Topic: South Park "201" Censored

I once watched an episode of South Park on Comedy Central where they actually had a counter in the top right corner of the screen that went "ding" every time someone said the "F" word. No censoring whatsoever. Now they're censoring the word "Muhammad"? He isn't even a god, he's a freakin prophet. Are they going to start censoring the word "Moses" now?

I think it was the other word for poop they did the counter thingy on unless they did another one since I stopped watching religiously

@josh: you are correct, sir, and man was that a good episode :3

Yeah, that was actually pretty funny.

@Rensch.... I do believe in Christianity and Im not going into depths or anything and I DONT ever argue who is right or wrong etc as there is no point in it and usually just makes the one doing the fussing look really bad,incompetent, etc. But having said that I will say this. Islam and Christianity are two ENTIRELY seperate beings. Yes Christians have had there wars, etc but as a whole, Christians are of peace, not violence. You dont see Christians murdering over things such as this. Im sure somebody somehere has, but take what Im saying as a whole and not over one incident, overall Christians are peaceful and if they live to what the Bible says that is exactly the way they should. Some choose to flaunt or literally throw their religion on others and when I see that it always hits me just wrong. Christians are suppose to live by example. There are peaceful Islamist though but the religion stands to see a worldwide nation of Islam and therein you get the extreme believers who will do anything to get just that.

I'm sorry that you got a bad idea of Christians from whoever, and I implore you to read this: http://thejorgezone.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/believe-it-or-no...

I wasn't meaning to say all Christians or Muslims are total loons or anything. I am also not saying that the concept of absolute thruth is solely a religious thing, don't get me wrong, communists (they imposed atheism under Stalin), nazi's etc. did it too. Don't think that I believe churches don't contribute anything positive to society. I give my old clothes away to the Salvation Army too, I admire people who, out of their beliefs, build hospitals in Africa.

My point is that religion still plays an important role in the motivations of some people to impose certain values upon others. The radicals such as fundamentalist muslims want to impose a theocracy. This is off course a crazy idea but that's not to say certain moderate muslims or christians, jews, hindus or whatever don't try to impose certain values upon people who don't follow the same religion or line of thought.

Take for example the idea that homosexual couples should be excluded from marriage. I don't know how the christians on NL feel about the issue but I personally think it is pretty darn scary that in many so-called secular western democracies there is no way two loving people can get married simply because they just so happen to be of the same gender. This is only because there is still a popular majority denying these rights based upon century old religious texts. It's brutally discriminating! And what about the pope, who's telling AIDS-ridden African countries condoms are bad?

I don't know how secular you Christian NL'ers are, but the word "impose" doesn't mean the use of violent force per se. If the law says marraige should be exclusive to heterosexual couples that usually is because such laws are still uphold based upon religious views, even though the concept of western democracy is deemed to mean church and state are seperated, while in reality they are not completely.

fixed.

yeap THAT was the one I was thinking of.

I thought that episode was hilarious, but now I desperately want to know what they learned from the whole ordeal. The best part was when they referenced back to the super best friends episode where Muhammad was shown without any controversy.

Honestly, I think the saddest part of censoring this episode is that it gives the violent extremest Muslims the spotlight over the overwhelming majority of peaceful Muslims. People often tend to talk about "Muslims" as a unified entity, when just like how most Christians don't blow up abortion clinics, most Muslims aren't terrorists.

Many Muslims are probably no more offended than many Christians when South Park takes God's name in vein, or Buddhists when Buddha does coke, or any other religion that's been parodied on that show, but did not threaten to kill anyone. I'd bet there are even a lot who can laugh at themselves.

I honestly would be surprised if this was the first time they've gotten death threats. This probably only was given credence and publicity because it was a "Muslim terrorist." Since 9/11 Muslims have had a tough time (there's not one I know who couldn't tell you a story of prejudice after 9/11) and often are misunderstood. Unfortunately, it just takes a few nutjobs to malign a whole religion.

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.

http://www.southparkstudios.co.uk/news/

Because Christians and Buddhists don't usually murder people when they take a rip on their gods like Muslims do.

Well, Buddhists don't.

I thought religious discussions weren't allowed on NintendoLife? Because this is what it's turned into.

Anyway, if it's that hard to understand why a commercial entity might err on the side of caution over an issue that is known to cause greivances with a few hundred million people around the world, then you're just not trying to think clearly.

But don't worry, there's plenty of online forums and other non-commercial entities that don't care if they offend people. I'm sure you'll be able to find "Mohammed" mentioned in an irreverent manner somewhere if you're that keen, and I bet you could even find some images of him visiting the men's room if you were really really keen.

@Waltz.... I kinda think your missing the point. In America there are major debates currently within our people of America vs our Government. It seems to many people that the government is catering to the Muslims at the expense of the protection of Americans. Muslim extremest are allowed to freely speak AntiAmerican propoganda everday on the streets in Washington DC, but if a American goes up to them and says anything negative about it, its more than like to be the American thrown in jail. MSNBC recently ran an hour show on this very issue. Not to mention the Fort Know Massacre that the US Government still to this day denies had any Muslim Extreme Affiliation, even when the shooters brother confirmed it in an interview stating "they deserved it because the American are in our country killing Muslims".

Then you have all the conspiracy that the president is a Muslim, etc. This is a big deal here in the States and the recent attacks in Russia have really made the issue explode lately.

This is why the episode occured. Matt and Trey Parker always take sensitive issue and make fun of it and have been doing it for Years. South Park is a offensive show and always will be. Everyone knows that.

That conspiracy just shows some people are dumb enough to believe anything. The ones that do believe that tend to be annoyingly loud, also.

It's rather strange, considering the prophet Muhammad himself was apparantly very open minded about religions.

okay, I just watched it, and I thought it was kind of amusing, but censoring the speech at the end was just stupid. It made me smirk a little bit, but I really just wanted to know what they were saying, and I didn't find it funny.

i think we've all agreed (except perhaps for Waltz) that it either (a) was lame, or (b) made it funnier for Comedy Central to have censored the 'i think i've learned something today' at the end of the episode. i guess we'll find out next week what they'll respond with, as promised by their statement.