Any South Park fans here? For those who are not, let me bring you up to speed. South Park was supposed to do a two-part episode that contained depictions of the Prophet Mohammed. While the first one aired with the creator’s, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, own censorship, Comedy Central heavily censored the second one. Comedy Central caved after receiving threats from a Muslim group.
The New York Times: An episode of “South Park” that continued a story line involving the Prophet Muhammad was shown Wednesday night on Comedy Central with audio bleeps and image blocks reading “CENSORED” after a Muslim group warnedthe show’s creators that they could face violence for depicting that holy Islamic prophet. Revolution Muslim, a group based in New York, wrote on its Web site that the “South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker “will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh” for an episode shown last week in which a character said to be the Prophet Muhammad was seen wearing a bear costume. Mr. Van Gogh was slain in Amsterdam in 2004 after making a film that discussed the abuse of Muslim women in some Islamic societies.
SouthParkStudios.com posted this message on their website today:
South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone issued this statement as well:
In the 14 years we’ve been doing South Park we have never done a show that we couldn’t stand behind. We delivered our version of the show to Comedy Central and they made a determination to alter the episode. It wasn’t some meta-joke on our part. Comedy Central added the bleeps. In fact, Kyle’s customary final speech was about intimidation and fear. It didn’t mention Muhammad at all but it got bleeped too. We’ll be back next week with a whole new show about something completely different and we’ll see what happens to it.
This is pathetic. Comedy Central has no problem running South Park’s jokes against other religions under the guise of artistic freedom of expression, but when faced with bully tactics and intimidation from the religion of peace, Comedy Central throws all of that high minded talk right out window and folds like a cheap house of cards.
Welcome to Cowardly Central; Where we only poke fun at religions that don’t fight back.
Via: Memeorandum
Via: The New York Times