Friday, April 23, 2010

My Letter to Comedy Central re: 201

On April 21, Comedy Central aired the 201st episode of South Park. It was heavily censored to hide any reference to Muhammad in the episode because of a threat made by a fundamentalist group called Revolutionmuslim. This is my letter to Comedy Central in response to this:

Dear Comedy Central,

I am a Muslim fan of South Park. I have always enjoyed this program and feel that it serves an important role as social commentary and satire, just like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. I saw the episode 200 and felt proud of Matt and Trey for addressing the issue of freedom of speech without fear of repercussions. I found nothing offensive about the episode from an Islamic standpoint; in fact, Matt and Trey treated the Muhammad character with respect. However, what I do find offensive is Comedy Central's censorship of the episode 201. There is nothing wrong with saying "Muhammad" on TV and to bleep it treats it like a curse word. The bleeping of Kyle and the other characters' closing monologues was also wrong. Your loyal viewers have the right to see how the episode ends and the satirical point Matt and Trey were trying to make.

I am most upset by Comedy Central's acquiescence to a fundamentalist group that does not represent Muslim-Americans in any way. If the KKK said that they were offended by an episode, you would not have censored it. Yet you allow terrorists like Revolutionmuslim to take away your freedom of speech while our brave American soldiers are dying for our freedom. In Iran, citizens are rising up to overthrow censorship and oppression. How dare you surrender your voice to the intimidation of a website run by cowards in New York City! You have a responsibility to maintain the integrity of your artists and programming and to respect the intelligence of your audience.

I hope that you will rebroadcast episode 201 without the added bleeps and allow it to be streamed on southparkstudios.com. Remember that you are in the United States of America, and you should never be afraid to be free.

Thank you