Jesus, Mohammed, and Comedy Central
From Uppsala, Sweden comes the news that cartoonist Lars Vilks was
attacked and head-butted by an angry Muslim at a university lecture. A
group of Muslims surrounding him shouted "God is great!" in Arabic as
the cartoonist laid on the floor, his glasses broken. Ever since Vilks
impolitely drew the prophet Muhammad's head on a dog, he's been a
wanted man. Even the American terrorist wannabe nicknamed "Jihad Jane"
plotted to kill him.
This explains why Comedy Central's "South Park" has been censoring
images that might offend Muslims. The executives at Comedy Central (and
their parent company Viacom) regularly pledge allegiance to freedom of
expression, but don't really believe it - not when they ponder someone
cracking their skulls at a Beverly Hills restaurant.
It's not just "South Park." Jo Piazza of Foxnews.com
reports that after the failed Times Square bombing, Comedy Central's
"The Daily Show" told their "senior Islamic correspondent" Aasif Mandvi
not to comment further on it. One writer for a scripted drama told
Piazza that in one of his show's final episodes there had been a minor
plot involving a Muslim extremist. Last week, "it was removed and the
script was rewritten."
It's clear that Mohammed is off limits - and it's just as crystal clear that Jesus Christ remains the juiciest of targets.
Even at the sensitive time when they're shutting down every possible
mockery of Islamic extremism, Comedy Central has announced their plans
for a new cartoon titled simply "JC," a half-hour show about Jesus
trying to live a normal life in New York City to escape his "powerful
but apathetic father." God is preoccupied with playing video games
while Christ is the "ultimate fish out of water."
As "original programming," this hardly applies. A slacker Jesus came
to Earth to escape an annoying God the Father as He tried to quit
smoking on "Family Guy" two years ago.
On the offensiveness scale, that's nothing. In the 2005 Comedy
Central special "Merry F-ing Christmas," Denis Leary called the
Christmas story "bull[bleep]" and said the Virgin Mary must be a myth
since someone surely "banged the hell" out of her. In the 2006 "South
Park" episode that spiked Mohammed themes, the show ended with Jesus
wildly defecating on President Bush: "Look at me, I'm Jesus. Would you
like me to crap on you, Mr. Bush? Mmm, yummy, yummy crap!" And there
was Stephen Colbert's 2008 Christmas special, where Toby Keith sang
about (and a cartoon Santa laughed at) Christians blowing up an ACLU
lawyer's house.
Comedy Central programming head Kent Alterman trotted out the normal
line for anyone objecting to this profane new series on the god most
Americans define as sacred. "In general, comedy in its purest form
always makes some people uncomfortable."
Earth to Alterman: just stop with the First Amendment poseur routine
there at Cowardly Central. If you're proud of "making some people
uncomfortable" (Christians) while censoring your jokesters in fear of
others (Muslims), you're just an anti-Christian bigot.
This "JC" show is merely in development, alongside other potential
gems like "Live Sex Show" (no mystery in that title), "Rich Dicks"
(ditto), and two pot-themed shows, "Highdeas" and "This Show Will Get
You High." How is that for comedic genius?
Comedy
Central is currently airing another religion-mocking cartoon right
after "South Park." It's called "Ugly Americans," and it imagines a New
York City crawling with demons, monsters, and zombies. Some are even
social workers at the "Department of Integration." Mark, the lead
character, is a social worker who's dating a co-worker and daughter of
the devil named Callie Maggotbone. One of his supervisors is a bullying
demon called "Twayne the Bone-Raper."
Mark works with a washed-up wizard named Leonard, whose brother is a
superstar magician named...."Christ Angel." So it should not come as a
surprise that "Christ" is a nasty guy
who pulls "tricks" on women like inserting himself into their uterus,
forcing labor, and being "born again." He also makes Leonard punch
himself repeatedly in the face.
There is a silly tendency to raise anti-social pranksters to First
Amendment hero status for their willingness to be atheist jerks. The TV
critics shower you with praise about how you're "profanely whip-smart"
and have a "wry, postmodern vibe" - even when there's hardly anything
smart or wry in the tasteless gore and sex jokes that are the norm on
this network. Having Mark meet the devil in Hell and decline an order
for "unbaptized baby-arm soup" is not witty. It's just sick.
But the amazing thing is a sleazy programming chief like Kent Alterman will still claim
"The beauty of working at a place like Comedy Central is you can
empower people to actualize their vision in a really unfiltered way,
and that's when things have the best shot at being funny."
Unfiltered? What a shameless liar.
