The world according to Cartman

I've never understood the appeal of South Park. I don't "get" it. However, the Logical Husband and the Junior Logician do and they watch it together often. Usually when that happens I retreat to my computer - shaking my head and trying to understand what the draw of a program designed to insult anyone and everyone is. However that all changed today.

"Comedy Central's vulgar, profane, hilarious animated hit"South Park" begins its 10th season on Oct. 4 in an uncertain place.
In the past year, the show and its creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, won their first Emmy and were also honored with a Peabody for best electronic media. But the year was also fraught with moments of censorship that caused the show's creators to wonder if the world had changed so much in the last 10 years that "South Park" could really no longer thrive. "

It appears that Parker and Stone ran afoul of a parent corporation that was more concerned about upsetting a group of people, rather than the free speech that made this country great.

""South Park" has been vilified as crude, disgusting and nihilistic, and the eagerness of Stone and Parker to impale every sacred cow they can reach is a major reason for its success. After all, in the fictional town of South Park, Colo. — home to third-graders Kenny, Kyle, Stan and the evil Cartman — everything is fair game. Even the Prophet Mohammed, who appeared as a superhero in a July 2001 episode called "The Super Best Friends."
"People told us at the time, 'You can't really draw an image of Mohammed,'" Parker says. "And we were like, well, we can. We're not Muslim, so it's OK."
In 2006, however, when Stone and Parker wanted to depict Mohammed in an episode, Comedy Central wouldn't let them. After all, Muslims worldwide had rioted over insulting depictions of Mohammed in a newspaper in Denmark." (emphasis mine)

A lot of people, like Michelle Malkin, warned that this was going to happen.

Matt and Trey didn't back down. They knew that this capitulation was wrong.

"It seemed odd to the creators of "South Park," who had been and were still allowed to depict Jesus in any number of profane ways. In fact, the episode in question, "Cartoon Wars," shows a cartoon (supposedly created by al Qaeda) in which Jesus defecates on President Bush.
Open Season on Jesus
"That's where we kind of agree with some of the people who've criticized our show," Stone says. "Because it really is open season on Jesus. We can do whatever we want to Jesus, and we have. We've had him say bad words. We've had him shoot a gun. We've had him kill people. We can do whatever we want. But Mohammed, we couldn't just show a simple image." (emphasis mine)

It's not ok to insult Islam or Scientology but it's open season on Jesus! Something that Christians have been saying for a long time! Even better though - the lads were willing to "speak the truth to power"!

"During the part of the show where Mohammed was to be depicted — benignly, Stone and Parker say — the show ran a black screen that read: "Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Mohammed on their network."
Other networks took a similar course, refusing to air images of Mohammed — even when reporting on the Denmark cartoon riots — claiming they were refraining because they're religiously tolerant, the South Park creators say.
"No you're not," Stone retorts. "You're afraid of getting blown up. That's what you're afraid of. Comedy Central copped to that, you know: 'We're afraid of getting blown up.'" (emphasis mine)

Couple this with the Scientology/Tom Cruise fracus and you can see where Matt and Trey wondered if last year was "it".

"As soon as we can't make the show we want to make, we're not going to make it anymore. At the beginning of the last run I thought we were really close. I thought it was like this might be it. But then, you know, we were able to still do a Mohammed show and do it the way we wanted, which was to do it and then say, 'All right, Comedy Central, you're a network, you have a right to do with this what you want, so we're making it this way. And then if you want to take out the image of Mohammed, that's fine, you can do that, but we're also going to make the show about you taking out the image of Mohammed.'"

Last year was tough, but they are moving forward into season 10 with an attitude that won this skeptic over.

"Part of living in the world today is you're going to have to be offended," Stone says. "The right to be offended and the right to offend is why we have a First Amendment. If no speech was offensive to anybody, then you wouldn't need to guarantee it." "

Point taken gentlemen.

Maybe I was wrong about "South Park". I think maybe I will have to sit down with the Logical Husband and the Junior Logician and watch "South Park" a couple of times this season.