South Park Muhammad Fiasco

[Phoenix Wright]

Recently (yesterday for the United States), a new episode of South Park aired. It was titled "201" and was a continuation of the last episode. Comedy Central, the network that puts South Park on the air, wrongly censored their show. Any time "Muhammad" was supposed to be said, all you heard was an annoying "BLEEP," as if Muhammad can only be uttered by extremist Muslims. The extremists threatened to kill Matt Stone and Trey Parker, if they had showed Muhammad (or something to that degree). Comedy Central complied, thus making the terrorists' jobs pretty much successful.

Before I go into this anymore, I wanna know the Forest's thoughts. :D

[Ragnell]

Why can't people take a joke? I don't mean to direct this only at Muslims, just at people in general. I don't mind when people make fun of me, as long as everyone is made fun of (and trust me, somewhere, everyone is made fun of), and even if they aren't, I still really don't care. People just have to get over stuff like that. South Park, like Family Guy, makes fun of pretty much everything, so nothing seems all that offensive to me.

This whole deal comes off as pretty stupid, but if those guys felt they were in danger, I can't disagree with them wanting to avoid the word.

Edited April 23, 2010 by Ragnell

[Crystal Shards]

My care meter isn't pegged at all, to be honest. If they want to give in, then they can give in, although it was stupid of them to do so. I mean if the extremists wanted to find an excuse to terrorize them, they would have found one, whether the word Muhammad was bleeped out or not.

[Fayt Zelpher]

My care meter isn't pegged at all, to be honest. If they want to give in, then they can give in, although it was stupid of them to do so. I mean if the extremists wanted to find an excuse to terrorize them, they would have found one, whether the word Muhammad was bleeped out or not.

You know, I'm of the opinion that terrorists win whenever people start giving in to their demands and changing their lives and living in fear like that. Since it's clear that terrorists are going to keep trying to kill us, we should be sensitive to the moderates and the reasonable people, but I think that there's a point when you need to start standing for your own principles instead of trying to walk the thin line of political correctness. Yeah, the terrorists are going to hate us and try to kill us. But they do that anyway, so why should we acquiesce to their demands when they will not listen to ours?

[Ragnell]

I'd like to add that it's pretty hilarious that terrorists want Muhammad's name to basically be equated with profanity... especially when it's obvious what's being said anyway. It seems rather stupid on the terrorist's part. I personally think that it's rather insulting.

Yeah, the terrorists are going to hate us and try to kill us. But they do that anyway, so why should we acquiesce to their demands when they will not listen to ours?

Ah, but normally, they'd try to kill lots of people (which is rather difficult); but this time they threatened to go after just two people, which is slightly more plausible, even if it is most likely an empty threat. I'm not saying that I think they should have backed down, just that I can understand why they did.

[Dr. Tarrasque]

In the 14 years we've been doing South Park we have never done a show that we couldn't stand behind. We delivered our version of the show to Comedy Central and they made a determination to alter the episode. It wasn't some meta-joke on our part. Comedy Central added the bleeps. In fact, Kyle's customary final speech was about intimidation and fear. It didn't mention Muhammad at all but it got bleeped too. We'll be back next week with a whole new show about something completely different and we'll see what happens to it.

From what I read, the issue was mostly with Muhammad being in a bear costume, bleeping his name as much as it was done and the speech at the end of the episode was just overdoing it.

[Defeatist Elitist]

Radicals are dumb. That's pretty much it.

I could probably rant for pages about how completely lacking in any form of positive qualities religious extremists are, but I think everyone already knows, and I don't really feel like bothering. So that's all I can say. They deserve to be mocked, and it's obscene to threaten death towards people who mock you.

[A-2]

The hesitation probably stems from the fact that Muslims have little tolerance for any offensive depiction of Mohammad whatsoever, and Comedy Central knows this. I'm sure they remember what happened to those Danish cartoonists who made offensive cartoons about Mohammad, and didn't feel it was worth the trouble. As Zelpher pointed out, it is pretty cowardly, but I can't really blame them.

[Nestling]

My muslim cousins said that they have to include "Mohammed" in their name due to their religion.

Or it could just be the fact that the father of the house was named Mohammed, so ;~;.

[volkethereaper]

I could probably rant for days about how completely lacking in positive qualities religeous extremists are

Let us not forget political, philosophical, and scientific extremists. Anyone who takes their beliefs or faith so seriously that they dilute and corrupt them, twisting them into something they're not meant to be is potentially dangerous. It is far better to keep our passions within proper boundaries. More on topic: Comedy Central did only what they thought was right. In a potentially dangerous situation they acted in a way that they probably felt was safer. I don't think it's fair to fault others for doing something "cowardly" when their livlihoods, and certainly the livlihoods of others may be at stake.

Edited July 25, 2010 by volkethereaper