Last week’s reading list included South Park Conservatives, the 2005 title from Brain C. Anderson.  Being a huge fan of South Park since the beginning, I had heard about this book for years, just never got around to reading it.  Well, although it was decent, I’m glad that I just now read it.  I must have thought this book was going to be more about South Park, how it’s rallied an entire generation of anti-liberals (as Anderson calls them), etc., etc., etc., yadda, yadda, yadda.

But, that’s not what South Park Conservatives is really about.  Heck, it took Anderson a few chapters to even get into South Park the TV show.  Instead, the book is actually an exploration of the boom of new media (talk radio, the internet, cable-news, and even conservative publishing houses) and how this new media is starting to right the bias that is rampant in the old media giants.  So, expecting an in depth analysis of South Park and its impact on politics and the society at large, South Park Conservatives treated me instead to a flighty mini-history on the rise of Rush Limbaugh, FoxNews, and The Drudge Report.

Don’t get me wrong, the information that Anderson puts across in SPC is very informative and interesting.  Just not what I was expecting.  Overall, it was a good book, with pretty short chapters that I was able to breeze through in a night.  So, if you pick up South Park Conservatives, don’t expect thought-provoking theories on how Kyle and Stan represent the libertarian leanings of Matt and Trey or how Randy Marsh represents the kind of crazed left-wing nutjob that latches onto every single cause celeb.  But, that isn’t to say you shouldn’t pick it up, just that my pre-conceived notions on this book left me wanting more.