Friday, April 14, 2006
Guess who's back...?
- From CNN
The Prophet Mohammed! With the boundary-pushing animated series South Park:
"NEW YORK (AP) -- Banned by Comedy Central from showing an image of the Islamic prophet ohammed, the creators of "South Park" skewered their own network for hypocrisy in the cartoon's most recent episode. The comedy -- in an episode aired during Holy Week for Christians -- instead featured an image of Jesus Christ defecating on President Bush and the American flag. In an elaborately constructed two-part episode of their Peabody Award-winning cartoon, "South Park" creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker intended to comment on the controversy created by a Danish newspaper's publishing of caricatures of Mohammed. Muslims consider any physical representation of their prophet to be blasphemous.[...]"Either it's all OK, or none of it is," Kyle said. "Do the right thing." The executive decides to strike a blow for free speech and agrees to show it. But at the point where Mohammed is to be seen, the screen is filled with the message: "Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Mohammed on their network."It is followed shortly by the images of Christ, Bush and the flag. A frequent "South Park" critic, William Donohue of the anti-defamation group Catholic League, called on Parker and Stone to resign out of principle for being censored.
"The ultimate hypocrite is not Comedy Central -- that's their decision not to show the image of Mohammed or not -- it's Parker and Stone," he said. "Like little whores, they'll sit there and grab the bucks. They'll sit there and they'll whine and they'll take their shot at Jesus. That's their stock in trade.""
- From CNN
It just wouldn't be South Park if they hadn't made something out of the Jan/Feb Danish cartoons. Rather than attack whether it was the right or wrong thing to do, they challenge the principles of the people who have banned the illustrations of the sacred Prophet Mohammed. If one episode gets pulled or censored, then technically the public and the rest of the world have in their capacity the ability to pull the entire show. The show challenges the hipocrisy of the network equally as it does boundaries of free speech. Isaac Hayes took a hit after his own departure from South Park, which was frankly predictable of Matt and Trey. But again, they highlight the hipocrisy of his actions; leaving after 9 seasons of South Park only when his own religion finally became its target.
I've only seen the first episode in this 2-parter. In the first part, Mohammed is featured on 'The Family Guy' for a brief moment, albeit with a big black censor-strip covering every inch of his body, and is shown having a cup of tea....with Mr T. Meanwhile the rest of the nation have their heads buried in the sand...literally.
Cartoon Wars part 1: Will there be enough sand for everybody?
"If you look closely at the writing in 'Family Guy', you will see that the jokes never derive from the plot. And I think that's totally gay." - Osama bin Laden
