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...have to warn [the producers] that what they are doing is stupid, and they will probably wind up like Theo van Gogh for airing this show.” Though he claimed it was just a warning, not a threat, by comparing the producers of South Park to the Dutch filmmaker who was killed for his film criticizing Islam’s treatment of women, Al-Amrikee did indeed threaten the lives of the producers. In addition, radical group Revolution Muslim posted the addresses of Comedy Central’s offices on its website, thus endangering the employees...
When considering what happened in the cases of the Danish cartoonist who is now in hiding after depicting the prophet Muhammad and van Gogh’s murder, the writers of South Park and the employees of Comedy Central were under especially salient and imminent threats from radical Islamic activists. Therefore, although the only sort of speech that should be fundamentally outlawed is hate speech—which this episode theoretically did not include—Comedy Central made the right decision in choosing not to further endanger its employees by airing the episode...
Indeed, the bigger issue here is not Comedy Central’s decision but instead is the use of threats—grounded in religion or any other belief—to subdue another’s free speech. In a statement to the New York Times, South Park’s creators commented, “In the 14 years we’ve been doing ‘South Park’ we have never done a show that we couldn’t stand behind.” The repression of free speech due to threats...
...Sophomoric, gross, and unfunny,” decried Hal Boedeker of the Seattle Times, “Its chances for success die each time Kenny does,” he waxed oracular. “Carnivalesque,” reporter Ethan Thompson declared, imputing to “South Park” a brand of clever satire with a literary tradition...
...South Park is equal parts offensive and sacrilegious. Its content repulses some and elicits uncomfortable laughter from others who don’t know whether to publicly condemn the racial rhetoric its creators so frequently employ or privately snicker at its irreligious themes. But in its smutty humor is the principle of free speech incarnate, the belief that all speech that does not actively encourage violence, no matter how profane or offensive, should be protected...