Not Even in South Park?
"Two months before 9/11, Comedy Central aired an episode
of “South Park” entitled “Super Best Friends,” in which the cartoon show’s
foul-mouthed urchins sought assistance from an unusual team of superheroes.
These particular superfriends were all religious figures: Jesus, Krishna,
Buddha, Mormonism’s Joseph Smith, Taoism’s Lao-tse — and the Prophet Muhammad,
depicted with a turban and a 5 o’clock shadow, and introduced as “the Muslim
prophet with the powers of flame."
That was a more permissive time. You can’t portray Muhammad on American
television anymore, as South Park’s creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone,
discovered in 2006, when they tried to parody the Danish cartoon controversy —
in which unflattering caricatures of the prophet prompted worldwide riots — by
scripting another animated appearance for Muhammad. The episode aired, but the
cameo itself was blacked out, replaced by an announcement that Comedy Central
had refused to show an image of the prophet.
For Parker and Stone, the obvious next step was to make fun of the fact that you
can’t broadcast an image of Muhammad. Two weeks ago, “South Park” brought back
the “super best friends,” but this time Muhammad never showed his face. He
“appeared” from inside a U-Haul trailer, and then from inside a mascot’s
costume.
These gimmicks then prompted a writer for the New York-based Web site
revolutionmuslim.com to predict that Parker and Stone would end up like Theo van
Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker murdered in 2004 for his scathing critiques of Islam.
The writer, an American convert to Islam named Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee, didn’t
technically threaten to kill them himself. His post, and the accompanying photo
of van Gogh’s corpse, was just “a warning ... of what will likely happen to
them.”
This passive-aggressive death threat provoked a swift response from Comedy
Central. In last week’s follow-up episode, the prophet’s non-appearance
appearances were censored, and every single reference to Muhammad was bleeped
out. The historical record was quickly scrubbed as well: The original “Super
Best Friends” episode is no longer available on the Internet.
In a way, the muzzling of “South Park” is no more disquieting than any other
example of Western institutions’ cowering before the threat of Islamist
violence. It’s no worse than the German opera house that temporarily suspended
performances of Mozart’s opera “Idomeneo” because it included a scene featuring
Muhammad’s severed head. Or Random House’s decision to cancel the publication of
a novel about the prophet’s third wife. Or Yale University Press’s refusal to
publish the controversial Danish cartoons ... in a book about the Danish cartoon
crisis. Or the fact that various Western journalists, intellectuals and
politicians — the list includes Oriana Fallaci in Italy, Michel Houellebecq in
France, Mark Steyn in Canada and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands — have been
hauled before courts and “human rights” tribunals, in supposedly liberal
societies, for daring to give offense to Islam.
But there’s still a sense in which the “South Park” case is particularly
illuminating. Not because it tells us anything new about the lines that writers
and entertainers suddenly aren’t allowed to cross. But because it’s a reminder
that Islam is just about the only place where we draw any lines at all.
Across 14 on-air years, there’s no icon “South Park” hasn’t trampled, no vein of
shock-comedy (sexual, scatalogical, blasphemous) it hasn’t mined. In a less
jaded era, its creators would have been the rightful heirs of Oscar Wilde or
Lenny Bruce — taking frequent risks to fillet the culture’s sacred cows.
In ours, though, even Parker’s and Stone’s wildest outrages often just blur into
the scenery. In a country where the latest hit movie, “Kick-Ass,” features an
11-year-old girl spitting obscenities and gutting bad guys while dressed in
pedophile-bait outfits, there isn’t much room for real transgression. Our
culture has few taboos that can’t be violated, and our establishment has largely
given up on setting standards in the first place.
Except where Islam is concerned. There, the standards are established under
threat of violence, and accepted out of a mix of self-preservation and
self-loathing.
This is what decadence looks like: a frantic coarseness that “bravely” trashes
its own values and traditions, and then knuckles under swiftly to
totalitarianism and brute force.
Happily, today’s would-be totalitarians are probably too marginal to take full
advantage. This isn’t Weimar Germany, and Islam’s radical fringe is still a
fringe, rather than an existential enemy.
For that, we should be grateful. Because if a violent fringe is capable of
inspiring so much cowardice and self-censorship, it suggests that there’s enough
rot in our institutions that a stronger foe might be able to bring them crashing
down."
Not Even in South Park? By Ross Douthat
Will we stand up to Muslims in America?
Response to comment [from a Christian]: "[K]ids thought everyone was being a coward when they complained that they couldn't show Mohamed. So they were, in effect, calling the Comedy Central suits a bunch of cowards. "
Kids know. The adults are trained seals.
Too bad we cannot call Islam a lie and a perversion of Christianity.
See:
Kids also know that it is
unlikely that Muhammad flew on a donkey from Mecca to Jerusalem.
Response to comment [from a Christian]: [You're not going to mention the most recent episodes?] "That makes sense."
That is mentioned in the column. The point is--there is one group you cannot make fun of in America--Muslims. Andres Serrano can dip a crucifix in urine and call it art (and get endowment money for it by the way). Meanwhile, no American can critique Islam. We cannot even name our enemy according to the Obama administration.
Response to comment [from an atheist]: "Now if only we could get their goo..."
They hide it under tables at the U.N.
Response to comment [from a Christian]: "I don't think Islam is our enemy though and conflating extremist behavior with the norm only serves the sort of mindset that allows for it in the first place (gosh darn irony )."
In the end, Islam must be revealed for what it is--a false teaching. From Mozart's opera "Idomeno" to the Muhammad cartoon controversy, Islam is a wicked and perverted faith that (like all wicked and perverted faiths [1 Tim. 6:3–5]) leads to death (Jn 10:10).
Not Even in South
Park?