If you caught Wednesday's episode of "South Park", you probably noticed all the bleeps that were installed to censor the word "Muhammad." Comedy Central made the decision just prior to airing the episode, after receiving a "warning" from a radical Muslim group based in Brooklyn. The group had posted a message on
their website saying, quote, "what [creators TREY PARKER and MATT STONE] are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show." (Van Gogh was a Dutch filmmaker who was murdered six years ago for questioning Islam's views of women.)It continued, quote, "This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them." Parker and Stone were not cool with the censorship . . . and probably don't care if they offend anyone, since they've never had a problem offending ANYONE of any political, racial or religious denomination.In a message posted on their SouthParkStudios site, Parker and Stone sound annoyed with Comedy Central's decision.
It reads, quote, "In the 14 years we've been doing 'South Park' we have never done a show that we couldn't stand behind. We delivered our version of the show to Comedy Central and they made a determination to alter the episode. It wasn't some meta-joke on our part. Comedy Central added the bleeps. In fact, Kyle's customary final speech was about intimidation and fear. It didn't mention Muhammad at all but it got bleeped too. We'll be back next week with a whole new show about something completely different and we'll see what happens to it."
In a separate statement, they added, quote, "We do not have network approval to stream our original version of the show. We will bring you a version of [the episode] as soon as we can."
A Comedy Central spokesperson confirmed that it was the network's decision to censor the episode . . . but beyond that, there's been no further comment.
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