Complaining to Comedy Central

[SextusMaximus]

They went too far, but not on a level of terrorism, but by ridiculing other religions to get laughs.

Lets not think of the Terrorist side of it for a second, because there are OBVIOUSLY muslims who aren't terrorists and it can be their lives work to help people realise this, because of obtuse fools who believe that all muslims are terrorists. Think if they watched the programme and realised that their religion and everything they believed in is being ridiculed by a huge programme in world-wide television.

You know the phrase "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me". I call bollocks.

 

[The Zango]

Thanks for the link i'm adding my complaint to the pile now

 

[titanium turtle]

hello terrorists
you are hardly making us want to respect and accept your religion when you become a bunch of whiney little bitches over a meaningless piece of harmful satire, every other ethnic group and religion has been satirised by southpark- now it is YOUR TURN
now grow some fucking balls and a sense of humour
if you can't laugh at yourself then you are probably a dick

also- are you really going to kill people over a CARTOON!!??
god, chill the fuck out

I'm an atheist feel free to take the piss out of that
- so to sum up- chill out and stop threatening us and we will more likely accept and respect you

 

[Casual Shinji]

I guess this means South Park is as good as dead, since it shows us that terrorism works.

"That's right, Stanley; the terrorists win."

 

[Hamster at Dawn]

I had to watch this episode online and I was shocked at how much was censored. It's stupid since they weren't even threatened as far as I'm aware ? I am lead to believe that an Islamic group warned CC that extremists were likely to take action, but were not actually threatening action themselves. Anyway, I have already posted about this numerous times so I will not go into any more detail other than saying that I am outraged by all this censorship and am glad that you sent them letter. Maybe I will do the same.

Based on the fact that Tom Cruise became censored near the end of the episode at the climax of his evil plans fruition and the fact that Mohammad has been visible in the intro songs movie for the past three years. I think the censorship was all part of the joke. Am i worng or did it just fly over a bunch of people's heads?

I'm pretty sure the black bar was intentional (although I think originally the creators wanted to show Mohammed and had to make changes due to demands from CC) but the speech at the end that was bleeped out was definitely not supposed to be censored. The creators have said that CC censored a lot more on top of the censoring they had already put in, so some was intentional and some was not. Either way, they only showed the episode once in one country and will not allow it to be uploaded to the South Park Studios website. The Super Best Friends episode and the 200th episode have also been banned.

 

[Paksenarrion]

This is why these types of groups exist: http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=2253966990&v=info

...to combat terrorism.

 

[Woodsey]

Yea American here, They bleeped Muhammad when they said it and they censored him with a big black bar. I don't know about anyone else but South Park has been getting a little stale over the last few seasons.

I think you and quite a few others missed the joke here. The big black censor bar was mocking that fact that Muhammad can't be made fun of, which is what the whole episode was about.

Oh good, I wasn't the only one that realised that.

Personally I thought the beeping was done on purpose, and this was just a prank. I mean they beeped the entirety of Kyle's speech!

 

[Maxman3002]

Oh good, I wasn't the only one that realised that.

Personally I thought the beeping was done on purpose, and this was just a prank. I mean they beeped the entirety of Kyle's speech!

Unfortunatly the speech at the end was actually about how nothing is safe from people talking about (hence why tom cruise got seen again) and nothing to do with mohammed. Comedy central beeped it out of fear of an angry responce. The creators wanted it uncensored and ironicly their end summing up was completly proven wrong by comedy central.

It wasnt some huge meta joke, just a small joke about censorship that has unfortunatly been proven wrong. Some things apparently are safe from jokes and even south park cannot go there now

 

[Icecoldcynic]

I watched the episode online so I wasn't aware of this. To be honest I think it's pretty amusing that the extremists are acting exactly how the characters in the show said they would.

 

[Icecoldcynic]

Yea American here, They bleeped Muhammad when they said it and they censored him with a big black bar. I don't know about anyone else but South Park has been getting a little stale over the last few seasons.

I think you and quite a few others missed the joke here. The big black censor bar was mocking that fact that Muhammad can't be made fun of, which is what the whole episode was about.

Oh good, I wasn't the only one that realised that.

Personally I thought the beeping was done on purpose, and this was just a prank. I mean they beeped the entirety of Kyle's speech!

The beeping wasn't done on purpose. I watched the episode online and there was no beeping at all. That black bar was still there obviously, since it is indeed part of the episode.

 

[Alita_99]

So Muslims can't depict Muhammad, fine, I get it. So what's the problem with non-Muslims depicting Muhammad? It's not my religious law, why do I have to follow it? Orthodox Jews can't flip a lightswitch on Shabbat, so why would or should non-Jews have to practice the same religious commandment? Now imagine if Jews threatened violence if _anyone_ used electricity on their day of rest! Or if Christians demanded the world recognize the infallibility of the Pope.

It doesn't make the least bit of sense that anyone should have to adhere to the tenets of another's faith. I thank the non-existent gods that I am a secular humanist. And if you're not a secular humanist also, then... well, I don't really care. I believe in death (well maybe not death) to religious, social and political dogma, ideology, and tradition, not death to people.

 

[Little Duck]

The problem is though, it is a massive rule in their religion not to depict the faces of past holy people, one such person was muhhamad. South Park have taken it slightly too far and the Islamic groups have over reacted too.

 

[Kurokami]

Can someone tell me the whole story here? What exactly got censored? I couldn't see the episode, it was pulled where I live, and it's not on their website either. How bad is the censorship at play here?

The episode beeped the word Mohommed, Blanked his image and then put a consitent beep over the summing up that south park likes to do at the end of every episode. I had to download a torrent of the episode to see it (im not supporting piracy but there wasnt a lot of choice) The incredible amount of beeping was just over the top but to remove it completly from other countries scheduled programming is mad considering everything else that south park has gotten away with

Doesnt matter if you like or hate south park, I think its more a matter of if this sort of behaviour is the way we want tv to go?

Wasn't it simply part of the Joke? Tom Cruise too became Censored later.

 

[jnoto42]

These people really do need to lighten up and learn to take a joke.....you dont see the buddhists threatening anyone after showing their god doing coke 2 weeks straight

 

[Jaranja]

Yea American here, They bleeped Muhammad when they said it and they censored him with a big black bar. I don't know about anyone else but South Park has been getting a little stale over the last few seasons.

You know that was part of the episode, right? They censored Mohammed on purpose.

 

[Maxman3002]

Can someone tell me the whole story here? What exactly got censored? I couldn't see the episode, it was pulled where I live, and it's not on their website either. How bad is the censorship at play here?

The episode beeped the word Mohommed, Blanked his image and then put a consitent beep over the summing up that south park likes to do at the end of every episode. I had to download a torrent of the episode to see it (im not supporting piracy but there wasnt a lot of choice) The incredible amount of beeping was just over the top but to remove it completly from other countries scheduled programming is mad considering everything else that south park has gotten away with

Doesnt matter if you like or hate south park, I think its more a matter of if this sort of behaviour is the way we want tv to go?

Wasn't it simply part of the Joke? Tom Cruise too became Censored later.

The black bar over muhummed was the joke and the episode ended with that bar being removed from over tom cruise showing that no-one was safe from jokes. But comedy central added the beeping over it all making it pointless because they showed that certain jokes arnt acceptable out of fear of responce.

Id like to point out to people that comedy central has never censored other south park episodes except comedy wars with muhammed again. They even show Drawn Together uncensored and thats got a lot of taboo subjects. This was only done out of fear of terrorism. Obviously thats understandable but also gives the wrong impression to terrorists, especially as they did it to the one show that pokes fun at this entire sort of situation

Does that make sence?

 

[Flying Dagger]

The only thing I'd complain about is those god-awful shorts they play.

 

[jackanderson]

Seconded...

Caving to death threats and terrorism makes these things a legitimate way to bring about political change. If it brings regular successes then it would be far more likely that others, on seeing such success will emulate these actions. Given how those who carry out these death threats are patting themselves on the back loud enough everyone can hear, that means a lot of people will come away with the realization that death and terrorism threats is the right way to go.

It is why you have to take the firm, but sometimes stupid, stance of not giving into demands. That doesn't mean you don't negotiate (on the world stage, not so much on satire TV shows), it just means you don't cower in a little ball the moment the threats begin to fly!

I don't even like south park that much, the show has more failures then those sweet gems of success, but damn it... it is a SATIRE show, it makes fun of EVERYTHING! I wouldn't have it any other way and if you ask me, the more shocking the better.

This is basically my view all of the damn way.

 

[anthony87]

Based on the fact that Tom Cruise became censored near the end of the episode at the climax of his evil plans fruition and the fact that Mohammad has been visible in the intro songs movie for the past three years. I think the censorship was all part of the joke. Am i worng or did it just fly over a bunch of people's heads?

I'm thinking that myself. I've only seen the first of the two parter but here(in Ireland)the only cencorship was a black bar over Muhammad that said "cencored" and I thought that was intentional as part of the joke...

 

[SturmDolch]

Although I find South Park to be a terrible piece of trailer-park trash, I do disagree with the censorship. Muslims seem to be the only ones that get extremely pissed off everytime someone mentions them. It doesn't help their image as terrorists that whenever someone pokes fun at them, they scream "FUCK YOU WE'LL KILL YOU WITH MACHETES!" I guess it's the consequence of allowing third-world nations to modernize without giving them a proper education first. One that shows the freedom of speech is a good thing, and poking fun at something isn't the same as attacking it.