Media Culture Project--South Park "The Ring"

Over the past twenty to thirty years, the American masses have grown more infatuated with sex than ever before. As usual, the mega-corporations in this country, such as Coca-Cola, Nike, and even Disney have realized this trend and have sunk their capitalist claws deep into the naughty side of the American mind in order to give birth to what Ariel Levy labels “Raunch Culture.” Virtually every major consumer industry has found a way to repackage their products in a way that allows them to penetrate the wildly profitable market for sex. Among the various tactics used by companies to market sex to the American public is a devious form of brainwashing. Seemingly wholesome media distributors, particularly Disney, have taken up the practice of selling sex to teenagers by packaging and advertising it as pure and clean. It is this very strategy that has helped Disney keep the Christian morality hammer from crashing down on them in reaction to one of their most profitable products, the Jonas Brothers. Through the use of the increasingly popular “purity rings” campaign, Disney and the Jonas Brothers have painted themselves as the pristine, taintless alternative to the likes of Justin Timberlake and other sex symbols in the music industry. The Jonas Brothers, a mediocre teenage boy-band, have been espousing their staunch belief in traditional Christian values for years now, and they wear what have been called purity rings to prove it. Regardless of the validity of their claims or even the merits of the purity rings campaign, the fact is that Disney has made tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars on the Jonas Brothers despite their horrendous music. Some may question how this is possible if the Jonas Brothers are really such poor musicians, lyricists, and singers. The answer, as Levy has taught us is almost always the case, is sex. The purity rings allow the Jonas Brothers to be sexually appealing to young girls, without seeming threatening to parents, particularly those that belong to the Christian majority. Disney, in an astoundingly underhanded way, has positioned the Jonas Brothers as the symbol of pure and innocent rock n’ roll that can and should be enjoyed by some of the most profitable groups of consumers in America, pre-teen and teenage girls.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the brilliant and highly creative masterminds behind the show “South Park,” have made millions of dollars on their ability to recognize the social and cultural anomalies that arise in America. In an episode from season thirteen, entitled “The Ring,” they use outlandish hyperbole and extraordinary wit to poignantly highlight the way in which Disney has recently been using the Jonas Brothers to sell sex to girls across America. The plot of the episode is basically that Kenny, one of the show’s four main characters, takes his new girlfriend Tammy to a Jonas Brothers concert in the hopes of becoming intimate with her. Kenny’s plan stemmed from Tammy’s comment that, “every time I see them [the Jonas Brothers], I get so tingly, I just lose control.” At the concert, the audience, with the exception of Kenny, is entirely comprised of screaming and crying girls jumping up and down in the aisles while the Jonas Brothers shake their hips and gyrate their pelvises to the music. One girl even goes as far to say, “my giny tickles.” Following the concert, the Jonas Brothers invite a handful of girls, including Tammy back to their dressing room to discuss their purity rings. During this interaction, the Jonas Brothers convince all the girls to wear the purity rings, effectively brainwashing them into being loyal Jonas Brothers fans, and more importantly cash cows for Disney. The episode takes a pointedly hilarious turn upon the entrance of Mickey Mouse, cast as the personification of Disney.

Mickey Mouse represents the source of the purity rings campaign as well as the duplicitous marketing strategy that enabels the company to sell sex to young girls. As he educates the Jonas Brother, “You have to wear the purity rings because that’s how we can sell sex to little girls.” Mickey elaborates by explaining that Disney can’t show images of girls reaching for the Jonas Brothers’ “junk” unless they wear the purity rings. In the episode, Mickey has hatched a master plan to hold a 3D Jonas Brothers concert that will be broadcast across the nation and make Disney millions of dollars in a single night…“Disney is calling it the most innocent and pure rock event of the millennia.” Before the concert, the Jonas Brothers admit their guilt about the purity rings, saying that “We shouldn’t be using a nice Christmas symbol for profit gains. We’ve all angered God.” Mickey doesn’t like this and his unbridled rage results in a revealing rant…“You think God is control here? I am in control, I’ve been in control since the 50’s in case you haven’t noticed…Where would you be without me Jonas Brothers? Your music sucks and you know it. It’s because you make little girls’ ginies tickle. And when little girls’ ginies tickle, I make money! And that’s because little girls are fucking stupid. And the purity rings make it ok to do whatever I want. Even the Christians are too fucking stupid to figure out I’m selling sex to their daughters. I’ve made billions off of Christian ignorance for decades now.” Herein lies the core of Disney’s devilishly cunning method for selling sex to young girls without feeling the wrath of the Christian moral majority in America. Parents, censors, and Christian activists all may be blind to Disney’s sexual tyranny, but South Park certainly is not. The Jonas Brothers and their purity rings are merely whores for Disney, espousing traditional Christian values while nonetheless peddling sex to young girls across America.

The true brilliance hidden in Disney’s marketing of the Jonas Brothers is the fact they seem most appealing to more conservative, often Christian, parents, who after hearing their message of purity and innocence, support and encourage their daughters’ patronage of concerts and purchasing of albums. As Levy illiterates, “If the rise of raunch seems counterintuitive because we hear so much about being in a conservative moment, it actually makes perfect sense when we think about it. Raunch culture is not essentially progressive, it is essentially commercial.” (p. 29) Here Levy enlightens her readers to the fact that raunch appeals to progressive and conservatives alike because raunch takes no sides; the purpose of its creation was for it to be consumed plain and simple. However, Disney is not just selling sex to young girls, they are packaging it neatly in purity rings and distributing it through the supposedly clean Jonas Brothers. They are using the programming that so many parents have installed in their daughters; that sex is bad and they should stay away from sexually explicit material. Ellen Neuborne explains that this brainwashing “is the subtle work of an unequal world that even the best of feminist parenting couldn’t overcome. It is the force that sneaks up on us even as we thing we are getting head with the best of the guys.” (Listen Up, p. 30) Even though Neuborne is referring to equality in the workplace, her message still rings true in reference to raunch culture. The programming used by parents to keep their daughters away from sex plays right into the hands of Disney’s marketing master plan for the Jonas Brothers. Moreover, it has turned out to be the very device of these young girls’ downfall into consumption of raunch culture.

I have attached links to the South Park episode I have written about, as well as to two separate Jonas Brothers’ interviews in which they discuss their purity rings. These clips show us what is happening, and what is really happening.