In South Park's 200th episode, Matt Stone and Trey Parker (the show's creators) picture every celebrity South Park has insulted trying to get Mohammed's "goo", which makes him off-limits to be ridiculed. This had enraged some radicals at the "Revolution Muslim" website, especially when Mohammed is portrayed in a bear suit to avoid showing his actual person (though in episode 201 it is showed that it was actually Santa in the bear suit). The extreme reaction of those at Revolution Muslim prompted Comedy Central to bleep every time Mohammed's name was used in episode 201, as well as the "summing up" bit at the end of the episode (where the characters say what they learned).
I have four questions about this:
1. Why does radical Islam have so much control over what Comedy Central shows? Matt and Trey never actually show Mohammed or his figure. Plenty of other groups have been angry, but Comedy Central has never gone this far. South Park has shown God as a purple warthog, Jesus and Satan have boxed, the Vatican has been shown taking orders from the Great Queen Spider, the show is constantly insulting Catholics and Jews, and an episode was devoted to ridiculing both Mormons and Scientologists (just to name a few). Groups have expressed outrage about these things before, but this fringe group made a veiled threat and the network edited out the last few minutes of the episode. Due to all other religions not being off-limits, I can only assume that the editing was due to the idea of violence.
2. What about the makers of South Park's speech rights? I agree with what Mr. Ifitkhar says, that the "best way to counter free speech is with more free speech".
3. Why now? South Park already showed Mohammed's image in season 5's "Super Best Friends" episode, where he fought crime with Jesus and other religious figures. How is it more offensive now than it was before?
4. What does this do to, and say about, Americans' attitudes about Muslims? There's already a fear of Muslims among many Americans, and this fuels the fear and misunderstanding about Muslims.
This should be a non-issue. The fact that this group grabbed hold of something so insignificant shows they just wanted publicity at the expense of the creators (and viewers) of a show that is an equal-opportunity insulter.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
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I think you are exactly right that the creditors and Comedy Central paid special attention to the groups' demands because the group was threatening violence and/or killing the creators of South Park, right?
ReplyDeleteI am not so sure I agree with your point 4 that this will only add fear and misunderstanding about Muslims. As a little anecdotal evidence I worked for the DailyER Nebraskan and we ran a story on Mohammad for one of our first publications. The next day we received an angry letter from a UNL student group demanding we print an apology. We declined and said, essentially, we are an Equal Opportunity Offender. I bring this up because working in media requires a delicate balance especially when dealing with satire. Yet, I think altering the episodes to prevent violence will not affect Americans' views on Muslims too much.
Maybe "fuels" wasn't the best word choice, but I do think it doesn't do anything to stand up to radicals or try to move away from letting radicals define Islam.
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