I've been amazed by their corageous stance in recent weeks.

Two things from their last episode warrant mention here. In the plot for this week's episode they mentioned how the cartoon "Family Guy" (another adult centered cartoon, which judging from the episode they are not too fond of) used as an internal stand in for themselves was going to show an episode featuring an image of the prophet Muhammed (they have already done this years ago) was going to get pulled. Cartman wanted to help as to not offend muslims... but he later admits "That's all it really takes to get a show off the air, just let one group pull one episode, then the CATHOLICS can come in and pull one, then the handicapped and then the show will just be taken off the air" (Cartman hates Family Guy).

An obvious reference to how the catholics and scientologists have had South Park episodes pulled from rotation recently...

Meanwhile in order to appease the muslims everyone in america is burying their heads in the sand, literally.

The show ends to prove as a cliffhanger, the cliffhanger being will the "Family Guy" episode featuring Muhammed be shown. In the closing text the final caption says

"Will television networks stand up for freedom of speech... Or will Comedy Central puss out"

I'm posting this because I'm aware many people here are not fans but I think they would admire the stand being taken.

---Landon

It all basically comes back to fight or flight.

~~ South Park says what everyone in MSM is afraid of saying about, well, you-name-it. That's what 'satire' is all about. Clearly, S-P holds NO views 'sacred.'

~~So what it steps on one's (occasionally, even on my...) toes? I say, given the 'fear factor' that's obvious in all of publishing and MSM (especially 'talking-heads' analysis-type TV shows where even the guys oughtta wear burkhas to show their concerned 'sensitivity' while trying to argue a 'wrongness' about terrorists): MORE POWER TO THEM.

~~ I've paid little attention to S-P...until lately. I now watch them regularly and find them better than The Simpsons. --- Wonder what Voltaire would think of either?

LLAP
J:D

James, my view of you is forever colored by that statement.

Juvenile? Yeah. Funny? Side-splitting... "moslee." I love South Park -- and, as a scholar of these matters, I expect you all to "respect ma authori-tie!" And if you disagree, all I can say is, "Screw you guys -- I'm going home!"

I find brave, honest, take-no-prisoners social satire of this type to be marvelously liberating and even inspiring. It's also a kind of spiritual fuel. And in a non-didactic, non-preachy, entertaining way, it advances society. Maybe these cartoon folks don't know the proper things to be for -- but at least they know many of the proper things to be against. This is better than nothing. 

Whatever one's opinion of the quality of South Park, it does generally ridicule those things which objectivists and libertarians despise. It also generates debate.

I am glad that they ridicule religion, political correctness, stupid left- and right-wing politics and celebrity.

However, one problem is that their comedy is often so crude and exaggerated - their message seems to be just promoting "nihilism".

The last episode of south park I saw was about global warming. Everyone in the town was running in doors because they thought that global warming was coming - however it was just that the dam on the river broke due to an accident. The funniest part was when the father of one of the children announced to the media that scientists had found that due to global warming - there was now going to be a world-wide disaster "the day after tomorrow".

Now that's funny

Linz, "Let it B."

As I'm sure you know there's no such thing as B-Sharp. "B-Sharp" is a High C. If you can sing a High C you're my lover. Coming, ready or not.

Loved their response to the scientologists: "So, Scientology, you may have won THIS battle, but the million-year war for earth has just begun! Temporarily anozinizing our episode will NOT stop us from keeping Thetans forever trapped in your pitiful man-bodies. Curses and drat! You have obstructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail! Hail Xenu!!!"

http://www.variety.com/VR1117939918.html

The South Park guys are upping the stakes in their battle against Scientology...

It's getting there! I'm up to B sharp...

But it didn't quite give me a belly-laugh.

So I tried to imagine your B-Flat. That did the trick.

Oh, have a belly laugh Linz!

Now you're part of the Zeitgeist....
(Ducking for cover)

I loathe South Park. And The Simpsons. I'll defend to the death broadcasters' rights to broadcast rubbish, but I know that in a culture where this sort of rubbish is iconic, we're fucked.

I could go into a lengthy monologue here about tricksters and flatulence, but let's just leave it at this: It's not your style. we get it.

"but my point in posting this was in consideration of Rand's belief that you'll know that the larger ideas are having an effect when they trickle down to the popular media, such as cartoons."

OK that's a fair point.

But I'd argue with you that the depth of South Park's consideration of larger ideas is any more potent that one of Cartman's farts. You have to sit through a torrent of purile 12-year-old potty humour to get to the "consideration bit" and if - as with the Virgin Mary episode - the "consideration" equates to a tasteless joke about menstration uttered by a caricature of the present pope, well then you haven't said bugger all have you?

True, good on Trey and Matt for saying something!

But it isn't like they've gone in with both intellectual boots have they? Either they have gone about as far as they want to go or they are at the limit of their intellectual abilities when they "lampoon" religion by comparing menstration and bleeding religious icons.

If Trey and Matt are as far as "larger ideas" have penetrated into popular culture then IMHO those ideas have barely diffused below though the surface layer. Yes it's still progress but let's be realistic!

Andre, yes they may have touched on Scientology, but David Blaine is not a scientologist (just a freak), and the Super Best Friends episode was more the major religions taking on the Cult of David Blaine (Blaine did "miracles" that outshines those of Jesus, so they band together to take Blaine down.)

Whatever allusions to Scientology in the past, this was an all-out assault on Tom Cruise, John Travolta, e-meters, Ron Hubbard, the history of the world as being an inter-galactic alien assault, and such. And as the show noted, the alien thing is ACTUALLY WHAT SCIENTOLOGISTS BELIEVE, so what really bothered poor Isaac is that he got called on it for believing this Bullshit. Penn and Teller are probably lauging their asses off.

You don't have to like the show to appreciate that this is, in microcosm, reflecting the larger issue of the religious debate today. The issue is free speech, obviously, and no one is saying SOUTH PARK is the pinnacle, why even suggest it? It wasn't the point. Andre summed it up best by explaining the power of the Scientologists to spread "fear" with their ridiculous lawsuits, the litigatious verion of the Muslim riots over the Danish Cartoons. (Was anyone saying that those cartoons were the pinnacle of satire?). I could say that the Danish cartoons "didn't tickle my funny bone, so why should I care that ARI is going to support them?

Why should you care? Well, you have to answer that yourself, but my point in posting this was in consideration of Rand's belief that you'll know that the larger ideas are having an effect when they trickle down to the popular media, such as cartoons.

(Obviously, Isaac Hayes is not on the level of the rioters, and did the right thing by leaving the show, no force initiated, simply withdrew his sanction. But his hypocrisy works against him, and he's just one more religious supporter spreading a mystical worldview, Scientology at that!).

If South Park and the John Daily show are the pinnacle of political satire in the US then you guys have a big problem! Basically, they aren't that funny or that sharp (as in cutting)!

I occassionally watch South Park and only occassionally do I get a chuckle out of it. But, niether show tickles my funny bone that much and the political insight in the "satire" is very superficial.

To put it plainly, IMHO, South Park isn't that funny and it isn't that intelligent. Which is why I don't care that Chef has packed up his chocolate salty balls and moved away.

Please feel free to explain to me what I'm missing here.

Didn't South Park already lampoon Scientology many years ago in that (David) "Blainetology" and "Super Best Friends" episode? That's definitely how I interpreted it. And I thought that episode was  outstanding, and rather devastating to the Scientologists.

But there's another issue here: Maybe Matt Stone and Trey Parker went the "Blainetology" route initially because Scientology has such a nasty habit of sueing to infinity each and every t'v' show and newspaper whatsoever which trys to do an unflattering story or expose about them. It's an open secret that every media outfit in the world (except those with no money) is terrified of them. So maybe the South Park guys have decided to be very brave here. (Few people have the guts to mock Saddam and Kim Jung-il while they're still in power.) Maybe they decided to be more explicit because they find that cult so ridiculous and threatening.

Scientology is one of the most fundamentally evil religions in the world. See Xenu.net for details.