2182149 responses to “South Park…off the hook?”http%3A%2F%2Fwww.worldinconversation.org%2F2010%2F04%2F23%2Fsouth-park-off-the-hook%2FSouth+Park...off+the+hook%3F2010-04-23+04%3A54%3A44Sam+Richardshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.racerelationsproject.org%2F%3Fp%3D2182
I watched the south park episode and I thought it was hilarious. The writers were poking fun at the fact that they had previously had an issue with Muslim groups and the desecration of the prophet Mohammed. I did think the show was witty, funny and a fitting response. However the episode, like many other South Park episodes can also be seen as offensive and brash. In reality they did poke fun at the prophet. But they poked fun at many other religious figures as well, Jesus, Buddha, Krishna etc. I am not saying that it is right or that I approve of the mocking of holy and religious figures, I am merely pointing out that the Muslim religion was not singled out to be ridiculed. In some ways the Muslims do have every right to be upset and enraged. It must hurt to see a figure that you hold in great reverence brought down to a censorship bar and made fun of. At one point in the episode in front of the figure of Jesus Christ, one of the characters says “Jesus f**king Christ”. I was not necessarily offended by the comment but I did feel a slight pang of discomfort and unsettlement. So I can definitely see how someone could find offence in the content of the episode. I think the reason I was not overly offended is because I know not to take South Park seriously. I understand that the show I meant to offended people and take on real or sometimes not so real issues in a comic light. I also firmly believe that everyone will get what is coming to them. If the creators and writers of South Park find it okay to do these things then there will be repercussions for their actions. One day they will have to come to terms with the fact that they have disrespected a lot of people and that they have also committed blasphemous remarks against many religions and spirituality. Or perhaps these people are completely content with their spirituality and religions and they use these parodies in order to make a point and even possible affect change. It is entirely possible that their main purpose is not to offend. Whatever the case I do not think that any groups should have anything negative to say about South Park. Although most of their representations are parodies and hyperboles it has never seemed to me that they grossly misrepresent any characters. In this specific episode and in the other ones I have seen that include the prophet Mohammed nothing in that has really misrepresented him. In the end this is a free country and people are allowed to say whatever they want no matter who disagrees with you
South Park is amazing because it says what everyone in society is thinking but is too afraid to say because its taboo. Don’t exclude anyone. They make fun of every group of people, including themselves. south Park makes social commentary in a subtle way, in that they are able to present the issues facing society without making a judgement. Similarly to Dave Chappele presents racism as an absurd thing, South Park presents society as an absurd thing, but doesn’t preach. In the Tiger Woods episode, they point out how absurd it is that rich, successful men should be monogamous. I feel that South Park features children. The children always get it. But the arents never do. The kids are the only people smart enough to et wats going on. It points out how ignorant adults can often be and how closed minded they can be. For example, the handicapped kid named timmy starts a band and cince hes retarded the music is “terrible.” The parents get mad because the music sucks, but the kids cheer just to support him and have a goo time. bottom line, the parents never get it…but the kids usually do. Despite the controversy and absurdity, there is often a lesson or morale tat comes with South Park. The lessons aren’t precahy in vibe, but they suggest new idea that should eb considered. they just want you to think outside the box, just like Sam Richards wants us to. It serves as a release from stress because its humor, but it also shows uncensored commentary that nooone else says. South Park is the most entertaining source of life lessons i’ve ever seen. Civilised societies have been in place for so long, but we still do give the knowledge to the next genertion. My parents have taught me alot, granted, but I feel like they hold back. We learn shit in school about math and english and whatnot and noone teaches us how to live in the real world. South Park actually does this. It tells us hen were being douches, and when were right. I may be exaggerating, but I really think we need to educate people on simply how to think. Because alot of us simply don’t think. south Park gives you access to things ou don’t always thnk about. South PArk probably isn’t the best source of life lessons, but they are the only people that really through their opinions out there. It can be too offensive for older and younger people. Nevertheless, at the end of the show they always learn something and more often then not their right. Not only is it funny, but its genius. Its such a scarce resource. Matt stone and Trey Parker are not just comedic geinuses but life geniuses.
First off I do not watch South Park but I do know how often they make fun of other types of people. That is just what they do. I do not think it is really in good taste especially when they make fun of people’s beliefs. But I show that by not watching their show, I do not threaten to kill them. I know that religion is a very touchy subject and maybe that was taking it a b it to far. But killing or even threatening to kill people because of it is not the way to solve it. I think if they wanted to do something about it they could take them to court about it.
I believe that being respectful of people’s religion is important. If people want to believe in what they believe in then they should be able to without having people make fun of them or push their buttons. I don’t think that everyone else has the same values as me though. I wish that South Park and their creators would be a tad bit more respectful of what people believe in and what people’s morals are.
I know that in the past I have had issues because of the South Park show. They introduced the term “ginger” which refers to a red hair person with lots of freckles and pale skin. I have had many people make fun of me for it. It doesn’t bother me because what I look like is nothing compared to what I believe. If South Park made a show saying that what I believe was dumb then I would be really upset if people started to make fun of me because they saw it on South Park.
I think what the creators of the South Park show need to realize is that everything they put out into the world can have an influence on people no matter what. People believe what they see on TV. Or if they find it funny then they could repeat the terms they heard on TV to their friends and that is how these things get started. What the creators don’t understand is that they have a huge influence on the adolescents of the United States. If the people, students, or teens see that the show is making fun of people because they are Arabic, Jewish, Red Headed, from the South, From the North, Black, or Islamic then they will start to think that it is okay for them to make fun of these people publicly.
I still believe that threatening to kill the creators is extreme but it is their right to voice their opinion about what they believe. I hope they would be able to talk about this issue in a more peaceful manner.
This is a really good question and to be honest I really do not see a problem with the episode it is just television and I really doubt they meant anything by it. You always see television shows like family guy and the Simpson’s doing things like this so I think we just need to forget about it and just remember that it is just animated television.
I think that the writers and producers are always just trying to create controversy. I feel as if you do not like what the show does then just do not watch it. I can easily name a lot of movies that create major controversy that actually had an effect on real life. One that I know of is a movie called Natural Born Killers. This is considered a movie that has been the result of many people killing others because they were so obsessed with it. One example that I am sure everyone knows of is the Columbine shooting. The two students were supposedly obsessed with this movie. What we need to do is start looking at things like this because people look up to movie stars not cartoons. Movies have an effect on much more things in life than cartoons. Kids see something in movies and try to mimic their favorite actor or actress and they want to be just like them. I really doubt anyone wants to be like cartman.
Sure this show is a bit much at times but it is made for humor and for people to enjoy watching. It is never directed towards anything of considered to be a bad influence. This is a show that does whatever it wants. It attacks celebrities, athletes, and political figures and we all pretty much laugh and talk about it the next day but once it talks about Muslims everything gets blown out of proportion. If the show was too much for people then we need to attack the network and not the show itself because it is the network that puts the show on the air. I mean I am just shocked that people are offended about this episode. We all had to have seen this coming from the writers. They have been doing this stuff for years and we have never really said much. We should just say wow it is just another offensive south park episode that may have crossed the line, oh well lets just move on. I really do not understand what the problem is I think that it is just a cartoon and we just need to stop talking about the episode and forget about it. south park will continue to do this and really nothing is going to stop them from doing it because people love the show.
The Muslim groups responsible for ridiculing the South Park episodes are guilty of hypocrisy to the “n”th dimension. They immediately labeled Matt and Trey (South Park creators) as bad people for their attempt on humor and then proceed to threaten their lives. This seems like a bit of a paradox to me. My opinion is that the show is purely for entertainment. You can watch if you want and laugh at it or hate it. Or you can turn the channel and be a South Park hater. Many people have disagreed with messages the show has sent in the past, yet they still love others. The point is, it is completely up to you whether or not you watch it and/or let it get to you in a negative way. The show is a satire. So you have to have a decent base of knowledge pertaining to current events to understand certain episodes. The past two South Park shows delved into censorship issues. This then involved censoring Muhammad, an obvious reference to the Muhammad cartoons of the past. Now, I have to be honest: not much, if anything, truly offends me. Sure, some jokes may hurt my feelings or may be uncalled for in myopinion, but not much really bothers me to the point where I would consider taking vindictive action. Not only did numerous Muslim groups consider taking vindictive action, but this response involves death threats. And this is all over a joke TV show! It is just a shame that people cannot let their guards down enough for even 30 minutes not to be upset over the most ridiculous of affairs. It only upholds my pessimistic yet terribly true view of society that, “It’s always something.” You cannot make everyone happy of course, but it seems like more people are always pissed off than even somewhat content. South Park may go too far. But then again, what is too far? They cleverly craft whatever views of individuals/society into a strategy of free speech presentation to the audience. Therefore, they are legally covered. This does not spare them the disapproval of many critics at home (and apparently death threats from radical Muslims) but they will continue to do it. Because their goal is to push people’s buttons, and they do an amazing job at it. But they are not trying to harm anyone. They are trying to make us laugh. I just wish people would accept it as that much. And I am not expecting all Muslims to laugh at these past two episodes. Disagree with it all you want. But calm down just a bit and do not take it as Americans hating on your religion or mocking your culture. It has nothing to do with that. It was just two episodes of a cartoon TV show that probably went a bit too far in some people’s eyes.
I think this question goes along with the question Sam asked us all in class: when is a joke considered to have gone too far? I must admit that I am not a frequent viewer of South Park but from viewing other shows like Family Guy, I think I have a fairly good idea of the style of comic material the writers use. The images they portray seem to poke fun at every group you can find. Shows make fun of religion, sexual orientation, politics, and so on, all the time. I used to watch Family Guy pretty often in the past. Family Guy features the cartoon characters of God and Jesus in several episodes. I must say that I really did not find those parts of the show in the past funny. I mean, I was not totally against the show, but I do think the writers sometimes pushed things too far. I can understand why people of any certain group that was mocked by these shows would get mad. Although a lot of people may think it is wrong for writers to use this type of comedy, I guess they do have the right to express their opinions. I think that it all ties in the freedom of speech and expression and etc… The writers are free to create whatever they want. I guess they just have to deal with the consequences of their actions. I mean, when the South Park writers decided to create a part of the episode making fun of Muslims, they had to have known that someone was going to fire back at them. Getting back to the “when has a joke gone too far.” I used listen to people make offhand jokes about certain groups and not think anything of it. I mean I knew I was not they were my friends and I knew these people pretty well, so I thought there was nothing wrong with it. After having been through Soc 119, I have completely changed. I have realized that I do not think my friends were justified in saying jokes like that, even if they weren’t being serious. I now have no urge to create such jokes, however, now when I do hear people say such jokes, I tell them to please stop and explain why it is offensive and wrong. I can understand why some people do it though. I feel like when you are with people you know well, you might be more likely to say some sort of joke about a certain group. At that point, you don’t view the joke as going too far unless someone objects. I think a lot of people think a joke has gone too far when a person says a joke in public, offending many people. Although in your own little group of friends you may not be offending that group targeted by the joke, I feel that it is the same as telling the joke in public. What you say is what you say…it doesn’t really matter the context of the situation.
South Park is a satire of our society. It is meant to offend people so I don’t understand why people are making this an issue. There are other shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy that also satirize current events, but South Park is by far the best one. The way the writers of the show incorporate hot button issues into the lives of four fourth graders makes it impossible not to find the humor behind the jokes. I didn’t watch the video so I don’t know what episode in particular is behind all of the controversy, but I have seen all but the most recent episodes of this season so I can guess that almost all of them have to some degree pissed someone off. I saw on Fox News that the episode with Muhammad being represented as a mascot was causing some problems. I think it is funny that people get offended by cartoons, they are the best way for people to express criticism of an emotionally charged topic in a funny way because the cartoons can say whatever they want and get away with it but if south park was a sitcom they couldn’t get away with half of the shit they do.
This is biased because I am personally a big fan of south park. I like that they try to push the buttons of people in the public eye. A lot of what they do on the show is just take a real issue and change some of the details so that they can make it possible to have a bunch of fourth graders make fun of it. This show has been around for awhile, I think this is the fourteenth season or something, and it has always been edgy and pushing the envelope and providing a funny commentary of current issues and events.
We were just discussing this topic in my religion class the other day. I had not heard about this incident and was in no way surprised that the writers for South Park had chosen to write an episode making fun of Muhammad. This show has made fun of everyone under the sun, including Jesus. It seems to me that the issue here is that the perpetrators may not be able to handle a joke like everyone else that has been made fun of by South park has been able to. I can understand why this may be upsetting but it is in no means a just reason to threaten someone’s life.
The controversy with South Park is nothing new to our society or the media. South Park has been on since i was a kid. I remember my parents would not let me and my siblings watch it, and we would sneak and watch it any way. Obviously the show is very offensive, but one thing about the show is that it does not target a specific thing. The show is completely offensive to everyone. It is not meant for people to be offended its more meant for people to laugh at themselves and at others. This show is just like any other show that does things like make fun of different religions, races, etc. Its similar to Family guy, Simpsons, and other comedy central shows. I don't think that it is any different than a comedian saying offensive (yet funny) jokes about certain things. I think the controversy needs to stop because it is just meant to be a joke, not meant to piss people off. I don't have much knowledge on what is going on right now with all of this controversy, but i think to hear that there is even the slightest bit is a little ridiculous. Me and other people that i know who watch shows like this only watch them because of the humor, not because we think everything in the show is true and we believe it. If that was the case i am sure that a lot more people would be mad about this show than there are. The show makes fun of everyone, and if you do not know that then you obviously don't watch the show and you would never understand that. This show is not meant to target anyone in particular, and that is what people need to understand. The show targets everyone, and is meant to be funny, that's all. The creators of this show even offend themselves, they have to! They literally have made fun of every religious figure, race, person, and anything that you can think of on this show. I have seen episodes you can't even imagine the things that this show comes up with. It is clearly just a big joke. I am more of a family guy kind of girl, but even this show is EXTREMELY "offensive". Bottom line is if you do not have the personality to take humor or to take jokes than you probably shouldn't watch any of these types of cartoons, or even comedy central at all. The people who are offended should really think about being offended because they need to take a freakin joke. It is not that serious, and honestly if we make it that serious then we need to cut off a lot of other shows on the air as well. I do not think children should be watching these shows, but for adults i think that it is just all humor.
I hate everyone, okay I take it back. But I hate everyone who looks at the media and takes personal offense to anything that is there. on tv, on the radio, in newspapers, n the internet… your all idiots. I personally think that the people in this class would love this sort of stuff because it says exactly what everyone is afraid to say.
I am a huge southpark fan, even though I am jewish and there is a quota of 2 jewish jokes per episode. family guy, american dad, all sorts of stupid shows like this are exactly the same, they all make fun of minorities and even the majority just to be funny, get over it people … but i really really hate everyone who looks at the media and takes personal offense to anything that is there. on tv, on the radio, in newspapers, n the internet… your all idiots. I personally think that the people in this class would love this sort of stuff because it says exactly what everyone is afraid to say.
i didnt go to class for this… or maybe I did and just wasn't paying attention, but I think that sam richards couldnt handle this kind of humor. he is all talk when it comes to these kinds of things. He is always contradicting himself when it comes to this kind of stuff. I cant even think of any more words to write here, im just gonna copy and paste what i already said
everyone who looks at the media and takes personal offense to anything that is there. on tv, on the radio, in newspapers, n the internet… your all idiots. I personally think that the people in this class would love this sort of stuff because it says exactly what everyone is afraid to say.
I am a huge southpark fan, even though I am jewish and there is a quota of 2 jewish jokes per episode. family guy, american dad, all sorts of stupid shows like this are exactly the same, they all make fun of minorities and even the majority just to be funny, get over it people … but i really really hate everyone who looks at the media and takes personal offense to anything that is there. on tv, on the radio, in newspapers, n the internet… your all idiots. I personally think that the people in this class would love this sort of stuff because it says exactly what everyone is afraid to say. but i really really hate everyone who looks at the media and takes personal offense to anything that is there. on tv, on the radio, in newspapers, n the internet… your all idiots. I personally think that the people in this class would love this sort of stuff because it says exactly what everyone is afraid to say.
I think that any person that watches South Park, or at least is somewhat familiar with it they know and understand that the writers of the show really love to push viewers’ buttons. I’ve seen the show and they pretty much poke fun at every religion, culture, and whatever currently is going on in the world. I’m not saying that it is always right, but they do find a way to push buttons to really make people think about the issues. If the show is offensive to you then do not watch it. The girl said that Muslim people were upset because they writers of South Park poked fun at Mohammed. But honestly, they have poked fun at just about everything. I’ve seen numerous episodes where they have poked fun of Jews and even had Jesus in the show. Literally the how has poked fun at everything, celebrities, presidents. I remember they made an episode about Tom Cruise being gay. They just take current stories and show, in a funny, but kind of crude way, the way this story is impacting society. I actually think it is annoying that this is continuing to be a controversy. South Park had been making fun of religions for years. Now all of a sudden it is a big deal. I think people should just relax. Like I said if it bothers you, just do not watch it and if you kind find the humor in it, then by all means go ahead and enjoy it. It is silly to get all worked up over one issue in the show. I’m sure billions of people have been offended by the show. It targets just about everyone and everything, so there is no need to take it personally. It was their own choice to turn on the show. And I’m willing to bet that if you are purposely turning the show on you are bound to know what the show normally consists of. It is almost like…okay fine go ahead and make fun of other religions, but when it is mine you better watch out. Now how is that fair? It’s not. I think these people need to lighten up and just enjoy the crude humor on the how. I think the exaggerated way the writers express current events is hysterical. Society is being a little too sensitive in my opinion. People are always so serious. I think it is important to be able to laugh at yourself and other things going on in life. If you take everything too seriously, how are you supposed to have fun and enjoy yourself? South Park was just poking fun at another religion like it ALWAYS has, so just enjoy the episodes or don’t watch them.
I have been watching South Park since it began. The whole point of the show is to poke fun at issues and controversies in our uptight culture. People need to relax on taking everything so literal. It is a cartoon mind you. The character of Chef played by Isaac Hayes was a scientology follower. The episode that they made fun of scientology on made him quit. Mind you he had fun for ten years poking fun at every other religion and person in the world, but when it came close to his beliefs he could not handle it. This is the same as that muslim kid who threatened the creators lives. It is all fun and games until you push the wrong buttons. People need to relax over what is said in a cartoon and realize that they need to lighten up. Yes they sometimes go very far to make a joke but people get over it, it is not real.
South Park brings up alot of controversial topics that alot of people are afraid to address their opinions on. The show is similar in a way to Family Guy or Dave Chapelle… bringing up true situations and portraying it through comedy so that everyone enjoys it and everyone understands it. Do I believe South Park can be racist sometimes? Yes. However, you only consider someone to be racist when they discriminate against a certain race and they consider their "own race" to be higher than everyone elses. South Park isn't racist as a whole because it adresses EVERYBODY. From Muslim groups to Gay/Lesbian outbreaks, even to recent celebrity news. I remember one episode of South Park where Kanye West was called a "gay fish stick" recently after he interuppted Taylor Swift. Someone posted on here a recent episode of Tom Cruise being jabbed at in South Park as well. Although it may be distasteful at times, I believe its fair because South Park addresses everything.
I think this situation would be a lot less of a big deal if people understood that shows like South Park, Family Guy and the Simpsons do this kind of thing all the time. The fact is, they make fun of EVERYTHING. Family Guy in particular makes fun of every religion, political party, and famous celebrity. In particular, Family Guy has had whole episodes making fun of both Judaism and Christianity. If people keep that in the back of their minds when watching episodes like the Muhammad one on South Park, there would not be this hysteria. Personally I can be a sensitive person, but I love Family Guy (I haven't watched much South Park) and appreciate 98% of their jokes.
South Park has always bee on the border of controversial episodes and jokes. They have a reputation for poking fun at the topics that everyone else is afraid to even consider talking about. Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have always been on the hot seat. They produced a “scientology” episode in which they lost an actor (chef) because of their offensive position regarding the topic. They ridiculed the leaders of the organization of scientology and the beliefs and doctrines as well. They have also had the media on their back when the touched the controversial topic of assisted suicide; something that Jack Kevorkian was imprisoned for committing. South park had also Taken the stand against terrorism when they released Imagination Land episodes and movies where they had a Suicide Bomber blow up the scene of all the imaginations of our world. Another memorable episode was the “shit” count episode where they dropped the s word 162 times in 28 minutes. They received negative remarks from the LGBT community when they had the same-sex gay bashing episode with Big Gay Al. The latest of the controversial topics occurred April 21 2010 when the studio decided to depict Muhammad in an episode.
The episode received many threats from Islamic terrorist groups to censor the show. And although Trey Parker and Matt Stone did not want to comply, the network took the upper hand and made censorship in response to the terroristic threats that they had received on the masses. The studio even bleeped out the name “Muhammad” every time it was said in order to not offend the Islam People. However, this isn’t the only time that the creators have decided to include the islam prophet in their show. In the past they have proposed to show the prophet and have receive the same threats. They ended up putting Muhammad in a Bear costume to avoid the threats that they had received from islam activists.
I find that the entire idea of not depicting the prophet is far’fetched however I can not be one to judge nor criticize since I have no involvement with the religion. But the idea that everyone on the planet has to abide by the rules of your holy book is ignorant in my mind. No islam should depict the prophet but why does that have to aply to the atheists. You want to talk about forcing your religion on others, the Islamic world is doing so when they prevent others from depicting what they do not believe in. It is a hot and heated topic so it will always grow tension and I know one day that someone is going t make the mistake of not censoring and there will be retaliation.
The biggest aspect of this story is the absolute rediculousness that is being seen with this episode. The fact of the matter is that every single person, be it race, religion, celebrity status has been made fun of when it comes to South Park. The fact that something has become that upsetting is amazing. The toughest thing about this aspect is the idea that people in the world will threaten to kill based on the idea that an image of their god is shown is absurd. I understand the quality of religion and i understand how important it is to some people, but the idea that it is so important that you would kill in the name of it is over the top. The fact that the mere image of their god is what is so upsetting to them should be made fun of. In fact, I am glad that Matt Stone and Trey Parker attack this with good humor, and I was upset with the way that Comedy Central handled the situation. The fact that they had to censor not only the image, but the word as well? Also, they had to bleep out the entire speech at the end, which was rumored to be a speech about over coming your fears and facing the world as it is. Comedy Central bleeped it out because they were scared of it being connected too much to the situation was an example of just how scared the world is. The fact is that South Park was trying to send a message in this episode especially with the speech. But the world was not able to hear this because of the fear that Comedy Central showed.. it was an embarassment. This is nothing that should ever be so scared of. The world these days is too afraid of something that is just a threat… The fact that we show fear is almost worse than showing defeat. It shows that we have no belief in our freedom of speech, our freedom to saw what we want. This country was born on the ability to say your opinions and to express them however you so chose. With South Park, they choose to show their opinions through humor, and they are being shut down.
I think that this situation is pretty ridiculous. I really do not understand the Muslim's groups calling for the death of the creators of South Park. Its funny that they not only call for the death of the creators, but they also say that they hope that the creators burn in hell. Well, maybe these Muslims are the ones who should burn in hell. After all, they are calling for people to be killed. These people only undermine themselves by making outrageous statements like this. Its too bad that they cannot look in the mirror and see that they are really the bad ones in this situation.
The writers of South Park attempt to point out things that are ridiculous in the world and poke fun at people, especially those who are overly sensitive. Many people have gotten upset at their depiction in South Park episodes but it is not necessary every threaten some one's life. It is also important to note that no one has every threatened to kill the writers of South Park because of how they were depicted. So why have Muslims constantly had image problems with people who thought they were overly radical? Its situations like this where the radicals overreact and threaten to kill. This is a cartoon, not anything that has to deal with real life. Who could possibly get this angry over an off the wall television show?
Although these people make me really angry, I guess that I can look at it from their point of view and see why they could be angry. I do not at all agree with killing the creators of South Park, but I can understand their anger. Some people really have a deep belief in things whether it just be opinions or if it is faith. If someone has a deep belief that their religious idol can never be depicted as a cartoon. People who are deeply rooted in their beliefs have a reason to be angry about the South Park creators depicting him as a cartoon if it is truly what they believe in. Maybe it is important that I live in the United States and that I understand what South Park is really like. I guess that I can see that everything is a joke and I have seen the show many times and I know what the writers' goals are. From afar, it may seem like the writers' of South Park are attacking the Muslim community and the show may seem dangerous. But at some point these people need to open up to the modern world and accept that people have the right to say and do what they want. So hopefully, the Muslims who are angry about this situation recognize that this is a joke and change their opinions on South Park and its creators.
For those of you that are not familiar with the show South Park, it is a show that likes to make fun of very controversial issues. The main characters are even controversial. There is the overweight child who all the children make fun of for his size. There is the poor child, Kenny, who they always choose to make fun of for his poverty, and kill off (showing his life is worth less than the others). There is the Jewish boy who they always make fun of for being cheap. There is also a handicap child who they make fun of, and countless other politically incorrect personalities.
Having watched this show for many years, I personally have not found any of the episodes particularly offensive. I think the reason for this is because they do not eave any racial or political group untouched. They are equal opportunity racists. When they make fun of my religious group, I understand that it is only in good fun, because if I can laugh about they making fun of other people, then I should be able to laugh about them making fun of my group as well.
The reason that this show even has a following is because it is so risqué and also has a lot of truth and fact behind what they say. Of course much of what they say is highly exaggerated to make it humorous, but still, it is very intelligent. In my opinion I do not believe that any group should be mad at them, because they have made fun of everyone. If this show were to be politically correct, then no one would watch it.
In the flip cam question it was said that now certain groups have made threats on the lives of the writers of South Park. The people who made these threats may be upset, but need to understand that killing someone because they made fun of them using a hand drawn cartoon is not grounds for punishment by death. Yes, I understand that their prophet is holy, and they don’t want him to be made fun of, but they are not doing it to personally offend people, they are doing it to get a response out of people, and ultimately make controversial Television.
The reason why such a racists and politically incorrect show has had such success for such a long time, is that there is not topic that is off limits, there is no group that is left un-picked on, and there is no digression to who will be offended. This show just takes current topics and exaggerated them to make a humorous story. People need to take the show for what it is and stop being so sensitive. This show is made in good fun, and its writers should not be killed for speaking their mind. This show is not made with evil intentions; it is simply made to make people laugh.
I think what people like most about south park is that they are not afraid to cross the boundaries that a lot of society likes to try to constrain us to. I don’t think that its that big of a deal because they make fun of EVERYONE and EVERYTHING, but I can see from their point of view that they would be mad. Think about it-they don’t watch south park, im sure they just saw a clip from the internet and got upset about it. They probably don’t understand what south park is all about-it was like the class where we looked at thing from another perspective. Its all about the eye of the beholder.
South Park pokes fun at everything. I have heard about these Muslim groups being offended by the remarks they made regarding Muhammad, but they have not been the only religion to make fun of, and definitely not the only culture. Just off the top of my head I can think of so many different issues that have suffered the scrutiny of South Park and hate hearing about how whenever they attack someone other than the common American people get offended. The point is they are going to attack everyone on that show, and only mean it as humor. People need to stop taking everything as a personal attack, and when it is their turn to get ridiculed, ignore the show if you don’t want to hear it and laugh at the next one. South Park has brought over 10 seasons of laughter to us, and I really hope they don’t change a thing.
I think that the South Park episode was a cry for attention from the South Park creators. I think that by calling out all of these religions, they expected that eventually they would offend a group enough to create a riff that they would be noted for. I believe that the episode also was trying to be a bit socially aware by making some connections between the celebrities and their respective religions that could be poked fun at, but I believe that they also failed in regard to that. Overall, I think that the Mohammed mention was just for attention and that overall it was a horrible episode.
Much of the same parody goes on in South Park as other television programming whether it’s comedy skits or even recent movies like Borat. First off parodies like these most of the time are meant to actually expose the issue we deal with in society and not to promote racism. I think most of the people who watch these programs understand that. South Park is definitely a show that walks that line but it has an ingenious aspect to it in which it really in the end always tries to send the viewer a message about how the media and society perceive such touchy issues. As far as the issue of Mohammad goes, South Park has made fun of other religions countless times and it doesn’t seem racist to me that he would poke fun at Mohammad related to Islam. Remember these television shows are a lot of times trying to expose these issues and not promote them in a racist way.
I have not seen this episode that the person in the video talks about, but I have seen a south park episode that portrayed the image of Muhammad, and he just looked like a person of Middle Eastern descent. I do not know why this caused such an uproar, there are depictions of Jesus all over. I think it’s funny that the terrorist group threatened the creators of South Park, because in reality nothing is going to happen to them, and I would encourage them to keep pissing off the terrorist groups because I think its funny to see them annoyed.
I haven't watched this specific South Park episode, but I've watched the show in the past and therefore know that it can be insulting and controversial at times. Yet, I think that they have made fun of many different groups of people in the show and have not focused on one group. The show wasn't created to target and ridicule one group of individuals. Also, although the show can be crude at times, most people who watch it know that and therefore could chose to not watch it. I don't support shows making racial remarks, however I have to support that freedom of speech should allow them to, just as people's freedom allows them not to watch it.
These Muslim radicals who are making threats need to take a step back and realize how stupid they look. This cartoon that they are getting all worked up over makes fun of every possible thing someone can make fun of. Jesus and God are made fun of all the time in that show and you don't see Christians threatening the South Park creators. It pisses me off when people find the smallest things to complain about because there are bigger problems in this world. So quit being little bitches about it and get over the fact that not everyone takes life as seriously as you do.
Although I have not seen this episode of South Park yet, I have heard a lot about it. I watch Family Guy, which is another controversial show, so I know that producers of these shows just like to push buttons. It does not necessarily mean that the producers believe exactly what they are portraying on the show; they just want people to think about the topics in a different, more humorous way. It is using humor to ignite conversations and thoughts. So while I kind of understand why some people might be offending, I still think that they should just take it with a grain of salt because it is just for entertainment.
When I say the word material, it means props or ideas that the writers use to make the shows. We already established that South Park is a show which makes fun of current events in a humorous way. For example, just recently the show made fun of Facebook users and their addiction to the website. Also, a few years ago when Steve Erwin died, South Park had him the next episode that aired. It’s a show that makes fun of everything in the world. There is no stopping on what they make fun of. In response to the people who are upset the Mohammad was criticized, they have to realize it’s just a cartoon. South Park already made fun of Jesus many times during the franchise. They called him fake and made up. So the point I’m trying to make is that there is no segregation of topics that the writers use to make their shows. Religion, sex, deaths, and celebrities are all far game on South Park. There are sometimes where South Park can be offensive for me because they are making fun of issues I feel strongly about.
Towards the Muslism Extremists threat, I'm not really sure what to say. I haven't seen the episode where they spoke about Mohammed, so I'm not sure where to speak on this. However, I will say that, unless someone has taken a life from my family or friends, then I would not feel motivated to take someone elses life. I actually don't know another situation that anyone can feel to killing someone, but then again I can't say that I can place myself in an extremist's [any extremist, not just Muslim] shoes. I feel like since that specific groups does not watch South Park on a regular basis like others do, so they wouldn't understand it. At first instance, they see it, and the thought process goes "You're offending my creator in a derogatory way, I feel inclined to take your life". However, someone like me watching the show on a regular basis says "They said that? I'm not suprised".
Being an occasional South Parker watcher I have learned that whatever issue seems to be most prevalent in society is the writer’s next target. Every time something big happens in the world the writers blow the issue out of proportion and turn it into some cruel joke. Sometimes it is hard to watch what is being done on the show but other times the show allows people to laugh and joke about issues that our country has struggled to deal with. It is incredible that a two dimensional cartoon can create such a buzz and be so controversial. South Park is willing to say what others are not, but it is their willingness to not be afraid that sparks the conversation which allows us to talk about something that we were previously not willing to discuss. I am not saying that every episode of South Park has accomplished this feat but certain episodes have crossed a barrier and showed people that no matter how bad things get or what happens, we can overcome anything.
The writers and creators of South Park are doing nothing wrong as they are simply expressing their thoughts, which are protected by free speech. In my opinion the writers have no intention to harm anyone through the show but instead want to lighten the mood on much more serious issues. Every episode that I have seen of South Park has dealt with an issue that I have heard or seen. Regularly on the show topics such as social class, religion, and racism are made fun of and used in what seems to be a repulsing manner. The writers are not being completely consistent with actual society when dealing with these major issues but by blowing these issues out of proportion people can see how disgusting it is to act in this manner. South Park is inspiring change in an unconventional manner.
Looking specifically at the issue of making fun of Muhammad, I first think that obviously this is wrong. I am catholic and would not want the writers to create a show making fun of Jesus or God, but I also understand that there is no reason to become upset or angry because of a cartoon on television. Earlier I stated that South Park does a lot of great things on certain instances, but there are other times that the show discussing a topic for no reason other than to purely harass the target and its fans. The Muhammad episode was obviously one of these shows. It is hard to say that anything good came from this show being on television, but if you look deep inside of the show’s message you can plead and say that by this show airing the issues of ethnicity, race, and religion are further brought out of the metaphorical closet and placed right in front of us. These issues are things that we need to discuss and shows like South Park are allowing us to get past our fear of speaking.
South Park offers what you are willing to take from it. You can view it as an awful show that should not be allowed on television and it could be viewed as the best thing to happen to this country, or anything in between.
Although it is common knowledge that Islam is a religion that is taken very seriously, this whole controversy over the South Park episode is pretty ridiculous. I am an avid watcher of South Park, and I did see the episode mentioned in the video which "poked fun" at Muhammad. I find the controversy to be blown out of proportion. There are many reasons I feel this way. First of all, the episode wasn't putting down the Islam religion in any way; they had Muhammad in a bear costume, but it isn't like they had characters shouting out racist remarks about Muslims, or saying the religion is stupid. The second reason is that one would have a hard time coming across an episode of South Park (particularly from the last few seasons) in which some sort of race, celebrity, or other public figure is not exploited. There are episodes about blacks, rednecks, Mexicans and all other kinds of races. For instance, I saw an episode last night where stereotypes of Mexicans and Persians were both demonstrated. However, you do not see every other person that is poked fun at sending threats to the South Park writers. Being "made fun" of on South Park is a status symbol; most people would be honored. In a show where it is okay for Oprah to have a talking downstairs, for Ben Affleck’s parents to have asses for faces, and to make Al Gore, President Obama, and others look like complete idiots, I feel it's reasonable to poke a little fun at Muhammad. I understand that making fun of a religion isn't the same as a celebrity, but they never really put down the religion. I am catholic, and in countless South Park episodes Jesus is ridiculed, in fact, in one episode they said he sucked because he did not have any powers, and it doesn’t offend me. I don't think there should be a difference between the two.
Also, this was not the first episode where Muhammad was included in the plot. There was another where he was to appear in an episode of Family Guy, so the people of South Park began burying their heads in the sand as to avoid seeing his face, and avoid being bombed by Muslims. I don't recall there was as much controversy about that episode. In conclusion, I believe the controversy over this episode was a bit overboard.
In my opinion I think that people shouldn't let tv shows like South Park influence them too much. Shows such as this one are made to ridicule things in life. They mock religious figures, tv icons, and even presidents to make people laugh. It's a tv show, and a cartoon at that who cares what a character says. South Park, Family Guy and other cartoons of this nature are known for doing things we wouldn't normally do. For example poke fun at God, or Muhammad. I think that Muslims are taking the tv show way too serious because as I stated before they also ridiculed God in an episode. However, that doesn't make it right. The episode where they made fun of Jesus didn't get much publicity, therefore, I don't think the one about Muhammad should either. I personally saw the episode myself and I laughed when I watched it because it touched on the stereotypes that society has about the Muslim religion. Most of the plot seems to be accurate to me besides the scenes that were strictly made to make us laugh. For instance, it is true that Muhammad's face is not supposed to be drawn. However at the end of the episode a made up face was shown as that of Muhammad. We alI know that that face was made by one of the illustrators and looked nothing like the real man. I think the problem was that our world has become anti-muslim after the whole 911 incident, and now Muslims take offense to anything and everything that is said against their religion. When we were threatened by Muslims we began to hate everyone who practiced Islamic religions. Obviously their complaints weren't taken into consideration because the show is still on air and it still makes fun of many things we take serious. My argument is some what biased because for one thing I love south park. I think the show is hilarious, the plots are intelligent. Another reason my argument may be biased is because I am not a Muslim. But neither is most of America. We are allowed to do things like this in America because we are mostly are a country where we have freedom of speech, and we can say whatever we want most of the times and get away with it. Our currency reads "In God we Trust" so of course we'll poke fun at other religions because we don't look at it from others point of view. If I was Muslim i don't know how I would feel about the situation but I am in no way shape or form Muslim so that goes without saying. South Park had made fun of everything I can think of from racism, to our presidents, to religions. Muslims aren't the only target of the show so I don't see what the big deal is.
I believe that because I am not a Muslim that I will never understand what the problem is with South Park poking fun at Muhammad. The show is meant for fun and to entertain people, not to insult. The creators of South Park seem to make fun of almost all religions. Jewish people are at the bad end of many jokes on the show, Jesus is a main character on the show, and not in a good way, and there are a couple episodes devoted to doing nothing but making fun of Mormons. I think that the real issue of course was not that the show was making fun of Muslims, but that they were going to show an image of Muhammad on the show and showing an image of him is strictly again the Muslim religion. If this is the case, then the Muslim views just should not watch it if it offends them. They creator of South Park might have pushed it a little bit far in this one, but that does not mean that they are free to be threatened and fear for their lives.
This of course was not the Muslim people of course, it was extremists. Every religion has them, but Muslim extremists are just a little more serious. I am sure the Christian extremists do not like the show, but that does not mean that they threaten to kill the creators of the show. This show and shows like it sometimes cross the line, and that is why they are so popular, because the make fun of things that no one else will.
I really like this show and they do and very good job at what they do, which is to entertain people. When the episode aired the image was censored so in the end the threats worked and the creators gave in. I think that it should never have come to that. When it comes down to it though they had the right to make that episode under their freedom of speech, there are just some things that they should avoid. When it comes down to it, it is not worth is to be threaten and possibly killed just to make fun of one religion. I actually saw the episode and it was not really worth it to put Muhammad in the episode. They could have easily used and different character in place of it and it would have avoided all of this controversy. But no threats were carried out and the show continues normal today. So though the show made it through this, they really should think about pushing the bar that far again and whether it is worth the risk just for a couple laughs.
Everyone knows that South Park is a controversial show which pushes the envelope and likes to satirize every topic that is popular at the time. I was big fan of South Park when I was younger and enjoyed the comical topics and the celebrities that they made fun of. I quit watching it when I was in high school but once I heard about the threats to the creators of South Park about their depiction of Muhammad I knew at once that I wanted to watch the episode. In my opinion I was very pleased about the episode making fun of religious figures. I am a fervent believer in the 1st amendment and free speech. One of the key epochs of a free society is the right to criticize religion in my opinion. If we cant criticize religion and its truth claims then we are up for grabs as a free society. I found it peculiar that Muslims were the only ones out of the religions to openly make death threats publicly. This has happened often, you only have to think of Salman Rushdie when he wrote his novel “the satanic verses” or what happened in Amsterdam when the free press in Denmark drew cartoons of Muhammad. This should worry everybody who believes in free speech. Now I am not openly criticizing all Muslims and Islam as a whole. But I find it interesting that these fundamentalist can always use the Koran as a source for their bigotry and violence. I was very upset when I saw a news clip showing a man who is the leader of a Muslim group living in New York city saying that the creators of South Park should be beheaded. But as former Marine and Iraqi veteran what really disturbs me is that we can barely get any condensation at all when Muslims blow up weddings or funeral processions in Iraq. Shouldn’t Muslims be on television protesting and denouncing actions like that instead of having rallies and holding up signs that say behead those who insult Islam and the prophet Muhammad. Now up to this point it may seem I am unfairly criticizing Islam or singling it out but I am not. Every group of people who have like interests should have the right to protest and speak their mind when they think they being fairly untreated. I want to get that out in the open right now. But Islam like all religions makes very big claims for itself. It claims that it is the ultimate truth and every human problem can be cured by it. I think you can make that claim yourself but if you are then you have to drop the demand that it be free from criticism and above all else satire.
South Park, in my opinion, has been one of the best written shows on television for the last fourteen years now. One aspect of the show that I have always enjoyed is that Matt and Trey have a philosophy about the nature of the show. Either everything is alright to say, or nothing is alright. They are not making jokes to directly offend anybody personally. They make fun of celebrities all the time on the show, but almost none of them are personal. In a lot of episodes, they are just taking some taboo subjects and using them for jokes in the show. So personally, I think this Muslim group is completely out of hand. No one strapped you to a chair and forced you to see a cartoon image of Muhammad.
A second reason I think this group is way out of line is that I think there may be some form of publicity stunt here. I mean I'm not saying that these people are not really pissed about the episode, but when South Park actually showed Muhammad in the Super Best Friends episode early in the run when it was less popular, there was no real uproar then. Is there any particular reason you care enough to threaten the lives of these writers now when they planned on showing Muhammad as opposed to the little to no action taken when Muhammad was displayed on cable TV? I think the success of the show over the last ten years or so has played a little bit of a role in this situation.
Another comment I would like to make on this situation is how Matt and trey went about handling this situation. Anyone who saw this episode would have noticed that the entire speech given by Kyle in the end of the episode was censored out. An entire 3 minutes bleep on the new South Park release. After seeing this episode, I did some research to find out what that was all about. The speech in the end was that people should not just give in to terroristic threats and that you should have to do anything because you might be afraid of the consequences. I was very surprised by this and I completely understood why Comedy Central decided to censor this speech. They basically told this extremist group who threatened their lives to fuck off on national television. Matt and Trey have very strong opinions about censorship in the United States including television laws and nonsense companies like the MPAA for example. They feel so strongly about these issues that they literally put their lives at risk to preserve what freedom they have on the air and for what freedom the eventually hope to have.
I am a South Park fan. I saw the new episode and frankly I thought it was hilarious. Matt and Trey, the writers, are always pushing the envelope of free speech. Muslims, Catholics, and politicians cannot escape the ridicule which South Park dishes out. It's not like Muslims are the only ones who have been offended by the show. It's just that the Islamic faith receives particular attention in these matters because often times there are extremists within that faith who respond to such matters with violence instead of verbal protest. Muhammad and the Islamic faith deserve to be free from ridicule. However, they don't deserve it more than Jesus and the Christian faith, or Obama and the Democratic party, or me and my group of friends. Free speech is free speech. People are always gonna say things that offend you and your beliefs. The point is to rise above it and worry about what you believe in not what others don't believe in. If a cartoon show that portrays Muhammad offends you, DON'T WATCH IT! It's as simple as that.
I have to say first that I am a fan of South Park. I thought the episode in question and I thought it fit right in with others they have done. South Park is a show that challenges ideas and pokes fun at recent news. South Park has, in the past, made fun of nearly every religious group: Catholics, Mormons, Jewish people, Scientologists, etc. In an earlier episode, they even showed Muhammad as one of the Super Best Friends, a team of religious leaders and prophets that fight crime. Of course, that was before the killings of the journalists who showed Muhammad in their cartoons. Only now is there a backlash against this. The episode is not even available on their website, Southparkstudious.com. The creators left a message there, saying that it is Comedy Centrals fault this episode is gone, and they do not support this. I am not ignorant, and I understand that in the Muslim faith showing Muhammad is blasphemous. However, we are a country that is supposed to accept all forms of speech, no matter how strongly one group feels against it. For example, Neo-Nazis and KKK members are still allowed to march in streets, even though the overwhelming majority of Americans do not want to see this. I feel our country is becoming scared to speak out on important issues, and takes the easier way out by censoring certain things. It is even worse when it comes to religious issues, especially ones dealing with Islam. If we are able to make fun of Christians, the majority religion of the country, I see no reason why everyone else should be left out on the fun.
I personally have never seen the South Park episode that sparked all of this tension but I am aware of the repercussions of poking fun at the prophet Muhammad. Take Salman Rushdie for example, who published Satanic Verses in 1988. His plot satirized many Muslim traditions as well as the life of prophet Muhammad himself. Rushdie has become the target of mass amounts of enraged religious fanatics. There was a fatwa placed on Rushdie’s head instructing Muslims that it was their religious duty to kill both Rushdie and his publishers. He has since been under extreme protective measures by the British police forces. Although Rushdie has never been harmed translaters, publishers and 37 other people who got in the way of these violent attempts were murdered. On a less devastating note, there were also mass book burnings across the entire world.
Just today 01/21/ 2011 A prominent Muslim cleric to Birmingham mosques became enraged that Rushdi was knighted by the queen of England. It just goes to show how seriously and with sanctity devout Muslims hold their religion. Over 20 years ago and 40 or more related deaths this is still a beyond sensitive issue. “A controversial English Imam called Britain’s Queen Elizabeth a “disgusting woman.” Shaykh Asrar Rashid, a visiting cleric at the Birmingham city's mosques, said this in disagreement with the Queen’s knighting of author Salman Rushdie”
I in no way was surprised by the controversy that erupted over the airing of that particular South park video. They targeted a demographic notoriously defensive of their beliefs. They received threats and warnings of violence to come if the episodes weren’t altered or modified to fit the approval of those threatening violent retaliation.
What’s frustrating is Jersey Shore and their cult like following isn’t making death threats. Of course there is a time and a place for everything, but south park kind of is that time and place for anything. A devout Muslims view of their prophet is probably not going to be altered by a painfully vulgar satirical show meant to offend and degrade everyone.
I hope that Rushdie one day won’t have to live in fear of vengeance for his literary work and I also hope South Park can continue to be an outlet to satirize every facet of culture worth poking fun at, because that is what is meant to do. Salman Rushdie once ingeniously said, “A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return.” I believe the same goes for everything. If you don’t like it, don’t watch, don’t listen, don’t believe and absolutely don’t obsess.
Part 1
My friends and i were actually talking about this issue not too long ago. We found it absolutely hilarious that a terrorist group was actually threatening the creators of South Park because of their show. First of all, thinking about a bunch of terrorists sitting around watching South Park together is like something you would actually see in a South Park episode. The first thing I pictured was a bunch of guys with long beards and turbans on their heads sitting on a couch, shooting their AK-47 rifles off in anger as they watched the episode (I guess that is just my subconscious interpretation of a terrorist). And then I started thinking, “is it really justified for them to get so worked up over this one episode?” The creators of South Park have perfected the art of insult and getting under peoples skin. Their whole careers are based on that and they are very good at what they do.
Part 2
Each episode, there is a new target and the characters relentlessly rip on them to an outrageous point. Some topics they like to use a lot are Jewish people and redheads. One episode, in fact, combined the two groups and ripped on them both at the same time. In this episode, Cartman thought he had become a redhead, or ginger. At first he was devastated but then he decided to turn the situation around to his favor. He began running meetings for which he invited all of the gingers in his town. He spoke at these meetings about how they are really the superior people. As his speeches become more powerful his followers increase and he starts playing the role of a Hitler character. The army of gingers represented his “Aryan people” and he soon had the goal of world domination.
Part 3
Throughout the plot, many jokes and punch lines were thrown in aimed at both gingers and Jews. And yet, there has been no threats made to the South Park creators from Jews or gingers. I saw the episode about Muhammad and I personally did not think it was that insulting to the Muslim world. For these people to get so worked up and threaten the lives of the creators seems a bit over the top to me. But, of course, I kept on thinking and came to the realization that maybe to me, and people of my culture, this is not a big deal but it could affect other people differently. In our culture we are so used to everyone making fun of everyone and everything else. Comedians, TV shows, sports shows, you name it, we are constantly ripping on each other. Maybe in other cultures this is not such a heavy occurrence. Maybe other people, who aren’t used to it, don’t know how to handle it. That could explain why this terrorist group got so offended.
The south park episode that stirred up controversy came under scrutiny when it became apparent in the episode the week before that the writers were planning to show an image of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad. In response to this potential action, a radical Muslim group decided to issue a threat to Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone (the writers of South Park). One of the leaders of the group even wrote on his twitter page “he prayed for Allah to kill the show’s creators and burn them in Hell for all eternity”. What is especially ironic about this controversy is that the south park creators have shown Mohammad in a previous episode. But, the south park situation in question is the epitome of hypocrisy. It is simply one group (the radical religious group), exercising their freedom speech by threatening another group (the south park writers) for exercising their freedom of speech. The religious group has basically decided that it is perfectly fine for them to say whatever they want, including making radical violent threats. Now, not that I agree that the south park writers should include an image of Mohammad in their comedy series, but the first amendment protects their right to say whatever they please. The Radical religious group exercised their first amendment right as well when they issued the threat to the comedian writers. Comedy Central (a subsidiary of Viacom) opted to censor the offensive material in the episode in question, effectively stripping the writers of their first amendment rights. This situation is no different than when former Gov. Sarah Palin issued a map with crosshairs over certain states in which she had differing opinions with the political office holders. While this could be considered a threat or act of violence, she was allowed to do so because she was protected under the first amendment. I am not arguing that what South Park did was morally sound or sensitive to people’s beliefs, but there should be no conditions to our first amendment. Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship or limitation, or both. Later in the controversial south park episode, Buddha is depicted snorting lines of cocaine in front of children and Jesus is depicted as having an Internet pornography addiction. Both of those images were exhibited uncensored. The effect of the episode simply exposed a double standard. Viacom made it public that under no circumstance is it acceptable to depict the prophet Mohammad in any way, but depiction of other religious prophets doing any type of action (regardless of how violent, sexual, racy or offensive it may be) is allowed. It has been outlined in supplemental Islamic religious teachings (not specifically in the Qur’an) that depiction of Mohammad (or any human being for that matter) in any way is sacrilegious, however, I believe that depiction of Buddha doing hard drugs in the presence of children or Jesus having a sexual addiction are at least as offensive.
I watched the south park episode and I thought it was hilarious. The writers were poking fun at the fact that they had previously had an issue with Muslim groups and the desecration of the prophet Mohammed. I did think the show was witty, funny and a fitting response. However the episode, like many other South Park episodes can also be seen as offensive and brash. In reality they did poke fun at the prophet. But they poked fun at many other religious figures as well, Jesus, Buddha, Krishna etc. I am not saying that it is right or that I approve of the mocking of holy and religious figures, I am merely pointing out that the Muslim religion was not singled out to be ridiculed. In some ways the Muslims do have every right to be upset and enraged. It must hurt to see a figure that you hold in great reverence brought down to a censorship bar and made fun of. At one point in the episode in front of the figure of Jesus Christ, one of the characters says “Jesus f**king Christ”. I was not necessarily offended by the comment but I did feel a slight pang of discomfort and unsettlement. So I can definitely see how someone could find offence in the content of the episode. I think the reason I was not overly offended is because I know not to take South Park seriously. I understand that the show I meant to offended people and take on real or sometimes not so real issues in a comic light. I also firmly believe that everyone will get what is coming to them. If the creators and writers of South Park find it okay to do these things then there will be repercussions for their actions. One day they will have to come to terms with the fact that they have disrespected a lot of people and that they have also committed blasphemous remarks against many religions and spirituality. Or perhaps these people are completely content with their spirituality and religions and they use these parodies in order to make a point and even possible affect change. It is entirely possible that their main purpose is not to offend. Whatever the case I do not think that any groups should have anything negative to say about South Park. Although most of their representations are parodies and hyperboles it has never seemed to me that they grossly misrepresent any characters. In this specific episode and in the other ones I have seen that include the prophet Mohammed nothing in that has really misrepresented him. In the end this is a free country and people are allowed to say whatever they want no matter who disagrees with you
South Park is amazing because it says what everyone in society is thinking but is too afraid to say because its taboo. Don’t exclude anyone. They make fun of every group of people, including themselves. south Park makes social commentary in a subtle way, in that they are able to present the issues facing society without making a judgement. Similarly to Dave Chappele presents racism as an absurd thing, South Park presents society as an absurd thing, but doesn’t preach. In the Tiger Woods episode, they point out how absurd it is that rich, successful men should be monogamous. I feel that South Park features children. The children always get it. But the arents never do. The kids are the only people smart enough to et wats going on. It points out how ignorant adults can often be and how closed minded they can be. For example, the handicapped kid named timmy starts a band and cince hes retarded the music is “terrible.” The parents get mad because the music sucks, but the kids cheer just to support him and have a goo time. bottom line, the parents never get it…but the kids usually do. Despite the controversy and absurdity, there is often a lesson or morale tat comes with South Park. The lessons aren’t precahy in vibe, but they suggest new idea that should eb considered. they just want you to think outside the box, just like Sam Richards wants us to. It serves as a release from stress because its humor, but it also shows uncensored commentary that nooone else says. South Park is the most entertaining source of life lessons i’ve ever seen. Civilised societies have been in place for so long, but we still do give the knowledge to the next genertion. My parents have taught me alot, granted, but I feel like they hold back. We learn shit in school about math and english and whatnot and noone teaches us how to live in the real world. South Park actually does this. It tells us hen were being douches, and when were right. I may be exaggerating, but I really think we need to educate people on simply how to think. Because alot of us simply don’t think. south Park gives you access to things ou don’t always thnk about. South PArk probably isn’t the best source of life lessons, but they are the only people that really through their opinions out there. It can be too offensive for older and younger people. Nevertheless, at the end of the show they always learn something and more often then not their right. Not only is it funny, but its genius. Its such a scarce resource. Matt stone and Trey Parker are not just comedic geinuses but life geniuses.
First off I do not watch South Park but I do know how often they make fun of other types of people. That is just what they do. I do not think it is really in good taste especially when they make fun of people’s beliefs. But I show that by not watching their show, I do not threaten to kill them. I know that religion is a very touchy subject and maybe that was taking it a b it to far. But killing or even threatening to kill people because of it is not the way to solve it. I think if they wanted to do something about it they could take them to court about it.
I believe that being respectful of people’s religion is important. If people want to believe in what they believe in then they should be able to without having people make fun of them or push their buttons. I don’t think that everyone else has the same values as me though. I wish that South Park and their creators would be a tad bit more respectful of what people believe in and what people’s morals are.
I know that in the past I have had issues because of the South Park show. They introduced the term “ginger” which refers to a red hair person with lots of freckles and pale skin. I have had many people make fun of me for it. It doesn’t bother me because what I look like is nothing compared to what I believe. If South Park made a show saying that what I believe was dumb then I would be really upset if people started to make fun of me because they saw it on South Park.
I think what the creators of the South Park show need to realize is that everything they put out into the world can have an influence on people no matter what. People believe what they see on TV. Or if they find it funny then they could repeat the terms they heard on TV to their friends and that is how these things get started. What the creators don’t understand is that they have a huge influence on the adolescents of the United States. If the people, students, or teens see that the show is making fun of people because they are Arabic, Jewish, Red Headed, from the South, From the North, Black, or Islamic then they will start to think that it is okay for them to make fun of these people publicly.
I still believe that threatening to kill the creators is extreme but it is their right to voice their opinion about what they believe. I hope they would be able to talk about this issue in a more peaceful manner.
This is a really good question and to be honest I really do not see a problem with the episode it is just television and I really doubt they meant anything by it. You always see television shows like family guy and the Simpson’s doing things like this so I think we just need to forget about it and just remember that it is just animated television.
I think that the writers and producers are always just trying to create controversy. I feel as if you do not like what the show does then just do not watch it. I can easily name a lot of movies that create major controversy that actually had an effect on real life. One that I know of is a movie called Natural Born Killers. This is considered a movie that has been the result of many people killing others because they were so obsessed with it. One example that I am sure everyone knows of is the Columbine shooting. The two students were supposedly obsessed with this movie. What we need to do is start looking at things like this because people look up to movie stars not cartoons. Movies have an effect on much more things in life than cartoons. Kids see something in movies and try to mimic their favorite actor or actress and they want to be just like them. I really doubt anyone wants to be like cartman.
Sure this show is a bit much at times but it is made for humor and for people to enjoy watching. It is never directed towards anything of considered to be a bad influence. This is a show that does whatever it wants. It attacks celebrities, athletes, and political figures and we all pretty much laugh and talk about it the next day but once it talks about Muslims everything gets blown out of proportion. If the show was too much for people then we need to attack the network and not the show itself because it is the network that puts the show on the air. I mean I am just shocked that people are offended about this episode. We all had to have seen this coming from the writers. They have been doing this stuff for years and we have never really said much. We should just say wow it is just another offensive south park episode that may have crossed the line, oh well lets just move on. I really do not understand what the problem is I think that it is just a cartoon and we just need to stop talking about the episode and forget about it. south park will continue to do this and really nothing is going to stop them from doing it because people love the show.
The Muslim groups responsible for ridiculing the South Park episodes are guilty of hypocrisy to the “n”th dimension. They immediately labeled Matt and Trey (South Park creators) as bad people for their attempt on humor and then proceed to threaten their lives. This seems like a bit of a paradox to me. My opinion is that the show is purely for entertainment. You can watch if you want and laugh at it or hate it. Or you can turn the channel and be a South Park hater. Many people have disagreed with messages the show has sent in the past, yet they still love others. The point is, it is completely up to you whether or not you watch it and/or let it get to you in a negative way. The show is a satire. So you have to have a decent base of knowledge pertaining to current events to understand certain episodes. The past two South Park shows delved into censorship issues. This then involved censoring Muhammad, an obvious reference to the Muhammad cartoons of the past. Now, I have to be honest: not much, if anything, truly offends me. Sure, some jokes may hurt my feelings or may be uncalled for in myopinion, but not much really bothers me to the point where I would consider taking vindictive action. Not only did numerous Muslim groups consider taking vindictive action, but this response involves death threats. And this is all over a joke TV show! It is just a shame that people cannot let their guards down enough for even 30 minutes not to be upset over the most ridiculous of affairs. It only upholds my pessimistic yet terribly true view of society that, “It’s always something.” You cannot make everyone happy of course, but it seems like more people are always pissed off than even somewhat content. South Park may go too far. But then again, what is too far? They cleverly craft whatever views of individuals/society into a strategy of free speech presentation to the audience. Therefore, they are legally covered. This does not spare them the disapproval of many critics at home (and apparently death threats from radical Muslims) but they will continue to do it. Because their goal is to push people’s buttons, and they do an amazing job at it. But they are not trying to harm anyone. They are trying to make us laugh. I just wish people would accept it as that much. And I am not expecting all Muslims to laugh at these past two episodes. Disagree with it all you want. But calm down just a bit and do not take it as Americans hating on your religion or mocking your culture. It has nothing to do with that. It was just two episodes of a cartoon TV show that probably went a bit too far in some people’s eyes.
I think this question goes along with the question Sam asked us all in class: when is a joke considered to have gone too far? I must admit that I am not a frequent viewer of South Park but from viewing other shows like Family Guy, I think I have a fairly good idea of the style of comic material the writers use. The images they portray seem to poke fun at every group you can find. Shows make fun of religion, sexual orientation, politics, and so on, all the time. I used to watch Family Guy pretty often in the past. Family Guy features the cartoon characters of God and Jesus in several episodes. I must say that I really did not find those parts of the show in the past funny. I mean, I was not totally against the show, but I do think the writers sometimes pushed things too far. I can understand why people of any certain group that was mocked by these shows would get mad. Although a lot of people may think it is wrong for writers to use this type of comedy, I guess they do have the right to express their opinions. I think that it all ties in the freedom of speech and expression and etc… The writers are free to create whatever they want. I guess they just have to deal with the consequences of their actions. I mean, when the South Park writers decided to create a part of the episode making fun of Muslims, they had to have known that someone was going to fire back at them. Getting back to the “when has a joke gone too far.” I used listen to people make offhand jokes about certain groups and not think anything of it. I mean I knew I was not they were my friends and I knew these people pretty well, so I thought there was nothing wrong with it. After having been through Soc 119, I have completely changed. I have realized that I do not think my friends were justified in saying jokes like that, even if they weren’t being serious. I now have no urge to create such jokes, however, now when I do hear people say such jokes, I tell them to please stop and explain why it is offensive and wrong. I can understand why some people do it though. I feel like when you are with people you know well, you might be more likely to say some sort of joke about a certain group. At that point, you don’t view the joke as going too far unless someone objects. I think a lot of people think a joke has gone too far when a person says a joke in public, offending many people. Although in your own little group of friends you may not be offending that group targeted by the joke, I feel that it is the same as telling the joke in public. What you say is what you say…it doesn’t really matter the context of the situation.
South Park is a satire of our society. It is meant to offend people so I don’t understand why people are making this an issue. There are other shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy that also satirize current events, but South Park is by far the best one. The way the writers of the show incorporate hot button issues into the lives of four fourth graders makes it impossible not to find the humor behind the jokes. I didn’t watch the video so I don’t know what episode in particular is behind all of the controversy, but I have seen all but the most recent episodes of this season so I can guess that almost all of them have to some degree pissed someone off. I saw on Fox News that the episode with Muhammad being represented as a mascot was causing some problems. I think it is funny that people get offended by cartoons, they are the best way for people to express criticism of an emotionally charged topic in a funny way because the cartoons can say whatever they want and get away with it but if south park was a sitcom they couldn’t get away with half of the shit they do.
This is biased because I am personally a big fan of south park. I like that they try to push the buttons of people in the public eye. A lot of what they do on the show is just take a real issue and change some of the details so that they can make it possible to have a bunch of fourth graders make fun of it. This show has been around for awhile, I think this is the fourteenth season or something, and it has always been edgy and pushing the envelope and providing a funny commentary of current issues and events.
We were just discussing this topic in my religion class the other day. I had not heard about this incident and was in no way surprised that the writers for South Park had chosen to write an episode making fun of Muhammad. This show has made fun of everyone under the sun, including Jesus. It seems to me that the issue here is that the perpetrators may not be able to handle a joke like everyone else that has been made fun of by South park has been able to. I can understand why this may be upsetting but it is in no means a just reason to threaten someone’s life.
The controversy with South Park is nothing new to our society or the media. South Park has been on since i was a kid. I remember my parents would not let me and my siblings watch it, and we would sneak and watch it any way. Obviously the show is very offensive, but one thing about the show is that it does not target a specific thing. The show is completely offensive to everyone. It is not meant for people to be offended its more meant for people to laugh at themselves and at others. This show is just like any other show that does things like make fun of different religions, races, etc. Its similar to Family guy, Simpsons, and other comedy central shows. I don't think that it is any different than a comedian saying offensive (yet funny) jokes about certain things. I think the controversy needs to stop because it is just meant to be a joke, not meant to piss people off. I don't have much knowledge on what is going on right now with all of this controversy, but i think to hear that there is even the slightest bit is a little ridiculous. Me and other people that i know who watch shows like this only watch them because of the humor, not because we think everything in the show is true and we believe it. If that was the case i am sure that a lot more people would be mad about this show than there are. The show makes fun of everyone, and if you do not know that then you obviously don't watch the show and you would never understand that. This show is not meant to target anyone in particular, and that is what people need to understand. The show targets everyone, and is meant to be funny, that's all. The creators of this show even offend themselves, they have to! They literally have made fun of every religious figure, race, person, and anything that you can think of on this show. I have seen episodes you can't even imagine the things that this show comes up with. It is clearly just a big joke. I am more of a family guy kind of girl, but even this show is EXTREMELY "offensive". Bottom line is if you do not have the personality to take humor or to take jokes than you probably shouldn't watch any of these types of cartoons, or even comedy central at all. The people who are offended should really think about being offended because they need to take a freakin joke. It is not that serious, and honestly if we make it that serious then we need to cut off a lot of other shows on the air as well. I do not think children should be watching these shows, but for adults i think that it is just all humor.
I hate everyone, okay I take it back. But I hate everyone who looks at the media and takes personal offense to anything that is there. on tv, on the radio, in newspapers, n the internet… your all idiots. I personally think that the people in this class would love this sort of stuff because it says exactly what everyone is afraid to say.
I am a huge southpark fan, even though I am jewish and there is a quota of 2 jewish jokes per episode. family guy, american dad, all sorts of stupid shows like this are exactly the same, they all make fun of minorities and even the majority just to be funny, get over it people … but i really really hate everyone who looks at the media and takes personal offense to anything that is there. on tv, on the radio, in newspapers, n the internet… your all idiots. I personally think that the people in this class would love this sort of stuff because it says exactly what everyone is afraid to say.
i didnt go to class for this… or maybe I did and just wasn't paying attention, but I think that sam richards couldnt handle this kind of humor. he is all talk when it comes to these kinds of things. He is always contradicting himself when it comes to this kind of stuff. I cant even think of any more words to write here, im just gonna copy and paste what i already said
everyone who looks at the media and takes personal offense to anything that is there. on tv, on the radio, in newspapers, n the internet… your all idiots. I personally think that the people in this class would love this sort of stuff because it says exactly what everyone is afraid to say.
I am a huge southpark fan, even though I am jewish and there is a quota of 2 jewish jokes per episode. family guy, american dad, all sorts of stupid shows like this are exactly the same, they all make fun of minorities and even the majority just to be funny, get over it people … but i really really hate everyone who looks at the media and takes personal offense to anything that is there. on tv, on the radio, in newspapers, n the internet… your all idiots. I personally think that the people in this class would love this sort of stuff because it says exactly what everyone is afraid to say. but i really really hate everyone who looks at the media and takes personal offense to anything that is there. on tv, on the radio, in newspapers, n the internet… your all idiots. I personally think that the people in this class would love this sort of stuff because it says exactly what everyone is afraid to say.
I think that any person that watches South Park, or at least is somewhat familiar with it they know and understand that the writers of the show really love to push viewers’ buttons. I’ve seen the show and they pretty much poke fun at every religion, culture, and whatever currently is going on in the world. I’m not saying that it is always right, but they do find a way to push buttons to really make people think about the issues. If the show is offensive to you then do not watch it. The girl said that Muslim people were upset because they writers of South Park poked fun at Mohammed. But honestly, they have poked fun at just about everything. I’ve seen numerous episodes where they have poked fun of Jews and even had Jesus in the show. Literally the how has poked fun at everything, celebrities, presidents. I remember they made an episode about Tom Cruise being gay. They just take current stories and show, in a funny, but kind of crude way, the way this story is impacting society. I actually think it is annoying that this is continuing to be a controversy. South Park had been making fun of religions for years. Now all of a sudden it is a big deal. I think people should just relax. Like I said if it bothers you, just do not watch it and if you kind find the humor in it, then by all means go ahead and enjoy it. It is silly to get all worked up over one issue in the show. I’m sure billions of people have been offended by the show. It targets just about everyone and everything, so there is no need to take it personally. It was their own choice to turn on the show. And I’m willing to bet that if you are purposely turning the show on you are bound to know what the show normally consists of. It is almost like…okay fine go ahead and make fun of other religions, but when it is mine you better watch out. Now how is that fair? It’s not. I think these people need to lighten up and just enjoy the crude humor on the how. I think the exaggerated way the writers express current events is hysterical. Society is being a little too sensitive in my opinion. People are always so serious. I think it is important to be able to laugh at yourself and other things going on in life. If you take everything too seriously, how are you supposed to have fun and enjoy yourself? South Park was just poking fun at another religion like it ALWAYS has, so just enjoy the episodes or don’t watch them.
I have been watching South Park since it began. The whole point of the show is to poke fun at issues and controversies in our uptight culture. People need to relax on taking everything so literal. It is a cartoon mind you. The character of Chef played by Isaac Hayes was a scientology follower. The episode that they made fun of scientology on made him quit. Mind you he had fun for ten years poking fun at every other religion and person in the world, but when it came close to his beliefs he could not handle it. This is the same as that muslim kid who threatened the creators lives. It is all fun and games until you push the wrong buttons. People need to relax over what is said in a cartoon and realize that they need to lighten up. Yes they sometimes go very far to make a joke but people get over it, it is not real.
South Park brings up alot of controversial topics that alot of people are afraid to address their opinions on. The show is similar in a way to Family Guy or Dave Chapelle… bringing up true situations and portraying it through comedy so that everyone enjoys it and everyone understands it. Do I believe South Park can be racist sometimes? Yes. However, you only consider someone to be racist when they discriminate against a certain race and they consider their "own race" to be higher than everyone elses. South Park isn't racist as a whole because it adresses EVERYBODY. From Muslim groups to Gay/Lesbian outbreaks, even to recent celebrity news. I remember one episode of South Park where Kanye West was called a "gay fish stick" recently after he interuppted Taylor Swift. Someone posted on here a recent episode of Tom Cruise being jabbed at in South Park as well. Although it may be distasteful at times, I believe its fair because South Park addresses everything.
I think this situation would be a lot less of a big deal if people understood that shows like South Park, Family Guy and the Simpsons do this kind of thing all the time. The fact is, they make fun of EVERYTHING. Family Guy in particular makes fun of every religion, political party, and famous celebrity. In particular, Family Guy has had whole episodes making fun of both Judaism and Christianity. If people keep that in the back of their minds when watching episodes like the Muhammad one on South Park, there would not be this hysteria. Personally I can be a sensitive person, but I love Family Guy (I haven't watched much South Park) and appreciate 98% of their jokes.
South Park has always bee on the border of controversial episodes and jokes. They have a reputation for poking fun at the topics that everyone else is afraid to even consider talking about. Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have always been on the hot seat. They produced a “scientology” episode in which they lost an actor (chef) because of their offensive position regarding the topic. They ridiculed the leaders of the organization of scientology and the beliefs and doctrines as well. They have also had the media on their back when the touched the controversial topic of assisted suicide; something that Jack Kevorkian was imprisoned for committing. South park had also Taken the stand against terrorism when they released Imagination Land episodes and movies where they had a Suicide Bomber blow up the scene of all the imaginations of our world. Another memorable episode was the “shit” count episode where they dropped the s word 162 times in 28 minutes. They received negative remarks from the LGBT community when they had the same-sex gay bashing episode with Big Gay Al. The latest of the controversial topics occurred April 21 2010 when the studio decided to depict Muhammad in an episode.
The episode received many threats from Islamic terrorist groups to censor the show. And although Trey Parker and Matt Stone did not want to comply, the network took the upper hand and made censorship in response to the terroristic threats that they had received on the masses. The studio even bleeped out the name “Muhammad” every time it was said in order to not offend the Islam People. However, this isn’t the only time that the creators have decided to include the islam prophet in their show. In the past they have proposed to show the prophet and have receive the same threats. They ended up putting Muhammad in a Bear costume to avoid the threats that they had received from islam activists.
I find that the entire idea of not depicting the prophet is far’fetched however I can not be one to judge nor criticize since I have no involvement with the religion. But the idea that everyone on the planet has to abide by the rules of your holy book is ignorant in my mind. No islam should depict the prophet but why does that have to aply to the atheists. You want to talk about forcing your religion on others, the Islamic world is doing so when they prevent others from depicting what they do not believe in. It is a hot and heated topic so it will always grow tension and I know one day that someone is going t make the mistake of not censoring and there will be retaliation.
The biggest aspect of this story is the absolute rediculousness that is being seen with this episode. The fact of the matter is that every single person, be it race, religion, celebrity status has been made fun of when it comes to South Park. The fact that something has become that upsetting is amazing. The toughest thing about this aspect is the idea that people in the world will threaten to kill based on the idea that an image of their god is shown is absurd. I understand the quality of religion and i understand how important it is to some people, but the idea that it is so important that you would kill in the name of it is over the top. The fact that the mere image of their god is what is so upsetting to them should be made fun of. In fact, I am glad that Matt Stone and Trey Parker attack this with good humor, and I was upset with the way that Comedy Central handled the situation. The fact that they had to censor not only the image, but the word as well? Also, they had to bleep out the entire speech at the end, which was rumored to be a speech about over coming your fears and facing the world as it is. Comedy Central bleeped it out because they were scared of it being connected too much to the situation was an example of just how scared the world is. The fact is that South Park was trying to send a message in this episode especially with the speech. But the world was not able to hear this because of the fear that Comedy Central showed.. it was an embarassment. This is nothing that should ever be so scared of. The world these days is too afraid of something that is just a threat… The fact that we show fear is almost worse than showing defeat. It shows that we have no belief in our freedom of speech, our freedom to saw what we want. This country was born on the ability to say your opinions and to express them however you so chose. With South Park, they choose to show their opinions through humor, and they are being shut down.
I think that this situation is pretty ridiculous. I really do not understand the Muslim's groups calling for the death of the creators of South Park. Its funny that they not only call for the death of the creators, but they also say that they hope that the creators burn in hell. Well, maybe these Muslims are the ones who should burn in hell. After all, they are calling for people to be killed. These people only undermine themselves by making outrageous statements like this. Its too bad that they cannot look in the mirror and see that they are really the bad ones in this situation.
The writers of South Park attempt to point out things that are ridiculous in the world and poke fun at people, especially those who are overly sensitive. Many people have gotten upset at their depiction in South Park episodes but it is not necessary every threaten some one's life. It is also important to note that no one has every threatened to kill the writers of South Park because of how they were depicted. So why have Muslims constantly had image problems with people who thought they were overly radical? Its situations like this where the radicals overreact and threaten to kill. This is a cartoon, not anything that has to deal with real life. Who could possibly get this angry over an off the wall television show?
Although these people make me really angry, I guess that I can look at it from their point of view and see why they could be angry. I do not at all agree with killing the creators of South Park, but I can understand their anger. Some people really have a deep belief in things whether it just be opinions or if it is faith. If someone has a deep belief that their religious idol can never be depicted as a cartoon. People who are deeply rooted in their beliefs have a reason to be angry about the South Park creators depicting him as a cartoon if it is truly what they believe in. Maybe it is important that I live in the United States and that I understand what South Park is really like. I guess that I can see that everything is a joke and I have seen the show many times and I know what the writers' goals are. From afar, it may seem like the writers' of South Park are attacking the Muslim community and the show may seem dangerous. But at some point these people need to open up to the modern world and accept that people have the right to say and do what they want. So hopefully, the Muslims who are angry about this situation recognize that this is a joke and change their opinions on South Park and its creators.
For those of you that are not familiar with the show South Park, it is a show that likes to make fun of very controversial issues. The main characters are even controversial. There is the overweight child who all the children make fun of for his size. There is the poor child, Kenny, who they always choose to make fun of for his poverty, and kill off (showing his life is worth less than the others). There is the Jewish boy who they always make fun of for being cheap. There is also a handicap child who they make fun of, and countless other politically incorrect personalities.
Having watched this show for many years, I personally have not found any of the episodes particularly offensive. I think the reason for this is because they do not eave any racial or political group untouched. They are equal opportunity racists. When they make fun of my religious group, I understand that it is only in good fun, because if I can laugh about they making fun of other people, then I should be able to laugh about them making fun of my group as well.
The reason that this show even has a following is because it is so risqué and also has a lot of truth and fact behind what they say. Of course much of what they say is highly exaggerated to make it humorous, but still, it is very intelligent. In my opinion I do not believe that any group should be mad at them, because they have made fun of everyone. If this show were to be politically correct, then no one would watch it.
In the flip cam question it was said that now certain groups have made threats on the lives of the writers of South Park. The people who made these threats may be upset, but need to understand that killing someone because they made fun of them using a hand drawn cartoon is not grounds for punishment by death. Yes, I understand that their prophet is holy, and they don’t want him to be made fun of, but they are not doing it to personally offend people, they are doing it to get a response out of people, and ultimately make controversial Television.
The reason why such a racists and politically incorrect show has had such success for such a long time, is that there is not topic that is off limits, there is no group that is left un-picked on, and there is no digression to who will be offended. This show just takes current topics and exaggerated them to make a humorous story. People need to take the show for what it is and stop being so sensitive. This show is made in good fun, and its writers should not be killed for speaking their mind. This show is not made with evil intentions; it is simply made to make people laugh.
I think what people like most about south park is that they are not afraid to cross the boundaries that a lot of society likes to try to constrain us to. I don’t think that its that big of a deal because they make fun of EVERYONE and EVERYTHING, but I can see from their point of view that they would be mad. Think about it-they don’t watch south park, im sure they just saw a clip from the internet and got upset about it. They probably don’t understand what south park is all about-it was like the class where we looked at thing from another perspective. Its all about the eye of the beholder.
South Park pokes fun at everything. I have heard about these Muslim groups being offended by the remarks they made regarding Muhammad, but they have not been the only religion to make fun of, and definitely not the only culture. Just off the top of my head I can think of so many different issues that have suffered the scrutiny of South Park and hate hearing about how whenever they attack someone other than the common American people get offended. The point is they are going to attack everyone on that show, and only mean it as humor. People need to stop taking everything as a personal attack, and when it is their turn to get ridiculed, ignore the show if you don’t want to hear it and laugh at the next one. South Park has brought over 10 seasons of laughter to us, and I really hope they don’t change a thing.
I think that the South Park episode was a cry for attention from the South Park creators. I think that by calling out all of these religions, they expected that eventually they would offend a group enough to create a riff that they would be noted for. I believe that the episode also was trying to be a bit socially aware by making some connections between the celebrities and their respective religions that could be poked fun at, but I believe that they also failed in regard to that. Overall, I think that the Mohammed mention was just for attention and that overall it was a horrible episode.
Much of the same parody goes on in South Park as other television programming whether it’s comedy skits or even recent movies like Borat. First off parodies like these most of the time are meant to actually expose the issue we deal with in society and not to promote racism. I think most of the people who watch these programs understand that. South Park is definitely a show that walks that line but it has an ingenious aspect to it in which it really in the end always tries to send the viewer a message about how the media and society perceive such touchy issues. As far as the issue of Mohammad goes, South Park has made fun of other religions countless times and it doesn’t seem racist to me that he would poke fun at Mohammad related to Islam. Remember these television shows are a lot of times trying to expose these issues and not promote them in a racist way.
I have not seen this episode that the person in the video talks about, but I have seen a south park episode that portrayed the image of Muhammad, and he just looked like a person of Middle Eastern descent. I do not know why this caused such an uproar, there are depictions of Jesus all over. I think it’s funny that the terrorist group threatened the creators of South Park, because in reality nothing is going to happen to them, and I would encourage them to keep pissing off the terrorist groups because I think its funny to see them annoyed.
I haven't watched this specific South Park episode, but I've watched the show in the past and therefore know that it can be insulting and controversial at times. Yet, I think that they have made fun of many different groups of people in the show and have not focused on one group. The show wasn't created to target and ridicule one group of individuals. Also, although the show can be crude at times, most people who watch it know that and therefore could chose to not watch it. I don't support shows making racial remarks, however I have to support that freedom of speech should allow them to, just as people's freedom allows them not to watch it.
These Muslim radicals who are making threats need to take a step back and realize how stupid they look. This cartoon that they are getting all worked up over makes fun of every possible thing someone can make fun of. Jesus and God are made fun of all the time in that show and you don't see Christians threatening the South Park creators. It pisses me off when people find the smallest things to complain about because there are bigger problems in this world. So quit being little bitches about it and get over the fact that not everyone takes life as seriously as you do.
Although I have not seen this episode of South Park yet, I have heard a lot about it. I watch Family Guy, which is another controversial show, so I know that producers of these shows just like to push buttons. It does not necessarily mean that the producers believe exactly what they are portraying on the show; they just want people to think about the topics in a different, more humorous way. It is using humor to ignite conversations and thoughts. So while I kind of understand why some people might be offending, I still think that they should just take it with a grain of salt because it is just for entertainment.
When I say the word material, it means props or ideas that the writers use to make the shows. We already established that South Park is a show which makes fun of current events in a humorous way. For example, just recently the show made fun of Facebook users and their addiction to the website. Also, a few years ago when Steve Erwin died, South Park had him the next episode that aired. It’s a show that makes fun of everything in the world. There is no stopping on what they make fun of. In response to the people who are upset the Mohammad was criticized, they have to realize it’s just a cartoon. South Park already made fun of Jesus many times during the franchise. They called him fake and made up. So the point I’m trying to make is that there is no segregation of topics that the writers use to make their shows. Religion, sex, deaths, and celebrities are all far game on South Park. There are sometimes where South Park can be offensive for me because they are making fun of issues I feel strongly about.
Towards the Muslism Extremists threat, I'm not really sure what to say. I haven't seen the episode where they spoke about Mohammed, so I'm not sure where to speak on this. However, I will say that, unless someone has taken a life from my family or friends, then I would not feel motivated to take someone elses life. I actually don't know another situation that anyone can feel to killing someone, but then again I can't say that I can place myself in an extremist's [any extremist, not just Muslim] shoes. I feel like since that specific groups does not watch South Park on a regular basis like others do, so they wouldn't understand it. At first instance, they see it, and the thought process goes "You're offending my creator in a derogatory way, I feel inclined to take your life". However, someone like me watching the show on a regular basis says "They said that? I'm not suprised".
Being an occasional South Parker watcher I have learned that whatever issue seems to be most prevalent in society is the writer’s next target. Every time something big happens in the world the writers blow the issue out of proportion and turn it into some cruel joke. Sometimes it is hard to watch what is being done on the show but other times the show allows people to laugh and joke about issues that our country has struggled to deal with. It is incredible that a two dimensional cartoon can create such a buzz and be so controversial. South Park is willing to say what others are not, but it is their willingness to not be afraid that sparks the conversation which allows us to talk about something that we were previously not willing to discuss. I am not saying that every episode of South Park has accomplished this feat but certain episodes have crossed a barrier and showed people that no matter how bad things get or what happens, we can overcome anything.
The writers and creators of South Park are doing nothing wrong as they are simply expressing their thoughts, which are protected by free speech. In my opinion the writers have no intention to harm anyone through the show but instead want to lighten the mood on much more serious issues. Every episode that I have seen of South Park has dealt with an issue that I have heard or seen. Regularly on the show topics such as social class, religion, and racism are made fun of and used in what seems to be a repulsing manner. The writers are not being completely consistent with actual society when dealing with these major issues but by blowing these issues out of proportion people can see how disgusting it is to act in this manner. South Park is inspiring change in an unconventional manner.
Looking specifically at the issue of making fun of Muhammad, I first think that obviously this is wrong. I am catholic and would not want the writers to create a show making fun of Jesus or God, but I also understand that there is no reason to become upset or angry because of a cartoon on television. Earlier I stated that South Park does a lot of great things on certain instances, but there are other times that the show discussing a topic for no reason other than to purely harass the target and its fans. The Muhammad episode was obviously one of these shows. It is hard to say that anything good came from this show being on television, but if you look deep inside of the show’s message you can plead and say that by this show airing the issues of ethnicity, race, and religion are further brought out of the metaphorical closet and placed right in front of us. These issues are things that we need to discuss and shows like South Park are allowing us to get past our fear of speaking.
South Park offers what you are willing to take from it. You can view it as an awful show that should not be allowed on television and it could be viewed as the best thing to happen to this country, or anything in between.
Although it is common knowledge that Islam is a religion that is taken very seriously, this whole controversy over the South Park episode is pretty ridiculous. I am an avid watcher of South Park, and I did see the episode mentioned in the video which "poked fun" at Muhammad. I find the controversy to be blown out of proportion. There are many reasons I feel this way. First of all, the episode wasn't putting down the Islam religion in any way; they had Muhammad in a bear costume, but it isn't like they had characters shouting out racist remarks about Muslims, or saying the religion is stupid. The second reason is that one would have a hard time coming across an episode of South Park (particularly from the last few seasons) in which some sort of race, celebrity, or other public figure is not exploited. There are episodes about blacks, rednecks, Mexicans and all other kinds of races. For instance, I saw an episode last night where stereotypes of Mexicans and Persians were both demonstrated. However, you do not see every other person that is poked fun at sending threats to the South Park writers. Being "made fun" of on South Park is a status symbol; most people would be honored. In a show where it is okay for Oprah to have a talking downstairs, for Ben Affleck’s parents to have asses for faces, and to make Al Gore, President Obama, and others look like complete idiots, I feel it's reasonable to poke a little fun at Muhammad. I understand that making fun of a religion isn't the same as a celebrity, but they never really put down the religion. I am catholic, and in countless South Park episodes Jesus is ridiculed, in fact, in one episode they said he sucked because he did not have any powers, and it doesn’t offend me. I don't think there should be a difference between the two.
Also, this was not the first episode where Muhammad was included in the plot. There was another where he was to appear in an episode of Family Guy, so the people of South Park began burying their heads in the sand as to avoid seeing his face, and avoid being bombed by Muslims. I don't recall there was as much controversy about that episode. In conclusion, I believe the controversy over this episode was a bit overboard.
In my opinion I think that people shouldn't let tv shows like South Park influence them too much. Shows such as this one are made to ridicule things in life. They mock religious figures, tv icons, and even presidents to make people laugh. It's a tv show, and a cartoon at that who cares what a character says. South Park, Family Guy and other cartoons of this nature are known for doing things we wouldn't normally do. For example poke fun at God, or Muhammad. I think that Muslims are taking the tv show way too serious because as I stated before they also ridiculed God in an episode. However, that doesn't make it right. The episode where they made fun of Jesus didn't get much publicity, therefore, I don't think the one about Muhammad should either. I personally saw the episode myself and I laughed when I watched it because it touched on the stereotypes that society has about the Muslim religion. Most of the plot seems to be accurate to me besides the scenes that were strictly made to make us laugh. For instance, it is true that Muhammad's face is not supposed to be drawn. However at the end of the episode a made up face was shown as that of Muhammad. We alI know that that face was made by one of the illustrators and looked nothing like the real man. I think the problem was that our world has become anti-muslim after the whole 911 incident, and now Muslims take offense to anything and everything that is said against their religion. When we were threatened by Muslims we began to hate everyone who practiced Islamic religions. Obviously their complaints weren't taken into consideration because the show is still on air and it still makes fun of many things we take serious. My argument is some what biased because for one thing I love south park. I think the show is hilarious, the plots are intelligent. Another reason my argument may be biased is because I am not a Muslim. But neither is most of America. We are allowed to do things like this in America because we are mostly are a country where we have freedom of speech, and we can say whatever we want most of the times and get away with it. Our currency reads "In God we Trust" so of course we'll poke fun at other religions because we don't look at it from others point of view. If I was Muslim i don't know how I would feel about the situation but I am in no way shape or form Muslim so that goes without saying. South Park had made fun of everything I can think of from racism, to our presidents, to religions. Muslims aren't the only target of the show so I don't see what the big deal is.
I believe that because I am not a Muslim that I will never understand what the problem is with South Park poking fun at Muhammad. The show is meant for fun and to entertain people, not to insult. The creators of South Park seem to make fun of almost all religions. Jewish people are at the bad end of many jokes on the show, Jesus is a main character on the show, and not in a good way, and there are a couple episodes devoted to doing nothing but making fun of Mormons. I think that the real issue of course was not that the show was making fun of Muslims, but that they were going to show an image of Muhammad on the show and showing an image of him is strictly again the Muslim religion. If this is the case, then the Muslim views just should not watch it if it offends them. They creator of South Park might have pushed it a little bit far in this one, but that does not mean that they are free to be threatened and fear for their lives.
This of course was not the Muslim people of course, it was extremists. Every religion has them, but Muslim extremists are just a little more serious. I am sure the Christian extremists do not like the show, but that does not mean that they threaten to kill the creators of the show. This show and shows like it sometimes cross the line, and that is why they are so popular, because the make fun of things that no one else will.
I really like this show and they do and very good job at what they do, which is to entertain people. When the episode aired the image was censored so in the end the threats worked and the creators gave in. I think that it should never have come to that. When it comes down to it though they had the right to make that episode under their freedom of speech, there are just some things that they should avoid. When it comes down to it, it is not worth is to be threaten and possibly killed just to make fun of one religion. I actually saw the episode and it was not really worth it to put Muhammad in the episode. They could have easily used and different character in place of it and it would have avoided all of this controversy. But no threats were carried out and the show continues normal today. So though the show made it through this, they really should think about pushing the bar that far again and whether it is worth the risk just for a couple laughs.
Everyone knows that South Park is a controversial show which pushes the envelope and likes to satirize every topic that is popular at the time. I was big fan of South Park when I was younger and enjoyed the comical topics and the celebrities that they made fun of. I quit watching it when I was in high school but once I heard about the threats to the creators of South Park about their depiction of Muhammad I knew at once that I wanted to watch the episode. In my opinion I was very pleased about the episode making fun of religious figures. I am a fervent believer in the 1st amendment and free speech. One of the key epochs of a free society is the right to criticize religion in my opinion. If we cant criticize religion and its truth claims then we are up for grabs as a free society. I found it peculiar that Muslims were the only ones out of the religions to openly make death threats publicly. This has happened often, you only have to think of Salman Rushdie when he wrote his novel “the satanic verses” or what happened in Amsterdam when the free press in Denmark drew cartoons of Muhammad. This should worry everybody who believes in free speech. Now I am not openly criticizing all Muslims and Islam as a whole. But I find it interesting that these fundamentalist can always use the Koran as a source for their bigotry and violence. I was very upset when I saw a news clip showing a man who is the leader of a Muslim group living in New York city saying that the creators of South Park should be beheaded. But as former Marine and Iraqi veteran what really disturbs me is that we can barely get any condensation at all when Muslims blow up weddings or funeral processions in Iraq. Shouldn’t Muslims be on television protesting and denouncing actions like that instead of having rallies and holding up signs that say behead those who insult Islam and the prophet Muhammad. Now up to this point it may seem I am unfairly criticizing Islam or singling it out but I am not. Every group of people who have like interests should have the right to protest and speak their mind when they think they being fairly untreated. I want to get that out in the open right now. But Islam like all religions makes very big claims for itself. It claims that it is the ultimate truth and every human problem can be cured by it. I think you can make that claim yourself but if you are then you have to drop the demand that it be free from criticism and above all else satire.
South Park, in my opinion, has been one of the best written shows on television for the last fourteen years now. One aspect of the show that I have always enjoyed is that Matt and Trey have a philosophy about the nature of the show. Either everything is alright to say, or nothing is alright. They are not making jokes to directly offend anybody personally. They make fun of celebrities all the time on the show, but almost none of them are personal. In a lot of episodes, they are just taking some taboo subjects and using them for jokes in the show. So personally, I think this Muslim group is completely out of hand. No one strapped you to a chair and forced you to see a cartoon image of Muhammad.
A second reason I think this group is way out of line is that I think there may be some form of publicity stunt here. I mean I'm not saying that these people are not really pissed about the episode, but when South Park actually showed Muhammad in the Super Best Friends episode early in the run when it was less popular, there was no real uproar then. Is there any particular reason you care enough to threaten the lives of these writers now when they planned on showing Muhammad as opposed to the little to no action taken when Muhammad was displayed on cable TV? I think the success of the show over the last ten years or so has played a little bit of a role in this situation.
Another comment I would like to make on this situation is how Matt and trey went about handling this situation. Anyone who saw this episode would have noticed that the entire speech given by Kyle in the end of the episode was censored out. An entire 3 minutes bleep on the new South Park release. After seeing this episode, I did some research to find out what that was all about. The speech in the end was that people should not just give in to terroristic threats and that you should have to do anything because you might be afraid of the consequences. I was very surprised by this and I completely understood why Comedy Central decided to censor this speech. They basically told this extremist group who threatened their lives to fuck off on national television. Matt and Trey have very strong opinions about censorship in the United States including television laws and nonsense companies like the MPAA for example. They feel so strongly about these issues that they literally put their lives at risk to preserve what freedom they have on the air and for what freedom the eventually hope to have.
I am a South Park fan. I saw the new episode and frankly I thought it was hilarious. Matt and Trey, the writers, are always pushing the envelope of free speech. Muslims, Catholics, and politicians cannot escape the ridicule which South Park dishes out. It's not like Muslims are the only ones who have been offended by the show. It's just that the Islamic faith receives particular attention in these matters because often times there are extremists within that faith who respond to such matters with violence instead of verbal protest. Muhammad and the Islamic faith deserve to be free from ridicule. However, they don't deserve it more than Jesus and the Christian faith, or Obama and the Democratic party, or me and my group of friends. Free speech is free speech. People are always gonna say things that offend you and your beliefs. The point is to rise above it and worry about what you believe in not what others don't believe in. If a cartoon show that portrays Muhammad offends you, DON'T WATCH IT! It's as simple as that.
I have to say first that I am a fan of South Park. I thought the episode in question and I thought it fit right in with others they have done. South Park is a show that challenges ideas and pokes fun at recent news. South Park has, in the past, made fun of nearly every religious group: Catholics, Mormons, Jewish people, Scientologists, etc. In an earlier episode, they even showed Muhammad as one of the Super Best Friends, a team of religious leaders and prophets that fight crime. Of course, that was before the killings of the journalists who showed Muhammad in their cartoons. Only now is there a backlash against this. The episode is not even available on their website, Southparkstudious.com. The creators left a message there, saying that it is Comedy Centrals fault this episode is gone, and they do not support this. I am not ignorant, and I understand that in the Muslim faith showing Muhammad is blasphemous. However, we are a country that is supposed to accept all forms of speech, no matter how strongly one group feels against it. For example, Neo-Nazis and KKK members are still allowed to march in streets, even though the overwhelming majority of Americans do not want to see this. I feel our country is becoming scared to speak out on important issues, and takes the easier way out by censoring certain things. It is even worse when it comes to religious issues, especially ones dealing with Islam. If we are able to make fun of Christians, the majority religion of the country, I see no reason why everyone else should be left out on the fun.
I personally have never seen the South Park episode that sparked all of this tension but I am aware of the repercussions of poking fun at the prophet Muhammad. Take Salman Rushdie for example, who published Satanic Verses in 1988. His plot satirized many Muslim traditions as well as the life of prophet Muhammad himself. Rushdie has become the target of mass amounts of enraged religious fanatics. There was a fatwa placed on Rushdie’s head instructing Muslims that it was their religious duty to kill both Rushdie and his publishers. He has since been under extreme protective measures by the British police forces. Although Rushdie has never been harmed translaters, publishers and 37 other people who got in the way of these violent attempts were murdered. On a less devastating note, there were also mass book burnings across the entire world.
Just today 01/21/ 2011 A prominent Muslim cleric to Birmingham mosques became enraged that Rushdi was knighted by the queen of England. It just goes to show how seriously and with sanctity devout Muslims hold their religion. Over 20 years ago and 40 or more related deaths this is still a beyond sensitive issue. “A controversial English Imam called Britain’s Queen Elizabeth a “disgusting woman.” Shaykh Asrar Rashid, a visiting cleric at the Birmingham city's mosques, said this in disagreement with the Queen’s knighting of author Salman Rushdie”
Read more at fox news: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/01/21/controver…
I in no way was surprised by the controversy that erupted over the airing of that particular South park video. They targeted a demographic notoriously defensive of their beliefs. They received threats and warnings of violence to come if the episodes weren’t altered or modified to fit the approval of those threatening violent retaliation.
What’s frustrating is Jersey Shore and their cult like following isn’t making death threats. Of course there is a time and a place for everything, but south park kind of is that time and place for anything. A devout Muslims view of their prophet is probably not going to be altered by a painfully vulgar satirical show meant to offend and degrade everyone.
I hope that Rushdie one day won’t have to live in fear of vengeance for his literary work and I also hope South Park can continue to be an outlet to satirize every facet of culture worth poking fun at, because that is what is meant to do. Salman Rushdie once ingeniously said, “A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return.” I believe the same goes for everything. If you don’t like it, don’t watch, don’t listen, don’t believe and absolutely don’t obsess.
Part 1
My friends and i were actually talking about this issue not too long ago. We found it absolutely hilarious that a terrorist group was actually threatening the creators of South Park because of their show. First of all, thinking about a bunch of terrorists sitting around watching South Park together is like something you would actually see in a South Park episode. The first thing I pictured was a bunch of guys with long beards and turbans on their heads sitting on a couch, shooting their AK-47 rifles off in anger as they watched the episode (I guess that is just my subconscious interpretation of a terrorist). And then I started thinking, “is it really justified for them to get so worked up over this one episode?” The creators of South Park have perfected the art of insult and getting under peoples skin. Their whole careers are based on that and they are very good at what they do.
Part 2
Each episode, there is a new target and the characters relentlessly rip on them to an outrageous point. Some topics they like to use a lot are Jewish people and redheads. One episode, in fact, combined the two groups and ripped on them both at the same time. In this episode, Cartman thought he had become a redhead, or ginger. At first he was devastated but then he decided to turn the situation around to his favor. He began running meetings for which he invited all of the gingers in his town. He spoke at these meetings about how they are really the superior people. As his speeches become more powerful his followers increase and he starts playing the role of a Hitler character. The army of gingers represented his “Aryan people” and he soon had the goal of world domination.
Part 3
Throughout the plot, many jokes and punch lines were thrown in aimed at both gingers and Jews. And yet, there has been no threats made to the South Park creators from Jews or gingers. I saw the episode about Muhammad and I personally did not think it was that insulting to the Muslim world. For these people to get so worked up and threaten the lives of the creators seems a bit over the top to me. But, of course, I kept on thinking and came to the realization that maybe to me, and people of my culture, this is not a big deal but it could affect other people differently. In our culture we are so used to everyone making fun of everyone and everything else. Comedians, TV shows, sports shows, you name it, we are constantly ripping on each other. Maybe in other cultures this is not such a heavy occurrence. Maybe other people, who aren’t used to it, don’t know how to handle it. That could explain why this terrorist group got so offended.
The south park episode that stirred up controversy came under scrutiny when it became apparent in the episode the week before that the writers were planning to show an image of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad. In response to this potential action, a radical Muslim group decided to issue a threat to Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone (the writers of South Park). One of the leaders of the group even wrote on his twitter page “he prayed for Allah to kill the show’s creators and burn them in Hell for all eternity”. What is especially ironic about this controversy is that the south park creators have shown Mohammad in a previous episode. But, the south park situation in question is the epitome of hypocrisy. It is simply one group (the radical religious group), exercising their freedom speech by threatening another group (the south park writers) for exercising their freedom of speech. The religious group has basically decided that it is perfectly fine for them to say whatever they want, including making radical violent threats. Now, not that I agree that the south park writers should include an image of Mohammad in their comedy series, but the first amendment protects their right to say whatever they please. The Radical religious group exercised their first amendment right as well when they issued the threat to the comedian writers. Comedy Central (a subsidiary of Viacom) opted to censor the offensive material in the episode in question, effectively stripping the writers of their first amendment rights. This situation is no different than when former Gov. Sarah Palin issued a map with crosshairs over certain states in which she had differing opinions with the political office holders. While this could be considered a threat or act of violence, she was allowed to do so because she was protected under the first amendment. I am not arguing that what South Park did was morally sound or sensitive to people’s beliefs, but there should be no conditions to our first amendment. Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship or limitation, or both. Later in the controversial south park episode, Buddha is depicted snorting lines of cocaine in front of children and Jesus is depicted as having an Internet pornography addiction. Both of those images were exhibited uncensored. The effect of the episode simply exposed a double standard. Viacom made it public that under no circumstance is it acceptable to depict the prophet Mohammad in any way, but depiction of other religious prophets doing any type of action (regardless of how violent, sexual, racy or offensive it may be) is allowed. It has been outlined in supplemental Islamic religious teachings (not specifically in the Qur’an) that depiction of Mohammad (or any human being for that matter) in any way is sacrilegious, however, I believe that depiction of Buddha doing hard drugs in the presence of children or Jesus having a sexual addiction are at least as offensive.