South Park, Episode 201
In general, one would think that the completely uncensored television show, South Park is targeted for teenage audiences. The explicit language and large viewership points to the contrary. In fact, “In its original American broadcast on April 21, 2010, episode "201" was watched by 3.5 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. According to the research firm it was “the most watched cable television show of the night, and it outperformed the previous week's episode, "200", which was seen by 3.33 million viewers” (Wikipedia, 2010).
In the named episode, racially inappropriate animated characters and dialogue had to be censored from the show. According to Wikipedia, the show’s animated characters which were made to resemble celebrity icons” demanded that the show South Park produce the Muslim Prophet Muhammad” (Wikipedia, 2010). There was plenty of censored bleeping-out of words, and many people of the Muslim faith were insulted that the show even aired.
In today’s times we are taught how to respect others’ cultures and learn about them, not make fun of them and ridicule them because they are different. I think this type of show is inappropriate and blurs the line of free speech with hate speech. Is this type of hatred really necessary?? Do people really find this type of show funny or enlightening?? The show mocks African Americans, people who are over weight, intellectually challenged, Jewish, poor, gay, and those are just a few examples.
I have tried to watch the show out of curiosity, but the show was intellectually insulting because it is riddled with profanity and has characters like Mister Hankey, a talking piece of feces, and breaches subjects including toilet humor and menstruation. No thank you, I will keep my channel tuned to something else. This show is an example of just what our society does not need.
References
Wikipedia, (2010). Retrieved May 2, 2010 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/201_(South_Park)
No comments:
Post a Comment