Comedy Central Caves Again

Bin Laden is dead, and the government has decided we don't get to see pictures of his non-smiling face after having his head air-conditioned. At the same time, the self-censors at Comedy Central have once again decided that it's just not right even to show cartoon pictures of the Pedophile Prophet Mohammed. Creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, are not pleased.

Comedy Central doesn't seem to have any objection to Parker and Stone depicting Jesus as a foul-mouthed, stoned hippie philosopher. Jews are routinely depicted as stereotypical bearded anomalies, with funny accents and strange ways of expressing themselves. Catholics are a particular source of derision, and even Scientologists haven't been spared. The humor is often vulgar and over-the-top, but the purpose is to prick the sensitivities of those who often take themselves and their religiosity too seriously.

The pair have no hesitation about depicting Mohammed in the same manner, but for some reason that we unsophisticates are not privy to, Comedy Central sees fit to cut any pictures, references or mockery of Mohammed. Well--maybe we do know. The absence of beheading threats from Christians, Jews and Scientologists gives us a hint. And the absence of burned mosques or hanged Muslims in the wake of the pairs' jabs might also be a clue. South Park has actually depicted Mohammed a few times, but that was before the murderous riots that followed the Jyllands-Posten Mohammed cartoons. In fact, Mohammed is depicted in the accompanying picture, and if you can blow the picture up, you'll see him mid-right with a red rectangle drawn around him. Those were less dangerous times.

200, an episode that celebrated South Park's 200th joke-fest, contained an image that has come to be known as Parker and Stones' "safe" way of depicting Mohammed as a bear. The episode was aired a year ago, complete with censored pictures and dialog, and is now out on the Season 14 DVD. It created the predictable furor from the mad Muslims who won't even allow the creators an alternate way of depicting an unlabeled Mohammed. Even those dummies have figured out that the bear is the creators' way of jabbing at both Comedy Central and furious Muslims by depicting Mohammed with a non-depiction. The same depiction was to be repeated in episode 201. No such luck.

South Park is normally available intact for videostreaming at the same time as the episode is shown on Comedy Central. Parker and Stone previewed the censored episode from the DVD and went online to add the following message where the Mohammed non-depiction depiction was intended to be:

We apologize that South Park Studios cannot stream episode 201 at this time.

After we delivered the show, and prior to broadcast, Comedy Central placed numerous additional audio bleeps throughout the episode. We do not have network approval to stream our original version of the show.

We will bring you a version of 201 as soon as we can."

In other words, despite the network bleeping on air and in streaming video, Parker and Stone had expected the Season 14 DVD to be restored to its original outrageous form. That didn't happen. They were allowed, however, to issue a statement preceding episode 201: "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. The bleeps [which viewers may have missed when the show first aired] were added by Comedy Central. In fact, Kyle's customary final speech was about intimidation and fear [in the wake of the original airing]. It didn't mention Muhammad at all but it got bleeped too."

That statement was undoubtedly far more civil than what the pair actually thought and wanted to say. In fact, if they had said on the DVD what I suspect they said privately, we wouldn't be able to repeat it on our blog. As it stands now, this most recent selective network censorship does more than simply cut the "offending" words and depictions of non-Mohammed. It makes it far more difficult to put together those weekly shows that center on current events involving religions and philosophies of all kinds. They know that only one religion demands self-censorship by the network--or else.

How can they reasonably be expected to continue to jab at Christianity, Judaism and the Scientology cult while having anything they say or show about Islam and Mohammed cut into non-existence? They can either expend considerable effort on creating an episode that will be savaged (either by the network or by the religion of peace, or both), or accomplish the goal of the haters by not doing any material that relates to Islam and Mohammed.

Parker and Stone have no intention of doing Islam's dirty work and becoming propagandists for them by parodying only Christians and Jews (yes, and Scientologists). The insane outrage from Islamists on a daily basis provides a wealth of material that exceeds all the foolishness of the other religions combined. The pair are expected to ignore the wildly-indignant Muslims at all costs, including suppressing their artistic creativity. Shame, again, on Comedy Central for its cowardly retreat from openness and equal opportunity parody.

They can only do just so many parodies of Barbra Streisand, Mel Gibson and San Francisco before the material gets stale. But militant Islam is the comic gift that keeps on giving on a daily and even hourly basis. Their greatest source of pointed comedy, alas, will reach nobody until Parker and Stone can find a way to get the material past the Comedy Central censors and out to the public. No mean feat, given the large legal staff at Comedy Central and the Muslim lobby.