December 20th, 2006 | 
Author: There have been recent attempts to get me to waiver on my boycott of Comedy Central. I always believe that the primary point of debate is not necessarily to change another’s mind, but to strengthen one’s own beliefs. So I took another look at the South Park “Cartoon Wars” episodes, specifically an interview that Matt and Trey gave in Reason magazine.
One point that was brought up is that my boycott is inconsistent. That I should be boycotting all of Viacom, and not just Comedy Central. This seemed like a valid point to investigate. I asked myself: should I also be boycotting Viacom, and if so, am I really willing to do that? Here’s a quote from the Reason interview:
“It was life imitating art, because the whole week after the first one aired there was a teaser, ‘Will television executives take a stand for free speech? Or will Comedy Central puss out?’ That whole week we were trying to get Comedy Central to show Muhammad. And they pussed out.”
The censored Muhammad was not a forgone conclusion. They were trying to get the image aired. This leads me to believe that the uncensored sequence in part 2 (hereafter referred to as the “salmon helmet sequence”) is animated, but sitting dormant on some animator’s PC.
Also notice they specifically mentioned Comedy Central and not Viacom.
Which leads me to this next quote. This is in reference to the Tom Cruise Scientology episode:
“They blew it off. To be fair, it wasn
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Is it not hypocritical for television execs to allow animal sex to be seen on America’s Funniest Home Videos but not hardcore man-on-woman action? From an objective standpoint it’s all completely natural. The cultural taboo behind hot, wet lovin’ is outdated. Shouldn’t ABC be boycotted for this?
You have to treat the Mohammad issue (another outdated cultural taboo) as a business decision not a political or religious one. They made a decision that maximized their profits by preventing the alienation and civil-disruption airing it would cause – the same reason they don’t have more full-frontal on The Today Show. It took the business gods many rounds of golf and possibly some racquetball to figure this out.
The business decision is directly related to political pressure. If it wasn’t terrorism, then whatever–I’d still be watching. But we aren’t talking about the PTC sending form letters, we’re talking about savages rioting and killing.
If their decision was motivated strictly by pressure from sponsors, then perhaps I should boycott those sponsors? But somehow I doubt that any sponsor of South Park doesn’t know what they are getting into.
The two shows you named are on broadcast television, and are thus regulated. On cable, it’s perfectly okay to show hardcore man-on-woman action. If they choose not to, I doubt it’s because there are terrorists in the porn industry burning down an embassy.
Also, if we want to talk about consistency, Comedy Central has allowed Muhammad to be on South Park before, when the “outdated cultural taboo” was still in effect. Flash forward a few years and burned embassies and all of a sudden they are sensitive? Sounds like giving in to terrorism to me, not a business decision.
These execs were so “terrorized” by Christians over the “Statue of the Virgin Mary bleeding from its ass” episode, it will never air again! They at least have the balls to show the Muhammad episode over and over.
I think this represents an unequal preference for Christianity over Islam by Comedy Central.
P.S.
At the time (pre-911) the cultural taboo wasn’t in effect – because 99% of Americans thought Islam was either “that thing black people do” or “a Klingon moon”. And you can substitute any Animal Planet show for a broadcast show if it makes the metaphor compute easier for you.
Neither Christians nor Animal Planet advertisers are terrorists. I’m talking about violence here: rioting, killing, destruction. Not strongly worded letters from Catholics or pulled Purina commercials.
Christians not terrorists…hahahahhahaha over half of all demestic “terrorists” acts are preformed by radical christians. There are just as man “good” islamics as there are “good” christians….dont bring your bias into this
I’m not saying there are no Christian terrorists. I’m saying that specifically when Comedy Central pulled the Catholic episode, it was not due to terrorist activity, it was due to the Catholic League getting all huffy.
And I’ll bring my bias into anything I damn well want to! This isn’t a fair and balanced blog, I’m not claiming to be unbiased. mgroves.com is biased as hell!
HOW DARE YOU BE BIASED!!!!!
hahahaha