South Park being censored? For anyone who’s seen South Park, that’s no surprise. But South Park 201 being censored marks a fresh milestone of bleeping for the show that seems to be created specifically to attract the attention of censors. And Comedy Central censored the show after getting death threats from a Muslim group. Obviously, Muslims watch South Park. They seem to consider any representation of their prophet physically –drawing, sculpture, cartoon, movie, etc. — to be blasphemous, and in the case of extremists, punishable by death.
Censoring South Park 201
South Park 201, censored Wednesday night on Comedy Central and denied network approval for streaming online, was expected by fans who watch South Park to reveal a likeness of Muhammad. The character was concealed by a bearsuit in South Park episode 200. In episode 201, the Muhammad character comes out but it blacked out by a censor bar. The name of the character is bleeped out whenever spoken.
Is South Park 201 funnier than the original when censored?
South Park 201, censored by Comedy Central after the group RevolutionMuslim.com published the death threat, may have actually delivered a bigger laugh pay day for those who watch South Park. It could be said that South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone used the occasion as an opportunity for self-parody, not to mention an incredible surge of publicity no amount of pay day cash could buy.
South Park episodes are extreme and offend extremists
South Park episode 200, which depicted Muhammad in a bear suit, was enough to draw the wrath of RevolutionMuslim.com. Stone and Parker must have imagined what could have happened in the subsequent South Park episodes after the group’s site published a post claiming they “outright insulted” the Prophet:
“We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show,” the post read. “This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them.”
The post showed a graphic photo of a Dutch filmmaker who was murdered in Amsterdam in 2004 for making a film about Muslim women that offended Muslims, named Theo Van Gogh. The text listed the addresses of Comedy Central’s New York office and Parker and Stone’s California production office.
Other episodes for South Park
Other South Park episodes censored include one in 2006 when Parker and Stone wanted to weigh in on a controversy involving Muslim death threats motivated by caricatures of Muhammad published in a Danish newspaper. The extra cash that would have come from depicting an image of Muhammad in that South Park episode was passed on by Comedy Central. The South Park website does not make available for streaming episode 201. Instead of video, a box contains the message:
“After we delivered the show, and prior to broadcast, Comedy Central placed numerous additional audio bleeps throughout the episode. We do not have network approval to stream our original version of the show.”
Resources for the article
Comedy Central
http://www.comedycentral.com/
Trey Parker and Matt Stone
http://treyparker.info/matt.htm
Muhammad published in a Danish newspaper
http://zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/jyllands-posten_cartoons/
