The Cartoons that Shook the World

As I'm sure everyone knows by now, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone received several (not-so) veiled death threats over the very idea of depicting the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon his name) in their show's two hundredth and two hundredth and first episodes. The later, which aired last Wednesday, ended with a multi-character "I-learned-something-today" speech, a callback to nearly every South Park episode of the first six-or-so seasons. A series of drawn-out, audio "bleeps" completely obscured the content of these speeches in what I first took to be a meta-joke on the boy's part. Then I read their statement @ South Park Studios:

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. [Show's what I know. - ed] Comedy Central added the bleeps. In fact, Kyle's customary final speech was about intimidation and fear.

Well, shit on that idea. Intimidation and Fear rule the land, and the creators of South Park are in a better position than anyone to realize it. Their battles with the MPAA are legendary. Yet their home network has always backed them previous to this.

Comedy Central's decision to be chickenshit corporate scumfucks, and then hide behind some delusion that they're "protecting their employees" (as Jon Stewart, loyal company man that he is, put it) reveals a truth even the South Park boys probably haven't guessed. For all their excessive obscenity and supposed irreverence, things have only gotten worse in the fourteen years since their debut. The nine years since they last depicted the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon his name) certainly seem to have been one long, downward spiral of censorship and intimidation. We had Janet Jackson's breast in 2004, the original Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy in 2005, a flare up one year later, and just last year Yale University Press beat Comedy Central to the punch, preemptively removing all Muhammad cartoons from their upcoming book, titled...The Cartoons that Shook the World.

Were I a more conservative commentator, I might suggest the terrorists are winning. After all (and I'll say it again, because this bears repeating), Yale University Press decided to remove all Muhammad cartoons from a book titled Cartoons That Shook The World. Only Fear and Intimidation could inspire such a colossally stupid decision. But of course there are no terrorists...only a few crazed maniacs on the one hand and clutches of toothless, suit-wearing shills on the other.

So, in solidarity with Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Kurt Westergaard, Roger Köppel, various members of the Danish People's Party's youth wing, and all artists the world over who labor under the threat of religious intolerance and extremism, I offer this pictorial depiction of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon his name):

along with a fervent prayer to all the messiahs of the world, whatever their affiliation:

Lords, save us from your followers. They know not what they do, but we know very well what they'd like to do. Especially to those of us who don't want to turn the clock back to the eleventh century. Help us, Super Best Friends. Like the sign in The Crow: City of Angels said, "Save us."