South Park - Episode 201

I know the buzz surrounding the South Park BS from last week has died down a little, but I'm still mad. I wasn't able to catch the controversial episode and I assumed it would be no problem catching it later as Comedy Central often replays the episode. Other options included Hulu, South Park's website and on-demand, but I was sorely mistaken. Instead of replaying the episode, Comedy Central insists on playing older episodes and "Ugly Americans". Episode 201 has also not been uploaded to any legit outlets online. Why would they do that? I wonder. The episode was already censored, so just play it. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say the culprit is shame. Comedy Central did what they felt they had to do, but they're ashamed of it. Ashamed that they chickened out and censored the very name of Muhammad and they speech at the end about the nature of fear (which Parker and Stone say makes no mention of the Muslim prophet). I would settle for just seeing the censored episode, but even that is too much to ask. I'm relegated to watching parts of it on Youtube. 75% of it is decent quality, just backwards for some reason and the ending 25% is from a video that someone shot of their TV. The fact that I have to go to such extremes is pathetic. The whole episode is right here on this blog for the time being, but it will likely be taken down. Yes, that's another bit of bullshit - people are being forced to remove the episode from Youtube because of copyright concerns. Comedy Central refused to play the episode, so I feel they forfeit the right of others to air it.

This is a HUGE deal. It's not being treated as such because people take South Park so lightly. It's a joke. People are likely to say "oh, that South Park, what'll they pull next?". That is not the mindset we should be taking. South Park and free speech were held at gunpoint this week by a radical faith. I'm not going to say Muslim extremists because the very nature of the religion is extreme. Comedy Central gave in. These people will continue to take more and more until everything is censored to their liking. How are veiled death threats acceptable? We don't have to be tolerant of those who are intolerant. If you don't play by the rules of tolerance then you're not a part of the game. Aside from commemorating 200 episodes of their show, a large part of Parker and Stone's message was about fear, about the very shenanigans that were perpetrated against them. This is the 21st century, get in line.