So, this guy right here is pretty popular, both as a fictional 4th grade student at South Park Elementary, and as a phenomenon in the South Park fandom onto whom masculine behavioral and aesthetic ideals are projected wildly. I wanted to dig into the character because it’s honestly fascinating that this fictional little space dweeb has been some kind of teen heartthrob for like 20 years. This long ass post is part 1 of my analysis of his character in the series, but it’s largely setting the stage for an analysis of fanon Craig as I’m interested in comparing the evolution of his canon characterization to his fandom reception over the years.
Part 1 here examines Craig’s initial role in the series as a troublemaker and his dynamic with Butters as playground law enforcers in the early seasons, and there will likely be 2-3 parts total for canon (part 2 has now been posted here). Hopefully, by breaking it up, people can more easily find parts they’re interested in (for instance, I’ve seen recent renewed interest in Craig and Butters as schoolyard bullies together) and nobody will think I’m all that mentally ill for dedicating so many words to this fictional gay autistic asshole. Here we go!
You are viewing: Why Does Craig Flip Everyone Off
Craig Tucker: Troublemaker
Early on, Craig is introduced as a character with behavioral issues. In “Rainforest Shmainforest” (S03E01), Craig’s speaking debut, Mackey reveals Craig is sent to his office every day for misbehavior. Craig’s shtick in the early seasons is flipping people off and being shown waiting outside Mr. Mackey’s office, where he has likely been sent for flipping people off. This lands Craig a reputation as a troublemaker, which is why Cartman chooses him as worst-behaved kid in “Tweek vs. Craig” (S03E05). The glimpse into Craig’s home life in this episode reveals his family to be uncommunicative and not terribly emotionally involved. Also, they all flip each other off all the time:
In light of this, it seems like learned behavior and the school’s way of dealing with it is, naturally, completely ineffective. Eventually, Craig does stop flipping people off (as he hasn’t done so on the show since “Fun with Veal”, S06E04) – maybe he grows out of it, or maybe it was decided the bit was no longer funny – and his family is also diversified in their behavior and manner of speaking. His parents are both as nasal-voiced and blunted in their affect as Craig in “Tweek vs. Craig”, but this changes later on.
His parents also treat Craig more affectionately as the series progresses, but it’s clear that talking about feelings doesn’t come naturally to the Tuckers, and to Thomas Tucker in particular. Coming to terms with the idea of having a gay son in “Tweek x Craig” seems to have softened Thomas up a bit and, unlike Richard Tweak, both Craig’s parents show genuine concern about their son’s emotional well-being when Tweek and Craig are broken up during The Fractured but Whole (2017) (even if Thomas is also way, way too into the yaoi art).
The Tuckers struggle financially, though it’s unclear how much better off they are than the McCormicks and the Cartmans, the two poorest families in town (as Butters determines in “The Poor Kid”, S15E14). Both Laura and Thomas Tucker work, Thomas in an unspecified office job (as of “Tweek x Craig”, S19E06) and Laura Tucker as a bank teller. In “Here Comes the Neighborhood” (S05E12), we see the Tuckers exiting the South Park “Welfare Office” during Token’s song, though this may very well be an exaggeration in Token’s mind. More conclusively, their financial troubles are confirmed when you’re in the bank in TFBW and Laura Tucker complains about having to see other people’s healthy bank accounts all day.
Thomas is a regular at Skeeter’s Bar and we find out in “The End of Serialization as We Know It” (S20E10) that he has accounts on multiple “married but dating” sites, so it’s possible they have budgeting issues as a result of his vices. The Tuckers overall seem fairly dysfunctional, but they love Craig and believe his heart is in the right place, and they themselves seem to have good intentions as parents, if not the strongest marriage or best communication skills. The way they defend him in “Pandemic” against Sheila and Sharon suggests that they aren’t chiefly concerned about their reputation as parents (as, for instance, Tweek’s parents likely would be), but are instead offended on behalf of their son.
Craig, on the other hand, doesn’t exude natural warmth towards his family members. He doesn’t care what Tweek allegedly said about his mother in “Tweek vs. Craig”, and an oft-circulated photo of the diagramming for TFBW reveals he only cares about Stripe and Tweek. In TFBW, Craig tells you that each of his parents likely killed a past Stripe – his mother via accidental stepping, and his father via poisoning as retribution for Stripe #3 having pooped in the living room. For all we know, Craig is just making assumptions, but even if neither story is true, it’s notable how neutrally he relays this information. He might have difficulty relating to his family members and others due to autism, as he also demonstrates other common signs of autism spectrum disorder that many autistic fans have noted mirror their own. He often speaks with a blunted affect, he likes to stick to his usual routines, he has just a few narrow but extremely intense interests, and he struggles to relate to others on an emotional level at times.
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Based on the way “Asperger’s” (a term which was retired in 2013 and replaced with autism spectrum disorder) is discussed in “Ass Burgers” (S15E08), and Craig’s inconsistent characterization with regard to his vocal inflection, understanding of social dynamics, and behavior towards others, it is unlikely Craig was intended to be autistic. It is possible that this has become a more conscious part of his characterization at this point in time. In my reading of Craig’s characterization throughout the series, however, he shifts between this monotone-voiced, matter-of-fact guy (which I view as a more purely autistic Craig) and this angry, insecure bully, raised by a conservative father who struggles to express his emotions and expects his son to behave in a traditionally masculine way (resulting in a more socially dominant and antagonistic Craig). These two modes aren’t mutually exclusive by any means, but there are episodes that feature one fairly exclusively; “Quest for Ratings “ (S08E11) exemplifies the latter Craig, while the former is quite evident in “Tweek vs. Craig”.
In the early seasons, Craig is undoubtedly a bully. He’s a bad influence, the type of kid your parents tell you not to hang around, which is precisely what Sharon Marsh and Sheila Broflovski say in “Pandemic” (S12E10), respectively. He often leads the charge in disciplining kids who step out of line, as evidenced by his taping Mark Cotswolds to a bench in “Hooked on Monkey Fonics” (S03E12), sock-bathing Kenny in “Lice Capades” (S11E03), beating Kyle up for being insufficiently fabulous in “South Park Is Gay” (S07E08) (he was right to do it. Kyle wasn’t even using any product 😔), and rounding up ginger kids to eject from the cafeteria in “Ginger Kids” (S09E11).
Craig Tucker and Butters Stotch: Playground Enforcers (somebody plz make this buddy cop movie)
Early on, Craig is often shown enforcing the social codes of the playground with Butters, with whom he also shares a certain aggression and familiarity with violence. One point that often gets lost in contemporary discussions of bullying on South Park is that the intended point of episodes like “Hooked on Monkey Fonics” is not that the kids are so awful and their behavior should be stopped; the point is that this behavior is normal and kids should be socialized properly so that they can learn to take it and dish it out in turn. Whether one agrees with this point or not is immaterial to one’s analysis of the show.
However, just because social hierarchy is portrayed as normal for these children doesn’t mean that the roles various children seek out or are shunted into tell us nothing about who they are. That Butters and Craig go out of their way to enforce norms on the playground in fact tells us a great deal about these characters.
Notably, Butters and Craig both have conservative fathers and both stand out to a certain degree among their peers in different ways. They are also both particularly hostile towards girls. At the same time, they’re emphatic about their interest in girls generally to a degree that seems excessive for fourth graders. That combination of interest and hostility is not necessarily unusual, as boys at that age often engage in what is known as “pigtail-pulling”, or aggressively teasing or bullying somebody one likes. But neither Butters nor Craig really exhibit that behavior towards girls; rather, they are derogatory towards girls more broadly, as evidenced by this clip from “Lice Capades”.
Craig’s deep voice and tall stature relative to his peers suggests he might be an early bloomer. He’s the main boy interested in the girls’ photoshopped pics in “The Hobbit” (S17E10) and seems comfortable being around girls one-on-one given that he has an unknown girlfriend at one point (referenced in SoT) and is sometimes shown in the hallways with girls like Annie and Red. (Also, some random girl comes up to you in SoT and tells you “Craig is so hot! He just doesn’t give a f uck!” Perhaps this is his mysterious ex-gf, and he dumps her for doing weird sh!t like that.)
Craig is (or was, prior to “Tweek x Craig”) frequently shown sitting in the back of the bleachers at school assemblies with 6th grade bullies. Though he appears insecure socially at times (such as throughout the friend contest in “Professor Chaos”, S06E06), he largely acts dominant socially. Some fans seem to believe this dominance is who Craig truly is, but given that he has consistent moments of insecurity throughout the series, it’s far more likely he’s posturing in an attempt to disguise his social shortcomings. He seems to develop better coping methods as the series progresses, but early Craig is violent, reactive, and does not deal well with feelings of inadequacy.
In Butters’ case, his interest in girls is played for humor, as it’s insinuated that he’s gay in much the same way Tobias Fünke is implied to be gay on Arrested Development. Both characters frequently say things with homoerotic subtext unknowingly, and it’s implied that they’re gay and the only ones who don’t yet know it. Unlike Tobias, however, Butters is 10 and may very well not be gay at all.
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His fantasies about girls are weird 50s “going steady” type imagery (see his wet dream in “Sarcastaball”, S16E08). The way he likes girls is portrayed as naïve and unlikely to result in an actual relationship (see his crush on Kim K in “The Hobbit”, S17E10, and his first kiss which he has to pay for in “Butters’ Bottom Bitch”, S13E09). He has one relationship with a girl end poorly and starts a whole incel dick-flashing movement at his school. This is not a particularly smooth gentleman.
These difficulties with girls are emblematic of a larger naïveté socially. Butters is a frequent punching bag for his classmates, and it makes sense that he would want to pair up with someone like Craig to enforce social norms through bullying. In essence, it is implied that Butters desires to punish others the way he’s often punished for the sense of power that it gives him. He also believes in things like corporal punishment (as seen, for instance, when he spanks Cartman as Awesom-O for being naughty and tells him it’s for his own good in “Awesome-O”, S08E05).
Butters and Craig belong to different socioeconomic classes and their fathers have accordingly different expectations for their behavior and have imparted different values on their sons. Both boys have an affinity for authoritarianism, likely learned from their fathers, though Craig’s father is coded working class and clearly far more hands-off, particularly when it comes to the emotional side of parenting. Stephen Stotch, on the other hand, is the sort of upper middle class Republican to produce children like this: https://www.theonion.com/gop-maintains-solid-hold-on-youth-that-already-look-lik-1819595704 (see also: the crop of GOP townspeople watching the election results at the Stotch residence in “About Last Night…”, S12E12).
The ass-backwards way Butters has been raised has left him simultaneously sheltered and deeply traumatized, as Stephen is both extremely abusive and refuses to tell Butters truths about the world that he needs to know (think “super aids in your butt”, Butters’ goo, what bi-curious even means). As a result, Butters is incredibly gullible and lets people abuse his trust over and over, because that’s what he’s been conditioned to tolerate. Butters often seeks out a more aggressive boy to assist; he is accustomed to being told what to do.
Craig is almost on the opposite side of the spectrum in terms of his tolerance for being told what to do. He can’t sit through a minute of Mackey’s unhelpful counseling without flipping him off twice. He tolerates nothing and seems to display signs of oppositional defiance, which sometimes coexists with autism. Again, it seems unlikely Matt and Trey knowingly conceived of Craig as autistic, but given that Cartman, Butters, Kenny, etc. are based on real kids they knew growing up, it’s possible Craig is based on someone they once knew who behaved this way.
As allies, Butters and Craig carry out fairly straightforward schoolyard punishments. For much of the rest of the series, Butters sticks by Cartman’s side, but he is frequently conflicted about Cartman’s behavior which is far more manipulative and Machiavellian than anything Craig would think or desire to do.
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This part is a bit expository, particularly as concerns Craig’s upbringing and family life, but the next section will be more purely analytical; it compares Cartman and Craig as violent bullies and delves into the emergence of CATG as a rival gang for the main four.
To close this section off, one thing I wondered writing this was if it’s possible Craig wasn’t even a particularly violent child until he was set up to fight Tweek. In the episode, neither he nor Tweek had ever fought before and all the violent acts I listed above take place after the fight. I’m curious what others think about that.
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: WHY
