[Kosh]

South Park is censored because of a muslim death threat

They have depicted the Queen blowing her brains out after a failed attempt by the British army to reinvade America, Saddam Hussein as Satan's gay lover, and Jesus as a trigger-happy superhero. Mormons, Scientologists, Catholics, Jews, politicians and film stars have all been skewered on the razor-sharp wit of South Park.

Now the caustic animated satire appears to have reached its limits within the confines of mainstream US television. Fans and pundits alike were taken aback last night when an episode featuring the prophet Muhammad purportedly dressed in a bear costume had bleeps and "Censored" blocks slapped liberally throughout to remove all audio and visual reference to the prophet.

Granted this happened a week ago, but I don't watch south park and don't pay a lot of attention to a lot of the media so I just now found out about it. It made me wonder not only why we tolerate this kind of BS (the group that made the threat was based in New York btw) but why the hell should we be afraid of them? Air the episode uncensored, otherwise the terrorists have won. This is yet another example of what happens when we tolerate backwards thinking.

[achtung]

Sounds like their kind of humor. The staff is "giving them (Muslims*) what they want" in a way that will get normal folk outraged. Good play, if I'm interpreting correctly.

EDIT:  *The fundie ones.

[mister J]

Gosh, I didn't find it offensive, neither did my mom who is like 60 years old and religious. We're both muslim btw.

but, you know, to each their own.

[BloodEagle]

Lastest intro to The Simpsons had Bart writing "SOUTH PARK-WE'D STAND BESIDE YOU IF WE WEREN'T SO SCARED" on the chalkboard. 

Oh, and might as well add this:

A Statement from Matt and Trey

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.

I still haven't seen the episode, because I watch them online. :/

The Spell Check library needs to be updated, by the way.

[Locutus of Borg]

I am getting tired of this Muslim appeasement obsession that the US and UK have.

Just because Muslims are offended by simple things, doesn't mean that we shouldn't do them. We shouldn't stop teaching the Holocaust because some Muslims find it offensive.

Y'know I was at an exhibit in London where they said that all modern inventions were really created by Muslims? I guess history should be changed to appease them too. After all, we all know that Muslims invented the telescope, the train, and the airplane.

I'm sorry, but we can't warp our society because of the rigidity of one religion. I have a good deal of Muslim friends who aren't this crazy.

[The E]

I would also like the media to ignore christian sensibilities....

[Locutus of Borg]

Did you just say you wanted FOX news shut down?

[Turambar]

Muslims just can't take a joke.  They'll come around eventually.

[IronBeer]

They'll come around eventually.

We should all certainly hope so.

[Bob-san]

And incoherent stupidity like this is why I don't watch South Park. Or television in general.

[Blue Lion]

Wow, some guys did something for the purpose of pissing people off and it pissed them off.

South Park stopped being what I would generously call "watchable" when it started doing this crap.

[Turambar]

They'll come around eventually.

We should all certainly hope so.

they still have like 600 years of lag time on christianity.

which means in about 800 years they'll all finally realize that this whole god thing is a bunch of bull**** :-P

[mxlm]

It's a fun notion, but it doesn't account for historical realities. Nor does it acknowledge the minor point that for a substantial period of time the Muslim world was a much nicer place to be than Christendom.

[General Battuta]

It's all economics.

[castor]

Wow, some guys did something for the purpose of pissing people off and it pissed them off.

South Park stopped being what I would generously call "watchable" when it started doing this crap.

Yep. And that was a long time ago.

[Titan]

It's a fun notion, but it doesn't account for historical realities. Nor does it acknowledge the minor point that for a substantial period of time the Muslim world was a much nicer place to be than Christendom.

That's the bit I don't get. We recently learned about that in history, and all I could think was, what the hell happened?

[Iss Mneur]

It's a fun notion, but it doesn't account for historical realities. Nor does it acknowledge the minor point that for a substantial period of time the Muslim world was a much nicer place to be than Christendom.

That's the bit I don't get. We recently learned about that in history, and all I could think was, what the hell happened?

They got completely mowed over several times by several different nations including the Mongol Empire,  Christendom (the Holy Crusades), The Ottoman Empire (though the Ottoman's were Islamic, they still attacked other Islamic countries), European Empire building (ie. namely the British Empire who were limited in expansion by the Ottoman Empire).  Then to "Modern" history with the USSR, the UN with Israel, and now "NATO".

Basically, they kept getting invaded, mostly because the area is rather resource rich, and this constant threat of invasion causes the people (at least the people that end up making policy) to fall back to religious fundamentalism (see, Aztec empire when the Spanish started to colonize central America; USA after the 9/11 attack).

Why is the area mostly the same today, that is an entirely different story.  There are still wars being fought there (never mind why). 

It takes time for a culture to change, think about the USA and both world wars. For a refresher, the USA was pursuing isolationist policy at the start of both wars. What finally convinced the USA to enter both wars was hostile action.  In WW1's case, the resumption by Germany of attacking civilian shipping with Uboats, and the Zimermann Telegram.  In WW2's case it was again the damage being caused to US shipping by German Uboats, and of course, the Pearl Harbor attack.  The protectionist policies where being pursued because that was the popular opinion (Woodrow Wilson was re-elected on a platform of isolationism, and FDR had to work hard to build support for the USA to enter WW2). It was only after WW2 that the US decided that they needed to be the police of the world. Transitioning from Isolationist to World Police is a dramatic change that took over 40 years.

[Scotty]

It's a fun notion, but it doesn't account for historical realities. Nor does it acknowledge the minor point that for a substantial period of time the Muslim world was a much nicer place to be than Christendom.

That's the bit I don't get. We recently learned about that in history, and all I could think was, what the hell happened?

They got completely mowed over several times by several different nations including the Mongol Empire,  Christendom (the Holy Crusades), The Ottoman Empire (though the Ottoman's were Islamic, they still attacked other Islamic countries), European Empire building (ie. namely the British Empire who were limited in expansion by the Ottoman Empire).  Then to "Modern" history with the USSR, the UN with Israel, and now "NATO".

 

It takes time for a culture to change, think about the USA and both world wars. For a refresher, the USA was pursuing isolationist policy at the start of both wars. What finally convinced the USA to enter both wars was hostile action.  In WW1's case, the resumption by Germany of attacking civilian shipping with Uboats, and the Zimermann Telegram.  In WW2's case it was again the damage being caused to US shipping by German Uboats, and of course, the Pearl Harbor attack.  The protectionist policies where being pursued because that was the popular opinion (Woodrow Wilson was re-elected on a platform of isolationism, and FDR had to work hard to build support for the USA to enter WW2). It was only after WW2 that the US decided that they needed to be the police of the world. Transitioning from Isolationist to World Police is a dramatic change that took over 40 years.

The only immediate problem I can see with that is that before either World War, American destroyers targeted German U-boats, even if they were leaving us alone to begin with.  I believe a destroyer was the first American ship attacked during WWII, mostly because it was firing at a U-boat at the time.  German U-boat captains had standing personal orders from Hitler to avoid attacking American shipping unless fired on first.

[Iss Mneur]

...

They got completely mowed over several times by several different nations including the Mongol Empire,  Christendom (the Holy Crusades), The Ottoman Empire (though the Ottoman's were Islamic, they still attacked other Islamic countries), European Empire building (ie. namely the British Empire who were limited in expansion by the Ottoman Empire).  Then to "Modern" history with the USSR, the UN with Israel, and now "NATO".

 

Afghanistan is an Islamic country is it not?

It takes time for a culture to change, think about the USA and both world wars. For a refresher, the USA was pursuing isolationist policy at the start of both wars. What finally convinced the USA to enter both wars was hostile action.  In WW1's case, the resumption by Germany of attacking civilian shipping with Uboats, and the Zimermann Telegram.  In WW2's case it was again the damage being caused to US shipping by German Uboats, and of course, the Pearl Harbor attack.  The protectionist policies where being pursued because that was the popular opinion (Woodrow Wilson was re-elected on a platform of isolationism, and FDR had to work hard to build support for the USA to enter WW2). It was only after WW2 that the US decided that they needed to be the police of the world. Transitioning from Isolationist to World Police is a dramatic change that took over 40 years.

The only immediate problem I can see with that is that before either World War, American destroyers targeted German U-boats, even if they were leaving us alone to begin with.  I believe a destroyer was the first American ship attacked during WWII, mostly because it was firing at a U-boat at the time.  German U-boat captains had standing personal orders from Hitler to avoid attacking American shipping unless fired on first.

Sure, but I am specifically referring to the culture of isolationism. Also, I realize the WW2 example is a bit weak because the events of WW1 had started to influence opinion, but nonetheless the majority (or at least the influential ones) still felt it was better to stay neutral.

[mxlm]

It takes time for a culture to change, think about the USA and both world wars. For a refresher, the USA was pursuing isolationist policy at the start of both wars.

I don't remember the exact phrasing, but someone once said, I think accurately, that the US veers between isolationism and missionary wars. Yeah, yeah, we didn't want to fight them there Huns. A few years earlier, however, we were rather keen to **** up the Spaniards.