Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is outraged after being skewered in a recent episode of South Park, the UK Guardian reported. Noem shared her dismay about the jokes during an interview on the Glenn Beck Program podcast on Thursday.
The writers of the satirical cartoon portrayed Noem as an enthusiastic puppy killer after she admitted in her memoir to killing a family dog that had to be put down. The show also mocked Noem's looks and purported plastic surgery as well as her enthusiasm for Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.
In a clip shared to YouTube by the show, Noem is depicted shooting puppies in a training video used by ICE officials. At one point, it shows her face melting and then being rearranged to its current state to suggest Noem has had cosmetic surgery on her face, which the former South Dakota governor has denied.
While speaking to host Glenn Beck, Noem admitted that she hadn't viewed the episode yet because she was too concerned with "going over budget numbers and stuff." However, Noem said that she thought the show's writers lacked creativity and went for the low-hanging fruit with their jokes about her.
"It’s so lazy to just constantly make fun of women for how they look," Noem told Beck. "If they wanted to criticize my job, go ahead and do that. But clearly they can’t – they just pick something petty like that," she added.
The premise of the satire leaned heavily on her public image as an official who is tough on illegal immigration, including her penchant for posing for photos during official business. Noem recently staged a photo op at El Salvador's CECOT prison, where several illegal immigrants from the U.S. have been deported under President Donald Trump.
The episode wrecked her for her admission in her autobiography "No Going Back" that she had to shoot her dog Cricket after it got loose and killed her neighbor's chickens and disrupted their pheasant hunt. She also admitted doing the same to a goat on her farm, which outraged the woke animal rights activists.
Noem is rightly upset as it is difficult to be treated like a joke, especially when the writers were using her looks as fodder. However, the fact that she and others in the Trump administration are getting the South Park treatment means they have reached a high level of cultural status.
In fact, as Fox News reported, the DHS used a still from the episode as a recruitment tool for ICE. The show's creators did not like it and responded with a crude remark, "Wait, so we ARE relevant? #eatabagofd----," the show's account replied to the post.
Undeterred, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin used South Park's remark once again to the agency's advantage. "We want to thank South Park for drawing attention to ICE law enforcement recruitment: We are calling on patriotic Americans to help us remove murderers, gang members, pedophiles, and other violent criminals from our country," McLaughlin said.
"Benefits available to new ICE recruits include an up to $50,000 signing bonus, student loan forgiveness, and retirement benefits. Apply today at join.ice.gov," the post added.
The culture is paying attention to what is happening in the Trump administration, which is why the show felt it could poke fun at its policies and figures and have its audience understand the jokes. It was lazy to focus on Noem's appearance, but the episode remains a net positive for the Trump agenda as it demonstrates the conservative movement's arrival at prominence.
