Kasky talks ‘South Park’ episode

Show dealt with school shooting on Wednesday

Parkland student advocate Cameron Kasky said he respected the school shooting episode on “South Park” which satirized the recent tragedies.

The episode titled “Dead Kids” which aired Wednesday on Comedy Central, was about shootings at South Park Elementary in Jefferson County and how everyone from the students and parents seemed okay with it except for Stan’s mom, Sharon.

“Everyday there is a school shooting,” Sharon rants in one scene of the episode. “It used to be a big deal. I want it to be a big deal.”

The creators of the controversial animated series, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, didn’t directly address the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where 17 students and faculty members were killed or other shootings this year. But the episode featured a hall monitor and other students armed as an unseen student shooter attacks the fictional school.

Kasky told TMZ that the episode “addressed apathy in a really good way.

“I respect Trey and Matt for not portraying any direct violence. I respect Trey and Matt for not portraying the shooter and I think that South Park’s whole deal is that they make our country look at a side of ourselves that we don’t want to really look at it,” the Stoneman Douglas senior said Thursday in New York City where he was making media appearances.

“They make us deal with our problems in an unapologetic way and it’s kind of like a look in the mirror, so I am always appreciative of messages that they have even when I disagree with them.”

Kasky added that he “personally didn’t love” the title of the episode, but “it’s not my job to judge art. Art is art.”

“South Park” wasn’t the only show this week to address school shootings. On Thursday night’s season debut of NBC’s “Law and Order: SVU” called “Man Up/ Man Down”, a 15-year-old rape victim shoots up his school, killing two classmates and wounding others.