I read this article with laughter and sadness at the same time.
On the laughing side, it is funny how upset people can get over a cartoon… Yes a cartoon. If your thoughts and beliefs can’t stand up to being poked at by someone, don’t get mad at the person(s) poking. Also anything having to do with Tom Cruise makes me laugh because any time I look at him I see the kid from Risky Business which is probably the best movie he has ever made. Personally, I would have loved if he hadn’t advertised MI3. I don’t think it would have hurt the movie in the slightest. Some people may see that movie because he is in it, but I don’t think that applies to the majority of the people who are simply looking for some form of entertainment. I see a movie for a particular person only because that person adds something to it that someone else probably couldn’t add, this generally goes for comedians like Jim Cary or the Wayans brothers or Nicolas Cage (yes not a full comedian but hilarious, Raising Arizona… come on now) or Adam Sandler.
On the sad side, one of my long time favorite characters from one of my long time favorite shows, Chef (Isaac Hayes) of South Park has quit the show but more sad than that is he is trying to send a message by quitting and I don’t think it is the message he states. I really really liked Chef and thought he was a great character but Isaac states that he can’t work on a show that has such “bigotry towards religious beliefs of others”. Come again? Has he WATCHED any of the shows over the last, I don’t know, like 10 years which is the whole time the show has been around? How coincidental that this follows on the heels of an episode about HIS religion.
South Park is outstanding because it picks on everyone. It doesn’t highlight any specific religion or lack of religion or race or creed or anything, it picks on everyone. It picks on religions, it picks on race, it picks on humans, it picks on aliens, it picks on the perfectly healthy, it picks on the handicapped, it picks on the genetically mutated, it picks on hunters, it picks on non-hunters, it picks on straights, it picks on gays, it picks on straights pretending to be gays, it picks on the fat, the skinny, and even people who just talk funny. I could go on and on and on because the show literally picks on everyone which in the end to me means it is just telling stories and not picking on anyone.
If there are “most picked on” groups they are probably the Jewish faith (Kyle), the fat people (Cartman), the poor people (Kenny), the sluts (Cartman’s mom), the really odd outspoken gays (Mr. Garrison), and the little boys who can’t talk to their girlfriend without puking on them (Stan). I think it does more to put everyone on a truly level playing field than anything else out there. Instead of just saying you should be tolerant and shouldn’t pick on others because it is the “right” thing to do which rarely if ever works (people aren’t so altruistic when it really comes down it) it implies you should be tolerant and shouldn’t pick on others because there is just as much wrong with you and your thoughts/beliefs and you aren’t up on any pedestals that you may think you are on which I think is a better more honest and truthful message and far likelier to find a home in people’s minds because it helps them realize what they will get out of it.
I find it revealing that Isaac quits over an episode on Scientology yet nearly every other religion I can think of getting picked on by the show as well as racial and sexual differences he has no problem with as long as the checks come in? A part of me hopes that the scientologists told him he had to do it versus him coming up with it on his own.
The whole show is sarcastic and funny and irreverent. It holds up a mirror full of bends and curves but also with some clear spots that reflect how we are, how we appear to be, and how we can go too far at times. It is great. I recall going to see South Park the movie the day it was released and the show opening with some serious non-politically correct lines in the first five minutes and the whole audience just being dead silent because they were either too shocked or too AFRAID to laugh at something they thought to themselves was hilarious. Even I, who is generally not too politically correct was dumbfounded for the first five minutes thinking I can’t believe they just did that. Eventually the whole place was rolling. I saw it again later and people were laughing right off the bat.
So anyway, Isaac, if you read this and I doubt you will so if someone knows him send this on… Surprise! You have been on a show for quite a while now (and probably made a good amount of money) that has made fun of and also brought out the better sides of many of the religions and other division lines in our society. Heck Christ and Satan are regulars on the show and I am sure that folks like the AFA are absolutely pissed about that but realize they would look even more stupid legitimizing it all by attacking it. “God” is also on the show quite often as some sort of odd looking creature and it is openly stated many times on the show that Mormons were the only ones with the correct answer so get to go to a heaven that well, most people probably wouldn’t want to go to anyway. The mormons have been joked about as well as the Christians and everyone else. You get one episode on scientology and suddenly talk of religious bigotry comes out. If you wanted to leave over religious intolerance, etc you never should have joined a show that started out prior to any “official” shows with Jesus fighting Santa Claus over the meaning of Christmas. You leave now trying to make a statement and the statement you made is probably not the statement you intended to make because people aren’t just listening to your words, they are reading the intent under them. Do you in any part of your brain think you will have any impact whatsoever on Matt and Trey and the episodes they dream up for the future? I think you might, but not in any way you hope. To Matt and Trey, keep up the great work.
Famous “Chef” quotes
Kyle: Chef, we need Butters to gain about 50 pounds, fast.
Chef: Well, if you want him to get really fat as fast as possible, one of you will have to marry him.
Stan: Marry him?
Chef: It definitely worked for every woman I’ve ever met.
Chef: Now I know how all those white women must have felt [Watching an elephant have sex with a pig].
Don’t do drugs kids. There is a time and place for everything. It’s called college.
Stan Marsh: How can I get a woman to like me more than another guy?
Chef: Simple Stan, just find the clitoris!
Stan Marsh: What?
Chef: Hang on, what did I just say?
Stan Marsh: What’s a clitoris?
Chef: Nothing, nothing, forget I said it.
Come on, children. Let’s go find ourselves a nice white woman to make love to.
2 million dollars! The only way I can raise that kind of money is by whorein’ myself to every woman in town.
