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| 2006-04-13 14:39 |
| Comedy Central Pusses Out. |
| Public |
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Update: Welcome Instapundit readers. Are you surprised as much as I am that Glenn Reynolds never really watched the show?
First, The Catholics came for South Park and I did not speak out because my head was in the sand.
Then, the Scientologists came for South Park and did not speak out because my head was in the sand.
Then, the Muslims came for South Park and I did not speak out because my head was in the sand.
Then, when I pulled my head out of the sand and turned on Comedy Central to watch South Park and it was gone. After watching last night's South Park, it was unclear whether or not the image of Mohammed was censored, or whether it was part of the gag. Well, it turns out that it was the network who censored the image. Malkin has a complete rundown complete with news links to other bloggers and how you can contact the network. The most ironic aspect of this is that Mohammed is depicted in their episode "Super Best Friends" which makes fun of David Blaine. In fact, the clip of Mohammed is part of the opening credits. Don't you just love the inconsistency of censorship. Perhaps Cartman is right that this will spell the end of Family Guy South Park. He argued that once one "offended" group gets an episode censored, then each new group that gets offended will also demand their episode also gets pulled. First it was the Catholics, then it was the Scientologists, and now it is the Muslims. I don't see South Park having much of a future in these circumstances. In fact, we are seeing a twisted version of Pastor Martin Niemöller's, "First They Came for the Jews". (see above) However, in this version, the victim is free speech. While I would certainly miss the show, I am more fearful at how successful extremists are becoming at squelching free speech. Granted, it's not technically "censorship" since it is not a government ban on speech. However, this private form of censorship is much more insidious and sadly is more effective.
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Agreed. Thanks for the post. I don't watch television, but such actions are a frightening sign. I have been hoping to read your take on the following: Freedom to Hate.
| (Anonymous) |
| 2006-04-13 13:07 (UTC) |
| A cartoon on this. |
A cartoon on this subject. (http://futurist.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/01/medievalism_and.html)
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| (Anonymous) |
| 2006-04-13 13:07 (UTC) |
| A cartoon on this. |
http://futurist.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/01/medievalism_and.html
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| (Anonymous) |
| 2006-04-13 13:10 (UTC) |
| A cartoon on this. |
A cartoon on this subject. (http://futurist.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/01/medievalism_and.html)
Sorry, the hyperlink didn't work on the first tow messages. Please delete those.
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| (Anonymous) |
| 2006-04-13 14:36 (UTC) |
| Re: A cartoon on this. |
I'm getting really tired of the "Futurist" comment spam, here and elsewhere. Not a way to make traffic and influence people.
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| (Anonymous) |
| 2006-04-13 15:00 (UTC) |
| Re: A cartoon on this. |
I'm not sure I would call his link spam, as it appears to be fully on-topic to the main post.
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| (Anonymous) |
| 2006-04-13 13:24 (UTC) |
| Offended Groups |
My understanding is that last night's episode was going to show Mohammed as he appeared in the earlier episode, Super Best Friends, doing nothing more offensive than handing Family Guy a helmet with a fish on it. Beyond the prohibition of depicting Mohammed at all, it doesn't sound as if he was going to be shown doing or saying anything offensive, unlike the end of the show and the depiction of Jesus. Whatever happens to SP, it seems the Comedy Channel doesn't have a leg to stand on other than fear, and that's misplaced since the probability of riots at the studio putting the lives of their employees at risk seems exceedingly small.
If they accomplished nothing else, Matt and Trey forced a broader discussion about the Danish cartoons and free speech. And that's more than the major media in this country did, so good on 'em.
Retread
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| (Anonymous) |
| 2006-04-13 14:53 (UTC) |
| Re: Offended Groups |
"Beyond the prohibition of depicting Mohammed at all, it doesn't sound as if he was going to be shown doing or saying anything offensive"
And as a fan that's incredibly dissapointing to me. How brave are Matt and Trey when they'll depict a defecating Jesus in parrellel with an inoffensive, flat Muhammad? How are they different from simply playground bullies, getting in the face of those they know won't challenge them (or will challenge them with emails they can ignore without penalty) but cower before those that would? Grading on the US media 'curve', I'll hand them a B. But that's only because the vast majority of US media have flunked. Grading based on what we should expect based on past SP practice: D (even a Denmark cartoonist went farther with the bomb in the headwear).
I hate to say this but I think Theo Van Gogh is spitting at Matt and Trey from the grave.
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| (Anonymous) |
| 2006-04-13 14:59 (UTC) |
| Re: Offended Groups |
They've depicted Jesus before, and nobody other than William Donohue made a fuss about it.
Now Matt and Trey are poking Christians with a stick, deliberately insulting them. It's their way of saying: "Hey, look! Comedy Central says we can say THIS about Jesus, but we're not even allowed to show Mohammed, no matter how bland we make him! Now, what does that say about what they think of YOU?"
Any Christian who sees this episode is going to be pissed off. The South Park guys WANT them to be pissed off, because the policy that Comedy Central has forced on them is inherently unfair to Christians, Jews, and everyone else who isn't Muslim. "Either everything is sacred, or nothing is sacred."
--Mike Andreyakovich
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 lisavnyc |
| 2006-04-13 15:28 (UTC) |
| Re: Offended Groups |
| come sin |
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To be a tedious nitpicker, more like unfair to most Christian, Jews and everyone else who isn't Muslim, Catholic or a Scientologist (or next week's special interest group).
But still in keeping with your spirit ...
"Either everything is sacred, or nothing is sacred."
... absolutely!!
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| (Anonymous) |
| 2006-04-13 16:19 (UTC) |
| Re: Offended Groups |
the Al Queda response of a cartoon should instead have been a Muslim response of burning and sacking several US cities with high Muslim populations.
J'hn1
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| (Anonymous) |
| 2006-04-13 13:25 (UTC) |
| Yup.... |
What's especially disappointing is the silence of the rest of the media, including even the blogosphere. It's like almost no one cares.
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| (Anonymous) |
| 2006-04-13 13:58 (UTC) |
| Re: Yup.... |
Much more here -
http://volokh.com/posts/1144900882.shtml
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| (Anonymous) |
| 2006-04-13 14:10 (UTC) |
| Re: Yup.... |
And here -
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004982.htm
and here -
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=20085_The_Media_Cave-In_is_Complete&only
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| (Anonymous) |
| 2006-04-13 14:15 (UTC) |
| Re: Yup.... |
MSM coverage here -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/13/AR2006041301002.html
More blog coverage here -
http://media.nationalreview.com/094921.asp
http://theanchoressonline.com/2006/04/12/south-park-part-ii/
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/006743.php
Seems to me everyone is talking about the episode.
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| (Anonymous) |
| 2006-04-13 13:56 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
Shouldn't corporations be allowed to do what they want? If they don't want to show something, they shouldn't have to.
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| (Anonymous) |
| 2006-04-14 18:25 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
The point is that foreign religious policies are dictating what we, here in the U.S. and around the globe, have to cencor. Do we decide what we can say? This whole ordeal proves that no, others do. Why didn't they care when they portrayed mohammed (no capital m, he doesnt deserve it, just like france) in Super Best Friends?
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| (Anonymous) |
| 2006-04-13 14:10 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
I don't think you understand those two Mohammed/Family Guy episodes. South Park was poking fun of the fact that Tom Cruise pulled one of their earlier episodes. I think you might need a little more back-story on this.
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| (Anonymous) |
| 2006-04-13 14:57 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
And that's infuriating too. The Scientology episode wasn't pulled - it was just delayed a week. Matt and Trey have no business goofing on Comedy Central's one week delay when they're bravery extends to a simple, inoffensive depiction of Muhammad. Better than most of the media but this is South Park. They're afraid of nob.........ah, nevermind.
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| (Anonymous) |
| 2006-04-13 16:19 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
You (and another anonymous earlier on) missed the point here. Matt and Trey aren't 'afraid' of Muslim retaliation. I'm sure they'd put in an image of Mohammad flinging crap too, but offending Muslims wasn't their intent. The point was to show the double standard of refusing to show a mundane image of Mohammad while allowing the showing of Jesus crapping on everyone. I think the comments in the show after the Family Guy episode aired ('Hey, that wasn't so bad! He was just standing there!') This wouldn't have worked as well if the Mohammad image was blatantly offensive.
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| (Anonymous) |
| 2006-04-13 17:04 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
There's a piece to the puzzle that I might have missed. Specifically, if CC told Matt and Trey that ANY depiction of Muhammed would be 'censored' before they submitted the episode then I completely endorse your point.
But has that been established? I thought the episode was submitted and then CC 'censored' - or rather I would think that's the way the process normally would work. But this is a special case and it may have played out as you imply. D'oh!
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| lisavnyc |
| 2006-04-13 15:33 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
| bride |
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I don't think you understand those two Mohammed/Family Guy episodes.
Heh! Because obviously you need to spend even more time with South Park and the Family Guy.
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Corporations can do what they want, but this is definitely a form of corporate censorship. These companies are trying to make money and any time an organized group threatens them, the businesses respond because they don't want to affect their bottom line.
Government censorship is bad. Corporate censorship is worse because there is very little we can do about it. Meanwhile corporations are gaining so much power in America, especially when it comes to the media, that soon all it will take is a small group of people to squelch anything they don't like.
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| (Anonymous) |
| 2006-04-13 14:45 (UTC) |
| We must define 'censorship' |
When a corporation decides what they want to produce (or not), that isn't 'censorship'. It only becomes 'censorship' when there is a threat of force involved. Whether it's a government official saying they'll take away your license to broadcast (without which, Men With Badges And Guns will arrest you for doing so) if you show Janet Jackson's Other Breast, a mobster saying "youse got a nice printing press here... It'd be a SHAME if something happened to it", or an imam threatening to have a mob burn your car and/or house, it's force.
The fact is that there is a LOT you can do about 'corporate censorship'. No corporation can keep me from saying what I want on the Web, but a government can. Corporations don't generally have MWBAGs to enforce their edicts. When they do, I'll take the quote marks off and call it censorship like the rest.
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| (Anonymous) |
| 2006-04-13 16:46 (UTC) |
| Re: We must define 'censorship' |
Exactly. Censorship is suppression of speech by violence or the threat of violence. Comedy Central clearly took this action under implicit threat.
(In the normal course of things, most censorship is by the government, since if someone who's not the government threatens you, you can call the cops on them. Difficult in this case. But it's the aspect of speech under violent threat that's central. Who's making the threat is secondary to whether it's censorship.)
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| susan_wright |
| 2006-04-14 05:15 (UTC) |
| Re: We must define 'censorship' |
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Actually, no definition of censorship that I can find includes the words "threat of force." Censorship is simply preventing the transmission or publication of material considered to be objectionable. It doesn't matter if it's a government official or a corporate official - it's all censorship.
And you're forgetting that corporations own the media. You may not think it's important that the media censors the information they broadcast to the general public, but I do.
Corporations own the ISPs like Yahoo and E-Bay which constantly censor information they don't like, eliminating groups and removing materials for sale. Corporations have more power than they are given credit for, and they bow to small vocal minorities all the time. That's censorship in fine form.
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| (Anonymous) |
| 2006-04-13 15:13 (UTC) |
| Why not go independent? |
It seems fairly obvious that South Park could make a mint anywhere it wanted to go. There's clearly a large audience for it. What makes Comedy Central's distribution a necessary fact of life? They could stream episodes and make the same amount of money if not more.
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 typewriterking |
| 2006-04-13 18:15 (UTC) |
 Congratulations on all the traffic coming in! |
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At least we can post pictures of Mohammed, right?
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I suppose that Matt and Trey aren't hyperintelligent manatees then... :(
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| cema |
| 2006-04-13 21:03 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
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I agree completely.
Those corporate fuckers bullheads have no idea what they are doing. I say this is bad for the company, which may be arguable. But definitely bad for the country.
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| (Anonymous) |
| 2006-04-13 22:17 (UTC) |
| Don't worry. |
Don't worry. Catholics and Scientologists don't slaughter people; they have no such dissuasive sway.
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| (Anonymous) |
| 2006-04-15 07:03 (UTC) |
| Re: Don't worry. |
Yeah - I found this a little strange, apparently unlike Reynolds:
First, The Catholics came for South Park and I did not speak out because my head was in the sand.
Then, the Scientologists came for South Park and did not speak out because my head was in the sand.
When the words "came for" are used historically, they aren't referring to *complained about* or *threatened boycott of*. I think your whole post is faulty by this equation.
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