The infamous uncensored end scene of South Park “201” is even more relevant today, on the heels of the attacks on the Paris humor magazine Charlie Hebdo, than when it was first aired in April of 2010. The segment you see here was never meant to be viewed, and at first glance you might wonder why. It is hard to believe that this brief segment caused an international uproar, threatened free speech and moved Muslim terrorists to threaten the lives of South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone!
The cause of the sh*tstorm is the large black box in the cartoon, bearing the word ‘censored.’ The box is meant to represent the Prophet Muhammad, without actually showing him. In this way Parker and Stone hoped to make their point about terrorism without offending people of the Muslim faith who feel that no images of Muhammad should be shown. Those who regularly view the show know that no celebrity, religious figure or group is immune from their outrageous insight, and most view a skewering on South Park with a sense of humor. Not so in this case. Apparently even this vague indication of The Prophet was enough to fan the fires of wrath under the skirts of radical extremists. Combine this with the speech the children gave – and all heck broke loose. In a nutshell. Kyle does a summation at the end of the episode, obviously meant to show how stupid bullying and terrorism are.
Kyle: “If there’s anything we’ve learned today, it’s that terrorizing people works.” Jesus adds: “That’s right.” “Don’t you see Gingers, if you don’t want to be made fun of, all you need are guns and bombs to get people to stop.” Even Santa has something to say. “That’s right friends, all you need to do is instill fear, and be willing to hurt people – and you can get whatever you want.” Santa sums up, “The only true power is violence.”
The South Park storyline was based on two past controversies when European newspapers published cartoons of Muhammad, resulting in riots, global protests and death threats toward the artists of those cartoons. It immediately became very personal and close to home!
In the week between the broadcasts of “200” and “201”, the website for the New York-based radical Muslim organization Revolution Muslim posted an entry that included a warning to creators Parker and Stone that they risked violent retribution for their depictions of Muhammad. The entry stated that they “will probably wind up like Theo van Gogh for airing this show.” Van Gogh was a filmmaker who was murdered by a man named Mohammed Bouyeri in 2004 for making a short documentary on violence against women in some Islamic societies. The posting provided the addresses to Comedy Central in New York and the production company in Los Angeles. The author of the post, Zachary Adam Chesser, said it was meant to serve as a warning to Parker and Stone, not a threat, and that providing the addresses was meant to give people the opportunity to protest.
The original video was shown with one long ‘bleeep’ as reluctant censorship from Comedy Central, and a first for Parker and Stone. The previously censored scene is only available now, due to the efforts of a hacker who made it widely available. I leave it to you to say whether it was a good decision by the hacker to possibly endanger Parker and Stone again, or should that have been their decision to make?