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.But the importance of music in hislife reveals Cartman s softer side.His apparent compulsion to sing the songof the succubus is matched by his frequent outbursts into popular song, suchas I Don t Want to Wait, In the Ghetto, and the parody song StinkyBritches. In Cartman s Mom Is Still a Dirty Slut, Cartman reveals hiscompulsive need to finish Styx s Come Sail Away whenever he hears thefirst part of the song ( Yeah, I can t do anything until it s done, he con-fesses). Cat Orgy opens with Cartman playing with his stuffed animals anddolls in his bedroom.After his mother interrupts and asks him to come meetthe babysitter (Shelly), he breaks out into a rap song inspired by WillSmith s Wild, Wild West. His claim that he is a bad-ass cowboy is seri-ously undermined by his choice of sidekick, Artemis Clyde Frog, and hisattempts to reproduce vocally the LP-record scratching noise of standard rapsongs.Cartman s songs in general act to increase the viewer s identificationwith Cartman, the chubby kid who is not well understood by his friends.In Simpsons Already Did It, Cartman has a musical dream of living underwa-ter in a world of Sea People.The song reveals his vulnerable side: He wantsto escape to a world of free and clean living where his companions don tever complain and they don t call me fat. The song allows us to sympa-thize with this boy by revealing a side of him we rarely see.The song s effectis seriously undermined when, after waking from his dream, Cartman says, Wow! Only three more hours, Sea People! Only three more hours and youcan take me away from this crappy, goddamned planet full of hippies. Theright-wing statement against hippies ( hippies is of course Cartman s termfor the enemy and essentially refers to anyone whose views and desires donot correspond with his own) jars the viewer who has until that point beenseduced by Cartman s plight and innocent desire to escape into a fantasyworld.That the show is able to create sympathy for Cartman and thenimmediately undermine it demonstrates the show s powerful use of theseduction of Siren songs, forcing viewers to question their sympathies forsuch a usually nonsympathetic character. Orphic Persuasions and Siren Seductions 73Cartman, of all the characters, seems to have the greatest insight intomusic s ability to create sympathy, and he is not above using it for his ownpurposes.In the episode where Cartman creates a Jennifer Lopez hand pup-pet, Fat Butt and Pancake Head, Cartman is able to fool everyone, includ-ing Ben Affleck, that his hand is a real, second Jennifer Lopez.He does thisnot through the poor ventriloquism, but through the music he has his handsing.The music is supposedly in the style of Latin American pop music, thestyle of the real Jennifer Lopez s music, but it is really just a parody, in themanner of Fingerbang! and other similar parodies.The first song she singsis simplistic: Its repetition of the words taco and burrito emphasizes thetriviality and the stereotyping of the musical style.When Cartman s handlands a recording contract, Cartman must write more songs for his JenniferLopez to sing.The satire becomes clear when, after working on songs for ashort while, Cartman tells his hand: That s three more songs we ve writtenalready! Your style of music is so easy: It doesn t require any thought at all! But because the music is so close to the style of music expected from the orig-inal Jennifer Lopez, Cartman is able to hoodwink almost everyone.The factthat everyone except Kyle, who is usually the most reluctant person tobelieve anything Cartman says has been seduced by Cartman s musicbecomes all the more clear when Cartman s Jennifer Lopez reveals that she isan impostor: She is really Mitch Connor, a con man, who, in a moment ofremorse, takes a cyanide pill and leaves Cartman s hand forever
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