[DIV class=headline]South Park duo criticise network [/DIV]The duo behind South Park have used the cartoon's latest episode to attack their network for banning them from using an image of the Prophet Muhammad. Comedy Central prevented Matt Stone and Trey Parker from using the image after the furore caused by a Danish newspaper publishing caricatures of Muhammad. Instead, Wednesday's episode showed an image of Jesus Christ defecating on President George Bush and the US flag. Comedy Central said in a statement that it stood by its decision. [DIV class=bo] "In light of recent world events, we feel we made the right decision," it said. Scientology protest The episode was built around the incident, and features the character Kyle trying to persuade an executive at rival network Fox to air an episode of cartoon Family Guy which features an image of Muhammad. "Either it's all okay, or none of it is," Kyle tells the executive. "Do the right thing." The executive decides to show the image, but a caption is displayed reading: "Comedy Central have refused to broadcast an image of Muhammad on their network." It is followed by the images of Christ, President Bush and the flag. Comedy Central recently cancelled a repeat airing of an episode which mocked Scientology. Singer Isaac Hayes - a Scientologist - quit his role as the Chef character in protest over the episode. But last month South Park depicted Chef being killed and mourned as somebody whose brains were scrambled by the "Super Adventure Club", which turns its members into paedophiles. Last week, South Park won US broadcasting's prestigious Peabody prize. Awards director Horace Newcomb said that by setting out to be offensive, the show "reminds us of the need for being tolerant".
[DIV class=footer]Story from BBC NEWS:
vny!://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/entertainment/4909820.stm
Published: 2006/04/14 12:42:15 GMT
© BBC MMVI
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LOL
I guess the Comedy Central execs are more afraid of having their headquarters bombed than they are of Matt and Trey :P
Can some on say Censorship?
Can't wait for the anti-Comedy Central episode.
This is one of the rare instances where I think they might have made the right call.
And I don't know if censorship, in the traditional sense, is the appropriate way to think of this. Comedy Central produces the show. I think it can be argued that they have every right to control the content, especially if they feel that it's likely to provoke violence. If it was the government supressing an episode, it would be different.
True. Not a big fan of South Park but Matt and Trey do have a side. For example where was Comedy Central when they air there christmas specials, the anti canadian episode and vice a versa. I'm against hate speech which I do not believe is covered in the first admendment. This is South Park's line of morality you could say. They are always trying to push that line by making there stuff have a point to it. Maybe this one finally crossed that line. Who knows would probly need to see the episode to see if it did.
It would be like putting a giant neon "bomb us" sign on Comedy Central.
I think it would be brave to air it, but also understandable not to.
The Scientology stuff is completely different though. It's an evil cult, and the only thing Comedy Central has to fear from them is a possible court battle (and maybe a few dead pets).
True but then anybody could make the case for the Jesus stuff. Right wing fundies will go if you pull Mohammed why don't you pull Jesus.
Because chances are right wing fundies aren't going to blow up a building to protest someone else's speach. It could happen, but I believe it would be a first in the U.S.
Let's be honest, as much as I dislike Christian fundies, their M.O. is big talk and political/legal action, not violence, which is a rarity in their ranks.
Have you ever been to christiangallery.com. The crazy guy who runs it is a militant for the anti abortion campaign. Supports the killing of abortion doctors and supports the blowing up of clinics which have happend. So the extreme right wing movement does have a militia. Tim McViegh was part of it as was the Atlanta Olympic Bomber Eric Rudolph who also blew up abortion clincs in the name of God.
I said it was a rarity, not that it doesn't happen.
When Christians get pissed off, you don't have 10,000 of them marching down the street firing AKs into the air and burning government buildings. You have a handful of militant nutbags who are generally condemned by their own religious leaders.
Why this is the case can be argued one way or another, but there's no denying that some religions are more violent than others. As bad as Christian fundies are, they aren't trying to execute people for choosing a different religion or for being raped. They aren't locking school girls in a burning building because they aren't properly dressed etc etc.
First of all this is the u.s not Saudi Arabia or the West Bank. Second, if Comedy Central was worried about this creating religious strife they should have asked key muslim clerics in this country to watch this and get their opinion on it. Instead Comedy Central made bigger news by not airing it. Because if they aired it I doubt BBC News would be covering this and the whole cartoon thing was a differnt story in my opinion and when a Canadian newspaper in Calgary published the cartoons they only stir it caused was in Canada where they held a march in I believe Vancouver or Montreal.
Yes. This is the U.S., where the twin towers were bombed. Do you still feel safe?
Extremists of any faith are frightening. There just happen to be many more violent Muslim extremists than violent Christian extremists.
Even if nothing happened in the U.S. but some peaceful protests, I think it's safe to assume that in other parts of the world there would be rioting and bloodshed. If I was a Comedy Central exec, I would be thinking about the very real difference between dissing Jesus in a cartoon and dissing He Who Shall Not Be Shown.
Yes I feel safe. More safe then in a car. Estimated 50,000 people die each year in this country due to car accidents. Why don't we have a war on cars? The war on terror is stupid and senile to began with. Its endless war that cannot be won because the more fighting you do the more enemies you create instead of losing them. And for every person I here say "I rather be fighting them in Iraq then here" needs to have there brain checked.
This is not about 9/11 this is about the cartoon conversey which involved Mohammed as being a terrorist. This article and the story only implies that they ended up using a portrait picture of Mohammed not a picture of him with his turban disguised as a bomb. I do not see the parallels.
Um, the Muslims weren't rioting because he was portrayed in a negative light. They were rioting because he was portrayed at all. It is a major sin to create an image of the prophet, which is of course why Matt and Trey wanted to do it.
This is about Muslim extremism, and I don't think it's out of order to bring up 9/11 as an example of the tactics of those who follow radical Islam. Your implication seemed to be that here in the West we don't need to worry about pissed off Muslims.
As far as the pointlessness of the war on terror, you're 100% right. Muslim extremists are completely out of their minds, but "war" in any recognizable sense, is not going to improve the situation.
But if we bow down to one relgion just because its outlawed and a sin in there culture. Do we then bow down to others?
I don't think "we" (i.e. our government) should bow down to any religion.
But since Comedy Central produces Southpark, I feel like they have a right to choose not to put their employees at risk. Matt and Trey...well, like you said their mission in life is to push the envelope. The world needs people like that. On the other hand, people like that cause a lot of pain and sometimes bloodshed. It's just the nature of the beast.
And again, this argument doesn't apply to Comedy Central's cowardly behavior with regards to the Scientology episode.
Oh god the Scientology episode. If Matt and Trey didn't work for Comedy Central I bet that episode would have ended up in court. They would have sued.
Several people have been sued by the CoS in the past for revealing the Xenu story, which Scientology claimed was a trade secret at the same time they were publically claiming it was entirely false.
The problem, of course, is the massive amount of hidden teachings or "secret tech" that exists within Scientology. Most Scientologists literally have no idea about the whole flying saucer cult thing, because you don't learn about it until you've sunk 100,000 plus into the church and reach OT III. So when they (the average Scientologist) says the whole Xenu story is fake, they honestly believe it!
I'm shocked that people in CoS don't realise that the cult was made up by a science fiction writer. Thats like the lutheran church of missouri synod denying the truth about there orginal founder was a drunk and a sexual predator.
Instead they will tell you this man created the church:
[img height=250 alt="" src="vny!://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/09/Walther_cfw_old.jpg" width=250 border=0] Lovely aint it.
He was there second prez. But many people think he was the first.
Actually, I think most CoS members know that Hubbard wrote sci-fi. At least the ones I've spoken with. Somehow, it doesn't make any difference to them. It doesn't pop up any red flags in their minds.
There's one born every minute, hey?
whats that story about a lemming.....
Is this a Richard Gere joke? (//vny!://discoverseattle.net/forums/richedit/smileys/Teasing/5.gif)
I don't know if its a lemming or lemon. But that story about little furry animals jumping off cliffs to there deaths because another animal told them to do it. Read it in elementary school.
A herd of lemons jumping off a cliff...
I haven't seen anything like that since I stopped dropping acid in the 90's.
[H2]Population fluctuations[/H2] Lemming populations go through rapid growths and subsequent crashes that have achieved an almost legendary status, largely because of the [A title="Walt Disney Pictures" href="vny!://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney_Pictures"]Walt Disney Pictures[/A] film, [A title="White Wilderness" href="vny!://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Wilderness"]White Wilderness[/A], which was produced in [A title=1958 href="vny!://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958"]1958[/A] and reappeared on television at regular intervals for many years afterwards. White Wilderness popularized, using staged footage, the myth that during population booms [A title="Norway lemming" href="vny!://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway_lemming"]Norway Lemmings[/A] become suicidal and leap en masse off cliffs into the sea. For this reason, the term "lemming" is often used in [A title=Slang href="vny!://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slang"]slang[/A] to denote those who mindlessly follow the crowd, even if destruction is the result.
[img height=171 alt="" src="vny!://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/50/Lemming.jpg" width=214 border=0]
There's a guy who lives across the street from me who hunts groundhogs with a crossbow.
Ok, maybe "hunts" isn't exactly the right word. He sits on his porch and waits for them to stick their heads up then KCHONG!!
Um...what were we talking about??
Look what popped up on imdb, how fitting:
[A name=2][/A][A name=celeb2][B class=sbheadline][FONT face=Arial size=5]Cruise Denies 'South Park' Rumors[/FONT][/B][/A]
[DIV class=studiopara][FONT face=Arial size=5][img height=89 alt="" src="vny!://ia.imdb.com/media/imdb/01/I/51/45/38s.jpg" width=64 align=left][/FONT] [A href="vny!://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407304/"]War Of The Worlds[/A] star [A href="vny!://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000129/"]Tom Cruise[/A] has slammed media reports he was responsible for stopping the rebroadcast of a controversial [A href="vny!://www.imdb.com/title/tt0121955/"]South Park[/A] episode poking fun at him. During an interview on ABC's [A href="vny!://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096680/"]Primetime[/A] the actor was adamant he had nothing to do with a repeat of the animated show being pulled off the air at the last minute, insisting he was too involved filming [A href="vny!://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317919/"]Mission: Impossible III[/A] to worry about such trivial matters. He explains, "First of all, could you ever imagine sitting down with anyone? I would never sit down with someone and question them on their beliefs. Here's the thing. I'm really not even going to dignify this. I honestly didn't really even know about it. I'm working, making my movie, I've got my family. I'm busy. I don't spend my days going, 'What are people saying about me?'" [/DIV]
oh and I found this:
[A name=5][/A][A name=celeb4][B class=sbheadline][FONT face=Arial size=5]Lohan Looks for Kabbalah Guidance[/FONT][/B][/A]
[DIV class=studiopara][FONT face=Arial size=5][img height=87 alt="" src="vny!://ia.imdb.com/media/imdb/01/I/85/94/10/10s.jpg" width=64 align=left][/FONT] [A href="vny!://www.imdb.com/name/nm0517820/"]Lindsay Lohan[/A] is turning to the Jewish mysticism of the Kabbalah in an effort to break away from her reputation as a wild child. The actress/singer admits she's sick of the perception that she's little more than a party girl and wants to be taken more seriously (look at the picture). She says, "I want people to know me for the work I'm doing, not for this party girl image." And she's hoping that the religion championed by [A href="vny!://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000187/"]Madonna[/A], and dabbled with by pal [A href="vny!://www.imdb.com/name/nm0385296/"]Paris Hilton[/A] and [A href="vny!://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005453/"]Britney Spears[/A], will help. She adds, "I am looking into Kabbalah." Lohan is also planning an awareness trip to Kenya later this year for the One Foundation charity, and she's planning to breakaway from teen movies by starring alongside [A href="vny!://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000658/"]Meryl Streep[/A], [A href="vny!://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005031/"]Felicity Huffman[/A] and [A href="vny!://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000404/"]Jane Fonda[/A]. [/DIV]
There's nothing wrong with looking for something in the spiritual realm to fill our hearts.
Some people just can't find a balanced, rational way to do it.
And their understanding of what they supposedly believe is so shallow (especially where "fad religions" are concerned) that it leads to insecurity and anger directed at anyone who challenges their beliefs.
The worst thing is this P.C. belief that it's not Ok to challenge someone's faith. That shit has GOT to go.
tenkani wrote:
The worst thing is this P.C. belief that it's not Ok to challenge someone's faith. That shit has GOT to go.
Big points for Mr. Tenkani. (//forums/richedit/smileys/Other/12.gif)
Islam is in particular need of being severely questioned in every possible way. If Mohammed lived today, he would honestly be nothing more than a David Koresh type in need of medication and/or incarceration. No need for slurs or other outside polemics to make my case. Simply study the history and writings of Islam. It is proof positive that any system of ideas can prevail if it is backed and sustained by continuous brute force.
And yes, you can say the same thing about the "inevitability" of capitalism that we are all supposed to believe in.
Sportsdude wrote:The duo behind South Park have used the cartoon\'s latest episode to attack their network for banning them from using an image of the Prophet Muhammad. Comedy Central prevented Matt Stone and Trey Parker from using the image after the furore caused by a Danish newspaper publishing caricatures of Muhammad.Instead, Wednesday\'s episode showed an image of Jesus Christ defecating on President George Bush and the US flag. So, they get scared because of the worldwide riot caused by the Mohammed cartoons ; so, in order not to lose face and still look heroes, they just make fun of Christ ?Nothing to fear from Christians, is there ? No throat cut, no court case, right ?
They had a very intelligent, funny dude on the Daily Show the other night, Reza Aslan (f*cking great name). He's just written a book about Islam called No God But God. Check out this summary.
From [A href="vny!://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400062136/"vny!://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CQNJZ0/qid=1144107304/sr=2-1/ref=mag_ny_100""][FONT color=#003399]The New Yorker[/FONT][/A]
[FONT face="Times New Roman"]Aslan, a young Iranian emigrant, lucidly charts the growth of Islam from Muhammad's model community in Medina—depicted as a center of egalitarian social reform—through the chaotic contest to define the faith after the Prophet's death. Within generations, seven hundred thousand hadith—accounts of Muhammad's words and deeds—were in circulation, many "fabricated by individuals who sought to legitimize their own particular beliefs." Out of this muddle was born the primacy of the ulema, Islam's clerical establishment. The ulema, in Aslan's view, foreclosed Koranic interpretation, detoured from the Medinan ideal, and obscured Islam under a thicket of legalistic decrees. Fifteen centuries after Muhammad, Islam has reached the age at which Christianity underwent its reformation; Islam's renewal, Aslan attests, "is already here." However, both modernizers and their "fundamentalist" opposites call themselves reformers, and the victory of the former is not assured. [/FONT]
[FONT face="Times New Roman"][/FONT]
[FONT face="Times New Roman"]From [/FONT][A href="vny!://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/partners/marketing/booklist.html/$(0)"][FONT face="Times New Roman" color=#003399]Booklist[/FONT][/A]
[FONT face="Times New Roman"]Aslan's introduction to the history of Islam, which also devotes several chapters to the place of Islam in the contemporary world, tackles its subject with serious and well-informed scholarship. But, miracle of miracles, it's actually pretty fun to read. Beginning with an exploration of the religious climate in the years before the Prophet's Revelation, Aslan traces the story of Islam from the Prophet's life and the so-called golden age of the first four caliphs all the way through European colonization and subsequent independence. Aslan sees religion as a story, and he tells it that way, bringing each successive century to life with the kind of vivid details and like-you-were-there, present-tense narration that makes popular history popular. Even so, the depth and breadth here will probably be a bit heavy for some, who might better enjoy Karen Armstrong's shorter, if less authoritative, Islam (2000). That said, this is an excellent overview that doubles as an impassioned call to reform. John Green[/FONT]
It's a fascinating subject, and I'm almost entirely ignorant about it. Still, one of the things Aslan brought up was that there is no central religious authority in Islam. Various religious leaders come up with their own interpretations of the Koran, some WILDLY divergent from others, and issue a religious decree that their followers are bound to obey. This is why it's not very useful to make broad generalizations about Islam.
You might have a religious leader (perhaps in the West) decree that all violence in the name of Islam is evil, and his followers will generally tow the line. Somewhere else, a religious leader may decree that all non-believers in the middle east must be converted, expelled or executed and, having faith in their leader, the followers of this sect will likewise tow the line.
Very interesting. Thanks tenkani. People seem awfully quick to generalize a religion or all religions as being the same but they couldn't be more different.
We rarely hear of the Muslims that go about their daily lives in peace and tolerance. I knew a small group of Muslims that were attending McGill University many years ago, and they were far from the wild fanatics that we hear about daily in the news. Although I reject religion of any sort for myself, I read the Koran in order to compare it with the Bible. Considering the age in which they lived, they were extremely forward-thinking compared to Europe. They insisted on personal cleanliness, for example, as well as courtesy toward women. Actually, they were much more civilized under the caliphs of that time than the Christians.
kitten wrote:We rarely hear of the Muslims that go about their daily lives in peace and tolerance. I knew a small group of Muslims that were attending McGill University many years ago, and they were far from the wild fanatics that we hear about daily in the news. Although I reject religion of any sort for myself, I read the Koran in order to compare it with the Bible. Considering the age in which they lived, they were extremely forward-thinking compared to Europe. They insisted on personal cleanliness, for example, as well as courtesy toward women. Actually, they were much more civilized under the caliphs of that time than the Christians.
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The western world suffered a setback which lasted for hundreds of years. What we usually consider to have been \"Christianity\" was actually the decline and the end of Roman civilization which took that much time, and during which Christianity slowly developed to fill the void.
Note: although I have set this to normal Text Area, it refuses to show the correct format. Go figure. So I inserted a line of dashes to indicate the end of the quoted part.