Thursday, April 22, 2010

Comedy Central Censors Episode Referencing Mohammed

Fox News reports that "Comedy Central bleeped out all references to the Prophet Muhammad in Wednesday night's episode of the animated show 'South Park.' The episode was a continuation of last week's episode which depicted the Prophet Muhammad in a bear suit. A radical Muslim website threatened the show's creators following that episode. Comedy Central confirmed to FoxNews.com that it had censored the show, and that the episode was not available on its website. In addition to bleeping the words 'Prophet Muhammad,' the show also covered the character with a large block labeled 'Censored.'"

The New York Times reports that the “South Park” creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, have issued a statement in response to Comedy Central’s decision to alter an episode after a Muslim group’s warning: "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."

A South Park episode airs satirizing intimidation that results in censorship. Comedy Central is intimidated and censors the episode. A South Park airs episode satirizing the fear of threats of Islamic violence in response to depictions of Mohammed. Muslims respond with threats of violence in response to South Park episode depicting Mohammed. Does anyone not see how ironic this all is?

The episode was about celebrities that have been mocked in South Park's past episodes trying to steal Mohammed's special power that forbids him from being mocked. It is nothing short of disgusting that Comedy Central would itself make the show's point a reality on their station, and on South Park itself which is known for making fun of absolutely everybody and everything else without censorship.

Comedy Central recently had this on the Sarah Silverman program: http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=307703&title=festive-holocaust-memorial. Is it possible some Jews might be offended? Then why was it not censored? Might it have anything to do with the fact that Jews are not threatening to go around and kill people for comedy they disagree with?

Shameful.

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