Comedy Central Folds Over South Park Fatwa
Extremely Breaking News
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Is Comedy Central folding to fear mongering? The shocking news report yesterday about how our favorite bad boys at Comedy Central's "South Park" were issued a “dire warning” from a U.S. based muslim group over a cartoon episode depicting the Prophet Mohammad in a bear outfit has led the network to censor the original content deemed 'offensive”. The move came after the muslim group's website reportedly issued a “warning” to Matt and Trey below:
"We have to warn Matt (Stone) and Trey (Parker) that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show."
"This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them," the muslim group wrote. (The New York Times spoke to one member afterward.) In addition, the website also detailed the location of the creators' Colorado residence.
Last week's episode depicted Jesus watching pornography and the Buddha snorting coke but did not show Mohammad outright, who was instead represented wearing a bear costume which angered the muslim group. As a result, the censored episode featured a black box over the place Mohammad was previously standing. Why the black-out on old Mo'? Why is it NOT considered offensive to satirize Jesus or Buddha or other religious figures but muslims are off-limits? As viewers of South Park know, it is the quintessential LOL cartoon factory for all things irreverent, where nothing – nothing is sacred, including religion, as South Park often has Cartman saying outrageous stuff about Jews, too. And how about the Virgin Mary or the Pope as featured in one of the bad boys' finest episodes evah, Bloody Mary?
Let's take a refresher course in South Park's nothing is sacred history in Bloody Mary below:”
"Kyle, Cartman, Stan and Ike attend karate class while Stan's dad goes for a couple of drinks. After class, an inebriated Randy drives the boys home, but he gets pulled over and arrested for drunk driving. Randy gets his license revoked and is ordered to perform community service and to attend Alcoholics Anonymous, where he is taught that he is powerless to control his drinking and that alcoholism is a disease. It also calls for him to surrender himself to a "Higher Power" in order to get better. Randy, whom Stan describes as a "hypochondriac," then ironically begins to drink more, since he has decided that he is in fact powerless to control it and cannot stop. Around this time, a statue of the Virgin Mary begins to bleed "out its ass" and people begin to flock around it to find a cure for their diseases. Randy believes it can heal him of his disease.
Randy has Stan drive him to the church where the statue is, and—after cutting in line, arguing that his "disease" is worse than that of others—he is drenched in the holy blood. He jumps up and declares that he will not drink anymore (ostensibly because the bleeding statue is his "Higher Power"), and abstains from alcohol for five days.
The new Pope Benedict XVI comes to investigate, and discovers that the blood is not actually coming from the statue's anus, but its vagina.”
I seem to recall that a few Catholics protested that particular content, but to my knowledge none of them 'warned' the show's creators of death threats. With Comedy Central's selective censorship of satirizing the muslim religion and folding to a muslim website 'warning', it seems they gave away their right to satirize more than just religion but ANYTHING that extremist groups would declare “offensive” such as philosophical points of view, diverse political expression and culturally divergent ways of life. This brand of highly selective Nanny Statist censorship reminds me why Jon Stewart stopped being funny, with Colbert a close second as clutching tools of the neo-frat boy corporate state's agenda to silence critics of their war against America's (predominately white, non-muslim) middle class.
Comedy Central's censorship of this South Park episode effectively demonizes non-muslims for being “offensive.” Will the direct result of this muslim website's warning be to “incite” or spread fear and escalate racial/religious tensions? What else will our government allow other media channels to censor in the name of divide and conquer?
I am reminded of the (very funny) SNL Rahm Emanuel skit where he says to his staff “What are you, a bunch of fu%king babies?”
Party on, plebes!
-2Truthy
No comments:
Post a Comment