything, to hold onto", as Cartman tries to adapt the culture of each man he believes to be his father. Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, author of the book Taking South Park Seriously, also felt the episode was a good example of a "kind of equivalency between ethnic, racial and sexual identities", but felt "the humor lies partly in Cartman's parody of mass culture's stereotypes of Native Americans and African Americans". In his book American politics and society today, Robert Singh noted that the episode gives the most prominent example of how Cartman's rude behaviour is the result of being raised without a father. This correlated with a theory by Paul Cantor, author of the book The Simpsons: Atomistic Politics and the Nuclear Family, regarding Homer Simpson, of FOX's The Simpsons, "that merely by being present, a dutiful and attached father can provide a meaningful influence, despite his dysfunctional behaviour and errant educational ways."
Read more about this topic: Cartman's Mom Is A Dirty Slut
Famous quotes containing the word theme:
“The saying, “The Magyar is much too lazy to be bored,” is worth thinking about. Only the most subtle and active animals are capable of boredom.—A theme for a great poet would be God’s boredom on the seventh day of creation.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“... passion for survival is the great theme of women’s poetry.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“It seems to me that upbringings have themes. The parents set the theme, either explicitly or implicitly, and the children pick it up, sometimes accurately and sometimes not so accurately.... The theme may be “Our family has a distinguished heritage that you must live up to” or “No matter what happens, we are fortunate to be together in this lovely corner of the earth” or “We have worked hard so that you can have the opportunities we didn’t have.””
—Calvin Trillin (20th century)