South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker mocked President Donald Trump in their web series, Sassy Justice. The acclaimed duo uses “deepfake” technology to make it look like Trump is speaking through performer Peter Serafinowicz. The new installment tackles Trump’s loss of the 2020 presidential election and his response to the blow.
Serafinowicz has been playing Trump on Sassy Justice for months now, with the eerie photo-realistic technology making it look like he is really the embattled president. Stone and Parker write the series, including this weekend’s special holiday episode. In it, the fake Trump read a children’s book from within the White House, which turned out to be a thinly veiled metaphor for the recent election. It portrayed Trump as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and President-elect Joe Biden as “a mean, sleepy-eyed reindeer.”
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In the parody, the Biden analogue reindeer forced the other reindeer to hold an election, which they did reluctantly. Predictably, Trump insisted that this fictional election was “rigged” and fraudulent. He then broke down in a temper tantrum, screaming that he had won the campaign.
The apparently improvised story ended with the Trump analogue reindeer dying, apparently out of spite to the rest of the forest. The 4-minute skit concluded with the fake Trump slumped sourly in his chair.
Parker and Stone launched Sassy Justice back in October, using “deepfake” editing to put Trump’s face in all kinds of compromising positions. The web series seems to have occupied the duo throughout South Park’s current hiatus. The beloved cartoon aired just one hour-long special this year, concerning the coronavirus pandemic. Other than that, the cast, crew and animators have sat this year out.
“Deepfake” editing is a recently developed technique for using machine learning and artificial intelligence to make eerily believable fake images and videos of people. They have been used for everything from memes to financial fraud to fake news to adult films, according to a report by The Outline.
The technology so alarmed people that last year, Congress passed the DEEPFAKES Act to control its use. It stands for the Defending Each and Every Person from False Appearances by Keeping Exploitation Subject to Accountability Act, but its applications are still being explored by lawyers. Apparently, it does not apply to Stone and Parker’s portrayal of the president yet.
