posted February 22, 2023 07:14 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Lei_Kuei:
Sharing a vid I saw recently that explores this topic, and despite it being a fictionalized cartoon, South Park is well known for tackling darker topics under the guise of Humor, and getting it right!Linking it to where the Analysis starts (skipping the 'promo-vpn' stuff)
Cartman and Heidi: The Psychology of a Toxic Relationship
http://youtu.be/6BQNzk6Wt_I?t=198
For those who think it's too long (and/or don't know how to speed it up), one can jump to 13:33 for Closing Statements that sum it up, and just how hauntingly evil narcissistic abuse is, even when played somewhat for laughs, and the terrifying thought that some never escape it.
With that, here's it broken down into 3 parts before Closing Statements:
ONE: (starting about 3:20, which it should do automatically): Cartman is a narcissist, and explores why and how he began a relationship to fuel his narcissism (the irony that he references an article on 11 Signs You're Dating a Narcissist--and How to Get Out is not lost on me).
Just after the 4:10 mark is when we get past the sources and caveats to get to the meat, where Cartman draws in Heidi. She feels bad for him, an alien concept to Cartman, but quickly capitalizes on it. He was cunning enough to figure out what she wanted to hear and tell it to her again and again, making her feel special by being with him (and coming to depend upon that validation) as he wove his web around her, learning her buttons and past so it can be used against her later...though to the untrained eye (or one who doesn't know them), it looks as if he's simply in love, and growing into a better person as a result of it. But that is a carefully fostered trick (which is SO Cartman).
Just before the 6 minute mark begins manipulation and gaslighting.
TWO (6:30): As Cartman finds what he wants (utter control and submission), Heidi is now completely expendable, mystifying Heidi (and many viewers) who thought Cartman loved her. This is the disposable way a narcissist sees others.
Even so, he doesn't cut Heidi loose. He enjoys the control, though now that she's expendable, he gets more sadistic and twisted. And strokes his ego (be it that he has a girlfriend and/or the control he exerts over her without her seeming to even realize it), and also building himself up by putting her down (though this seems all too common in the world that I'm not sure it should be called a symptom of anything other than "humanity").
In short, he still desires having Heidi around, but now as a toy that he's no longer dependent upon.
To protect himself, to hurt Heidi, to gain attention, and continue his insidious control, he pushes the gaslighting hard to say Heidi is the abusive one to the point that Heidi herself starts to believe it, as do others around them. This keeps Heidi from leaving him, and puts her even more deeply in his control, which he abuses.
I liked pointing out the details of Cartman projecting all that he's doing onto Heidi, and breaking up with her while playing the victim, but giving an evil smile as he walks away (patting himself on the back for "well played") as he's setting her up to beg him to take her back. (I understand some Pick Up Artists actually teach these moves, such as "negging" or putting a woman down so that she feels compelled to fix her image, becoming much more vulnerable to further manipulation, refusing to leave because no one else would take her, etc.) And when she doesn't play along as intended, he threatens suicide.
THREE: (Just before the 10 minute mark): The outcome where it no longer works, but Heidi has been emotionally scarred, possibly for life, and like one bitten by a zombie, becomes a lot more manipulative and controlling herself, not just in revenge, but to make sure what Cartman did to her can't happen again, thus spreading the toxic disease (whether this is true narcissism or just dysfunctional behavior based on the abuse is something for others to talk about--but then many say narcissism comes from abuse where a child feels no sense of love or self-control). As Mackie says, "She's a lot like Cartman now, but with the ability to follow through."
Though it's more complicated than that. Cartman gets her again, and once his hooks are in, he repeats the abusive behavior.
She admits to Kyle that she was in a vulnerable place when Cartman got to her, but now she's been defending him for so long that he'd feel mortified if she broke up with him now, a public admission of her own stupidity and gullibility (from her point of view), which is the last thing she needs after all the gaslighting and abuse Cartman has put onto her so that she doubts anything and everything, having no real sense of reality that has been damaged. This is where the insidious evil of narcissistic abuse really becomes tragically apparent even in a silly cartoon.
Indeed, when other girls mock her for having been with Cartman at all, she gets defensive and makes the very bad move of going back to Cartman (who else would have her?), which she realizes later was another mistake, a vicious cycle. Which ultimately leads to a choice of being his toy forever, or becoming Cartman (Luky Skywalker becoming Vader). Both are the wrong choice, but she does choose the second, and that is yet another mistake she makes, if an understandable one.
Yet even as she comes to realize what Cartman is and what he has done to her, she ALSO sees how thinking of herself as a victim has only exacerbated her inferiority and problems, and now she's her own worst enemy instead of Cartman, unless she can overcome both, an especially poignant arc. Ending with, "If you're always the victim, you can justify always being a horrible person."
And whoa, that sums up much of this world today, narcissist and otherwise!
If only more would say they're done playing the victim and walk away from others (including narcissists) who insist on playing such, their lives (and, with enough people, the world--a world that seems to worship narcissists, fantasize about them in media as Chosen Ones and romantic pairings, being them vicariously, voting them into office, etc, just frustrated with what should be the obvious results instead of learning from them) could become so much better.
Still, those internal demons, the negative thoughts placed in us (typically, but not always, by authority figures while very young) aren't going to be exorcised so easily (and they likely make it easy for people like narcissists to use in control and harm). But at least it's a step in the right direction.
Lindaland
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