News
Has 'South Park' gone too far this time?
By: cnn.comPosted On: 04/22/2010 12:47 P
Nothing is sacred on "South Park."
This is a show, after all, that once painted God as a gap-toothed rhinoceros-monkey, portrays Satan as a simpering milquetoast and regularly features Jesus as a superhero -- the kind who's not afraid to ignore the peaceful teachings of the Sermon on the Mount to smite his opponents. The show has mocked Jews, Catholics, Mormons, Scientologists and atheists, among (many) others.
It's a formula that's generally served "South Park" well, allowing it to score comic points by riffing on hypocrisy while emphasizing a message of libertarianism and tolerance, and it's one that goes back to the show's beginnings, points out former Dallas Morning News TV critic Ed Bark, who blogs at UncleBarky.com. After all, he recalls, the show began as a Christmas short violently pitting Santa Claus against Jesus.
But have they gone too far this time with a depiction of the Prophet Mohammed in a bear suit?
In the beginning, it wasn't so much the religion that bothered observers but the language used by the series' pint-sized cast, he said.
"The most shocking thing back then was, you had little kids exercising a vocabulary that you hadn't heard before [from children]," he said. "I go back to the days when [the sitcom] 'Uncle Buck's' 'You suck' was a major point of contention on a CBS sitcom and everybody went crazy about 'how can they have an 8-year-old kid saying this?' And then 'South Park' ratcheted that way up."
However, the show can still ruffle feathers.
For its 200th episode April 14 -- the beginning of a two-part story that concludes Wednesday night -- "South Park" creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker decided to go all-in, creating a plot line about free speech in which most everybody the show's ever offended comes back. Among the episode's characters: the Prophet Mohammed, who is first pictured behind a black "censored" bar and later in a bear suit.
That didn't sit well with Revolution Muslim, an Islamic group that objected to Mohammed's portrayal.
According to some Muslim traditions, the visual depiction of Mohammed is not allowed.
"We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo van Gogh for airing this show," the group said on its website. "This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality that will likely happen to them."
Van Gogh was the Dutch director who was killed in 2004 by an Islamic extremist. Among his works was "Submission," a short film about abuse of women in Islam.
The creator of the Revolution Muslim posting said that the group only wants those offended to be able to voice their opposition in letters to the show's creators and that it did not advocate violence
CNN commenters were generally angered by the story, which was featured on Tuesday's "Anderson Cooper 360
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