Posted on 12/09/2005 5:50:13 AM PST by NYer
Catholic League president Bill Donohue remarked today about last night’s episode of “South Park” (it will run again for the next three nights):
“A ‘South Park’ character gets a DWI and is ordered to attend AA meetings. Told about the 12-step program, he concludes that he needs a miracle to cure him. The plot then focuses on a statue of the Virgin Mary who is ‘bleeding out her ass.’ The Vatican dispatches a cardinal to investigate and he is sprayed with blood when he walks behind the statue. He then declares this to be a miracle, which draws even more people. The alcoholic, now in a wheelchair, is also sprayed with blood: he then claims he is cured and jumps out of his seat.
“Pope Benedict XVI goes to investigate. He, too, is sprayed with blood when he walks behind the statue. A reporter says, ‘The pope investigated further and determined that the statue was not bleeding out its ass, but its vagina.’ To which the pope replies: ‘A chick bleeding out her vagina is no miracle. Chicks bleed out their vaginas all the time.’
“Comedy Central is a subsidiary of MTV, which is owned by Viacom. On the board of directors of Viacom is a practicing Catholic and a distinguished public servant, Joseph A. Califano; he served under Presidents Johnson and Carter. We are writing to him today requesting that he intervene in this matter. We want a) an apology to Roman Catholics and b) a pledge that this episode be permanently retired and not be made available on DVD. In the event Viacom does not cooperate, we are asking Mr. Califano to issue his own statement of condemnation. We are asking our members to contact him as well. Remember, they chose to insult Our Blessed Mother on the eve of the Immaculate Conception, and the holy day itself.
“Joseph A. Califano is chairman of the board of The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. He can be reached at CASA, 633 Third Avenue, NY, NY 10017; phone, 212-841-5200; fax, 212-956-8020; email, employment@casacolumbia.org.”
They've done several... they did ~Team America~ for crying out loud. That straw man won't even stand up on it's own.
True. After all, he is a robot. /sarc
Could have been... they look alike to me.
I wondered the same thing, if they'd recently been through it... though I found it to be a poignant observation of AA.
The main point of the show was to insult AA and the attitude that alcoholism is a disease that needs a cure from God instead of, as Stan said, "Just quit drinking." Before AA, Stan's dad drank, but wasn't an alcoholic, just stupid enough to drink and drive once. AA really messed him up by telling him he had a problem that he didn't have, which actually turned him into an alcoholic since he now has a disease, so he can drink all the time and blame it on the disease. Then they told him it could only be cured their way, religiously. This mirrors the Scientology episode, which was mentioned ("I know about cults. I used to lead one.").
A sub point was to make fun of all of those people who flock to be cured by bleeding statues and faces on toast.
An even lower point was how church decisions on what is and isn't a miracle can be strangely arbitrary.
Because it has more valid social commentary than anything else on TV. And it's funny.
islam has been a target MANY times. This is not a politically correct cartoon at all.
And this illustrates the problem with being "shocking" just for the sake of being "shocking", and calling it entertainment. You can never stop ... once you've done something "edgy", it's no longer on the edge. If your whole stock in trade is "edginess", you have to keep outdoing yourself in the outrageousness department, or you're dead.
South Park isn't purely based on pushing the bounds of decency and civility; that's why they're still around.
Sooner or later, though, they'll jump the shark.
It's potty humor. You should have grown beyond that in Jr. high. But to each their own.
"I'm surprised it took 8 years for them to start trashing the Catholic Church, "
Oh, they've already taken on the RCC in an episode that revolved around the priest-child molestation scandals a few years ago.
The howls of outrage on this thread really let you know how good South Parks's marksmanship is. Right on target, apparently.
Absolutely! Atheists, witches, lefty moral relativists. All have been skewered by the show. I watch it occasionally and it can sometimes be brilliant but it also can go way over the top and not be watchable at times. To be fair though, they are probably harder on libs than anything elso on tv.
What what part of this thread gave you the impression that any understanding of what a program is aimed to do is required before condemning it?
They were interviewed on one of the Sunday morning news shows last weekend, and made the comment that liberals tend to be more fun to mock, because they get horribly shocked, outraged and offended.
That's not limited to liberals, though, as this thread proves.
So while I know it isn't exactly South Park -- it *is* Matt Stone and Trey Parker (ie the creators and brains behind South Park). Check out "Team America"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0372588/
*giggles*
Dirka Dirka.
I actually watched Team America. You have to admit those are some strange guys.
Howard Stern is empty shock value... South Park is admittedly shocking - but they're also saying something with it.
Actually, I kindof hate to see conservatives become too vocal in their praise of South Park, Right now, Matt and Trey slam mostly liberal ideas, because "it's more fun to bash them". If conservatives expect them to never touch one of their sacred cows (no inference to the current episode intended) they'll be disappointed and shown to be the fickle folk we/they are.
I think if there's one over-riding principle in South Park, it's that they don't want to be put in a box. If we try to call them our own, they'll fight it, and it won't be pretty (especially if they are right yet again) :~D
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