Comedy Central has been castrated

Yesterday I wrote about how the creators of South Park had received death threats from a Muslim extremist group, and had altered this weeks episode to bleep out all mentions of Muhammad. This morning I read that the episode was not censored by the creators of South Park, but by Comedy Central itself.

Matt and Trey, the creators of South Park, made a statement that they were unhappy with how Comedy Central handled the situation. I have to agree with their point of view. It seems ridiculous to me that the network would censor the show against the wishes of the people who created it. Trey and Matt were the people who were directly threatened by the Muslim extremists, not Comedy Central. I would understand if the people threatened would want to give in to the wishes of the group, but I really don't think it was Comedy Central's place to censor the episode for them.

I have always liked the fact that Comedy Central was unafraid to ruffle the feathers of it's viewers, but this all changed today. I am extremely disappointed in the network. There are many times when I am offended by the nature of their programming, but that doesn't keep me from watching. I understand the concept of the network, and I don't go off the deep end when they make fun of things that hit close to home for me. I guess the terrorists really have won. I used to think that Comedy Central had balls, but I guess the terrorists chopped them off.

What the bleep?

It is no secret that many people feel offended by the characters and events portrayed on South Park, but most people know not to take the show seriously. This is obviously not true of Muslim extremist groups. I was watching CNN yesterday afternoon when they were talking about death threats that had been made to the creators of South Park due to their depiction of the prophet Muhammad on last weeks 200th episode.

When I saw this, I wasn't surprised, but I was very surprised when I watched South Park last night. The creators of the show have never worried about what people think about their depiction of different cultures, but this time it seems to have caused them to think twice. When I watched last night, all mentions of Muhammad in the episode were bleeped out. There was also a large portion of the end of the show that was bleeped due to what can only be assumed as anti-Muslim remarks. Although it must have been somewhat frightening to receive death threats from a group of Muslim extremists, I am surprised that it caused the creators of the show to censor themselves.

This led me to wonder whether the censorship was intentional on the part of South Park. When watching the episode, the bleeping actually makes the viewer more aware of the comments, which is what I think the creators were going for. They are fighting back by technically giving in to the demands of the people threatening them while making sure that the public is well aware of the comments the characters in the show are making. If the bleeps were intentional on the part of South Park, and not a result of the death threats, I think they should be applauded for their creativity. If not, I am a little disappointed that they gave in to people who are dumb enough to let themselves get angry about a cartoon completely based on nonsense.