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Posts Tagged ‘south park’

South Park + Free Speech = a Bad Day for Religion Part 3 – Islam

Thursday, September 25th, 2008

While attacking faiths like Scientology and Christianity might stir up some controversy, poking fun at Islam is like pissing on a bee hive.  Maybe this is why Parker and Stone have stayed away from attacking it a lot.  They consistently portray Jesus, but only once portray Mohamed.  Portraying Mohamed, of course, is not allowed in the Muslim faith, but what many people don’t realize is that any prophet of Islam is not allowed to be depicted, and Jesus is a Muslim prophet.  In a sneaky way, SP has always mocked Islam, even if they didn’t know it.

The one time they actually did portray Mohamed was in the episode “Super Best Friends”.  He was part of the super best friends, had the superpower of fire, and had to help destroy a giant Abraham Lincoln.  To everyone’s surprise, no one seemed to care and this episode went unnoticed to the waiting bee hives of “fundamentalist” Muslims.

What really stirred the nest was the epic two-parter in season 11 entitled “Cartoon Wars.”  This episode was a reaction to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.  In this episode, Family Guy is planning on airing an image of Mohamed which throws American’s into a state of fear that the Muslim world will retaliate.  Their solution?  They bury their heads in the sand to show the Muslims that they didn’t want to watch it.

But Kyle stands up for free speech and in a touching speech where he says “If you don’t show Mohammed, then you’ve made a distinction of what is okay to poke fun at, and what isn’t. Either it’s all okay, or none of it is,” convinces the President of Fox to air the episode.  Coincidentally, Comedy Central censored SP’s image of Mohamed in fear of a Muslim retaliation.  Parker and Stone used this censoring as meta-humour by showing a black screen saying “Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Muhammad on their network.”  Kyle’s plea to the network executive was the exact wording of Parker and Stone’s plea to the president of Comedy Central.

The censoring they were making fun of in their episode actually happened to the show itself, only concreting their point that the only reason we don’t depict Mohamed is because we’re scared of violent reactions.  At the very end of the episode SP shows Jesus defecating on President Bush; therefore mocking the general American public by showing how backwards it is that they can show the prophet in the hearts of most Americans defecating on the American President but not a simple image of Mohamed.

This two-parter ideally sums up SP’s view on religion and free speech.  The theme was primarily critiquing the West’s response to Muslim rioting, but it was much more than that.  It was a controversial episode thats message played itself out in the controversy it caused.  A speech by the character Stephen gets their message across perfectly,

“Freedom of speech is at stake here, don’t you all see? If anything, we should all make cartoons of Mohammed, and show the terrorists and the extremists that we are all united in the belief that every person has a right to say what they want!  And if we aren’t willing to risk what we have, then we just believe in free speech, but we don’t defend it.”

If you bury your head in the sand, like the Americans in SP, then you’re not defending free speech.  Parker and Stone risked their lives by depicting Mohamed in the name of free speech.

In conclusion, one things is for sure when it comes to SP, nothing that’s held sacred is safe from being challenged.  If you want to bury your head in the sand like the Americans in SP then you’re just someone who believes in free speech, but doesn’t defend it.  Kudos South Park, you are true champions of one of our most cherished civil rights, free speech.

Afterword,

SP has also critiqued Judaism, Mormonism, and even Atheism.  However, I felt their depictions didn’t warrant their own sections in this post.  In a future post I will tackle these three together.

Part 1 – Scientology
Part 2 – Christianity

Citations for all three posts

Arp, Robert. “South Park and Philosophy: You Know I Learned Something Today.” Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007.

David, Koepsell.  “Blasphemy and South Park.” Lecture, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2007.

Hanley, Richard. “South Park and Philosophy: Bigger, Longer, and More Penetrating.” Chicago: Open Court Press, 2007.

Southparkstuff.com. 1 November, 2007. <http://www.southparkstuff.com/south_park_downloads/episode-related_downloads/south_park_scripts >

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South Park + Free Speech = A Bad Day for Religion Part 2 – Christianity

Sunday, August 31st, 2008

Part 2: Christianity

Comparing South Park’s (SP) portrayal of Scientology (part 1) to the portrayal of Christianity is like comparing Hiroshima to the invasion of Iraq.  The attack on Scientology was mostly done in one epic episode that aimed at completely dismantling the cult’s credibility.  Christianity, on the other hand, is given some lenience.  Parker and Stone attack Christianity often, but not nearly as harsh.  It’s more like a slow moving invasion of Christianity’s most cherished beliefs.

Their main source of lampooning this religion is through one of SP’s most beloved characters, Jesus – a resident of South Park.  Parker and Stone have anthropomorphized  Jesus, taking him off the podium where Christians have placed him.  To Parker and Stone, Jesus was just a normal guy; that is…if he even existed at all, which is evidenced in season 11 where they have Jesus residing in “Imaginationland.”

The funniest Jesus antics are his attempts at magic.  In “Super Best Friends” Jesus loses a battle of magical talents to David Blaine.  In the scene, Blaine first eats his own head and the crowd goes wild.  Jesus pulls out a cart of fish and exclaims “Certainly not enough to feed this entire crowd, but now – turn around.”  As the crown turns around Jesus pulls out fish and bread from behind the cart and piles it on top of the cart.  Jesus then tells the crowd to turn back around, which does, and to the viewers’ amazement, starts cheering in awe.  What better way for Parker and Stone to make fun of Jesus then to show how people are gullible to simple miracles magic that Jesus most likely performed (if he even existed).


Aside from poking fun at Jesus, SP also takes on the institution of Roman Catholicism.  In “Red Hot Catholic Love” father Maxi from South Park goes to the Vatican to inform them of his shocking discovery that all American priests molest little boys, only to find out that all of the members at the Vatican do as well.  Even the Galgameks molest their children.

In “Hell on Earth 2006” priests and bishops are shown walking with little naked boys on leashes.  They attempt to get into a party being held by Satan who is ironically gay. To make matters worse, in the SP world, the Vatican is governed not by the Pope, but by a giant queen spider that appears before the members of the Vatican.  Father Maxi is fed up and gives a typical SP rant.  “When you start turning the stories into literal translations of hierarchies and power, well… Well, you end up with this. [shows the ruins, and then the Queen Spider, then the Gelgameks].”

In another instance, Jesus tells the Pope “…men are so easily led astray. St. Peter was a rabbit. And a rabbit should be Pope.”  It’s a safe bet to say Parker and Stone don’t like Catholicism when they speak of a rabbit having better judgment than the Pope.

On numerous occasions, Christian organizations have attempted to have SP episodes banned from TV and DVD sales, but to no avail.  The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, run by Edger’s beloved friend Bill Donahue (insert sarcasm), condemned an episode because of the portrayal of the Virgin Mary.  They demanded that Parker and Stone apologize to Roman Catholics and that the episode be retired from ever airing again.  Parker and Stone did neither.  The American Family Association (A Christian backed organization) convinced advertisers like Best Buy, Geico, and Foot Looker to pull out their advertisements during the show and even persuaded J.C. Penny to stop carrying SP merchandise but failed to get episodes pulled.

One only has to look at how many Christians live in America to see how dedicated Parker and Stone are to attacking the taboo.  They risk losing millions of viewers because of their portrayals of Christianity, and surely they’ve lost many, but continue to make fun of it nonetheless.

For the sake of keeping you from reading too much, I’ve left out other SP attacks on Christianity.  Here is a shortlist of some more.

South Park has shown,

Next week is Part 3 – Islam

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South Park + Free Speech = A Bad Day for Religion Part 1

Thursday, August 21st, 2008

South Park (hereafter referred to as SP) is arguably the funniest show on TV.  To many, it is a source of middle ground social commentary.  To me, it is a beacon of hope in a media gone astray with political correctness.  SP transcends political correctness by making use of its right to free speech, and what better way to promote free speech then to attack that which is held most sacred to many Americans – religion.  In fact, 16 episodes of the 11 seasons so far have dealt primarily with “that which is most sacred”, with certain figures and themes popping up on other occasions.

Not only does the content about religion promote free speech, the controversy of this content perpetuates SP’s intent.  Stemming from my love of the show, I’ve decided to take an in depth look at how religion is represented in South Park, and show you how nothing is taboo when you’re an equal opportunity offender.  This week’s post will be on Scientology.

Part 1: Scientology

If there’s any religion (if you can even call it one) that SP has ripped apart piece by piece, it’s Scientology – better known as the Church Cult of Scientology (COS).  Two episodes of SP have dealt with debunking and mocking COS.  The first appearance of COS appeared in “Super Best Friends”.  In this episode, the magician David Blaine creates a cult following that is strikingly reminiscent of COS.  Unfortunately, the episode didn’t actually reference COS.  This didn’t happen until season 9 when Parker and Stone figured it was time to deal out the damage that COS deserved in the episode “Trapped in the Closet”.  To anyone who knows anything about COS, the story is completely absurd, a fact which Parker and Stone make vividly clear in this episode as they caption a visual interpretation of Scientology’s creation story with “This is what Scientologists actually believe.”

What’s funny about this is that the story itself is hilarious, so all SP had to do was show it to the viewers.

Many other parts of this episode completely lampooned this religious cult.  The start of the show has Stan looking for something free to do and comes across a Scientology church that is offering free e-meter tests.  Inside the church everything is ethereal and everyone is overly excited about life.  To say that SP doesn’t try to make Scientology look like a cult in this scene would be more patently absurd than Tom Cruise on Oprah’s couch.  After Stan takes the “free” test the tester tells him:

“… you are one messed-up kid… I’m afraid that you are completely miserable and totally depressed…there’s certainly no question that you are a perfect candidate for Scientology.”

Stan, a young and ignorant child, is helpless against these claims.

We all know that COS is in it for the Benjamins. SP makes this known by having Stan tell a crowd that “Scientology is just a big fat global scam” at the end of the episode.  SP goes one step further, by having the president of COS claim “You don’t actually believe this crap, do you?? Dummy! Brainwashed alien souls?? E-meters and thetan levels??.”

As sure as Parker and Stone were this episode would offend Scientologists, Isaac Hayes – the Scientology practicing voice of Chef – quit the show.  And that wasn’t the only negative outcome of the episode.  Viacom, who owns comedy central, had the original airing of the show pulled because of the portrayal of Tom Cruise.  Cruise threatened to back out of Mission Impossible 3 endorsements if Paramount, who is owned by Viacom, didn’t tell comedy central to pull it.  Cruise also threatened to sue SP.  Parker and Stone predicted this would happen and so added this little ditty to the end of the episode:

Stan: Look, everybody, we’re all looking for answer, you know. We all want to understand who we are and where we come from, but… sometimes we want to know the answers so badly that we… believe just about anything.
Man 2: Huh?
Woman: What?
Stan: [takes off his laurel] I’m not the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard. And… Scientology is just a big fat global scam.
Brian: Oh! We are gonna sue you!
Stan: What??
COS President: Yeah, you think you can say our religion is a lie?! We’ll sue you, buddy!
Stan: YOU told me it was a lie!
President: Ho, now you’re puttin’ words in MY mouth! You are sooo sued!
Man 3: You can’t make fun of Scientology, kid! We are gonna sue your ass AND your balls!
Crowd: Yeah, that’s right!
COS President: How dare you mock our faith, you little punk?! You’ll be hearing from our lawyers tomorrow!
Field Reporter: We’ve just had an incredible development here, Mitch. Tom Cruise, John Travolta, and R. Kelly, have all come out of the closet! [The three of them come out the front door and Cruise releases R. Kelly, who moves off and out of view.]
Cruise: [approaches Stan] So you’re NOT the prophet, huh?! You made me look stupid! I’m gonna sue you too!
Stan: Well fine! Go ahead and sue me!
Cruise: I will! I’ll sue you in England!
COS President: You are so sued, kid!
Stan: Well go on, then! Sue me!
COS President: We’re going to!
Stan: Okay, good! Do it! I’m not scared of you! Sue me!

This one episode caused the loss of a beloved character, almost ruined their contract with Comedy Central, and nearly catapulted them into a lawsuit with Tom Cruise, all of which SP predicted would happen, and yet they decided to forge along anyways in the name of free speech.  Kudos South Park, kudos.

Up next week is Part 2: Christianity

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