Either it’s all okay, or none of it is!
On Wednesday, April 12th, Comedy Central ran the second part of a two part South Park that was centered around American media censoring itself out of fear of Muslim retaliation. The authors of the show, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, made the purpose of the show quite clear and repeatedly had characters comment on the state of things in modern american media. The whole two episodes led up to one moment at which an episode of the T.V. show Family Guy was supposed to show an image of Muhammad.
This image was simply that, an image. If memory serves, Muhammad was supposed to hand Peter a salmon hat, whatever that is. Comedy Central, however, refused to air the image. Instead, a message informing the viewers that the image had been censored was aired.
The real kicker, though, is that at the last moment of the show, Comedy Central deemed it okay to air Jesus, the President of the United States of America, a gay man, a pregnant woman and just about anyone else you can think to make fun of crapping on each other, themselves and the american flag. What kind of a sick twisted world are we creating?
In the wise words of Kyle Broflovski, “You can’t do what [they] want just because [they’re] the one threatening you with violence… if you don’t show Muhammad, then you’ve made a distinction between what is okay to poke fun at and what isn’t. Either it’s all okay or none of it is.”
The decision that Comedy Central has made is one that I’m afraid the rest of the media will follow. We need to decide right now, do we just believe in freedom of speech or are we willing to defend it?
If you would like to comment to Comedy Central about their “decision”, click here.