By Robert Scucci
| Published
Eric Cartman has always had a complex relationship with women in South Park and there’s so much to unpack when considering the hundreds of encounters he has throughout the series’ run. While I could do a piece on the cognitive dissonance Cartman experiences when he gets pushback from the girls in his class while he has total control over her mother on the home front, I’m here today to talk about something a little more … private.
Have you ever wondered why Cartman’s always confused about female anatomy? Because the answer has been sitting right in front of us since Season 2’s “Cartman’s Mom is Still a Dirty Slut.” Learning that his father is actually his mother, who’s revealed to be a hermaphrodite, there’s a strong case to be built around the fact that Cartman thinks all women are hermaphroditic, which becomes apparent in later seasons even though it’s never explicitly stated.
You Can’t Kick Women There
In Season 11’s “The List,” the boys find out that the girls in their class have a list that ranks every boy from ugliest to cutest. Eric Cartman decides that women shouldn’t have that kind of power over them, and in the typical South Park fashion resolves to steal the document from his female counterparts with the help of his friends.
Cartman, in his infinite wisdom, orchestrates a simple ambush plan to retrieve the list, and his entire strategy hinges on having Butters kick Nelly in the balls. Horrified that this offensive measure didn’t yield the results they were looking for, the boys congregate back at Cartman’s house, where he says, “Okay, our mission failed, but we’ve learned a lot. Primarily that girls do not have balls.”
On its face, Eric Cartman’s misunderstanding of women’s anatomy in this South Park episode can be attributed to the fact that he’s an 8-year-old who simply doesn’t understand that boys and girls have different layouts below the belt.
But this theme is visited throughout South Park’s run, suggesting that there is a deeper meaning when you consider Cartman’s perspective thanks to the unique circumstances surrounding his birth.
Still Playing Ball In Season 20
When the South Park boys’ ongoing feud with the girls in their class comes to a head in Season 20’s “Member Berries,” Cartman’s hoisted by his own petard yet again when he decides to take matters into his own hands. Staging an ambush, Cartman roughs himself up, and draws women’s private parts on his own face as a means to suggest that the girls held him down and left their mark on him in their pursuit of the ever-elusive online troll known as Skankhunt42. The boys quickly lose interest in Cartman’s lie – that was meant to kick off a war of the sexes – when Kyle points out that women don’t have balls, which Cartman included in the drawing on his face.
Eric Cartman, who’s absolutely certain that women do, in fact, have balls, is left more confused than ever, while Kyle and the rest of the gang move on with their lives because he’s an idiot.
It’s All A Matter Of Perspective
When you think about how sheltered Eric Cartman actually is in South Park despite his sociopathic tendencies, it makes sense that the only woman he’s probably ever seen naked by happenstance at that point in his life is his mother, Liane. In Cartman’s mind, since his mother is a hermaphrodite, then every woman must be because that’s all he’s ever seen. Though Cartman’s an evil genius and master manipulator of the highest order in any other scenario, his limited knowledge of female anatomy makes a whole lot of sense because he’s just a kid, and is interacting with the world based on the limited information he’s exposed to, quite literally.
Point/Counterpoint
While there’s an argument to be made about Season 14’s “201” revealing that Cartman shares a father with Scott Tenorman, South Park’s overall loose sense of continuity allows you to think of this episode as non-canonical for a couple of reasons.
Since Trey Parker and Matt Stone write each episode week by week, they couldn’t have possibly known that they’d deliver this twist in what was then considered to be their most controversial episode. Because of their depiction of the prophet Muhammad in both “201,” and its preceding episode, “200,” this two-part saga was pulled from syndication and streaming, meaning that fans of the show rarely see these episodes unless they own the DVDs. What’s more, South Park has always had a problem with continuity– like Kenny dying in every episode during the early seasons, only to get killed off indefinitely before being reintroduced back into the series as if nothing had happened.
In other words, and for most South Park fans, Eric Cartman’s understanding of women and their anatomy is most consistent with the above theory that his mom is a hermaphrodite, which has skewed his perception of the fairer sex because he simply doesn’t know any better.
