By Aaron Elias
Last week’s fiasco with the two-episode South Park storyline centering around the Islamic prophet Mohammad has sparked a mess of controversy for portraying what the show’s characters thought was Mohammad in a bear costume (it turned out to be Santa Claus). After the first episode aired, South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker received threats from a radical Muslim website by the name of RevolutionMuslim.com “warning” them that they could go the same way as Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh (van Gogh was brutally assassinated by Mohammad Bouyeri, a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim, for co-producing the film Submission, which focuses on the violence women are subjected to in the Islamic world). As a result of the thinly-veiled threat, Comedy Central- against South Park’s creator’s wishes- censored every utterance of Mohammad’s name in the second episode, as well as Kyle’s customary “what I learned today” speech despite it not even mentioning Mohammad. Now, untold millions of South Park fans are angry with Comedy Central for caving in to the demands of yet more Islamic radicals.
The controversy has resurfaced van Gogh’s story, which has fallen into obscurity somewhat since his untimely murder in 2004. And while van Gogh and the South Park creators are- as far as we can tell from their work- probably very different people, they are more identical than they may know in their love for the freedom of speech. Even in that one unifying quality, van Gogh and the creators of South Park still differ in the precise way that they love(d) the freedom to express oneself. Regardless, all three have become impeccably vital in what has turned into a fight for free speech.
Theodor “Theo” van Gogh was son to Johan van Gogh, a member of the Dutch secret service. More interesting is his relationship to his great-great-uncle, the famous artist-painter Vincent van Gogh. Such relationships offer an undertone of politically-charged artistic beauty to his, Theo’s, career, as well as his death; where Vincent van Gogh was recognized for his artistic genius after his death, so has Theo van Gogh been recognized as a now-martyred pioneer in the pushback against recent radical Islamic attempts at censoring anything deemed “offensive” by Islam. In his many books and movies, van Gogh presented an often cynical and mocking tone when critical of a topic. So it was with Islam; van Gogh was well-known for his critical attitude of Islam, especially after the September 11th attacks. A nihilist at heart, van Gogh could have been a character right out of the politically-incorrect, comically-disturbing atmosphere that makes up South Park; he openly used cocaine, went through heavy drinking episodes, and was an outspoken cynic of relationships (he later adopted a healthier lifestyle, naming his son as the reason). Most symbolical of his love of free speech, van Gogh was immortalized in the sculpture De Schreeuw (“the cry” or “the scream”). Erected near the site of van Gogh’s murder in the Oosterpark, the sculpture is "a powerful symbol of the freedom of speech", said an official of the Amsterdam administration Martin Verbeet; one side of the sculpture shows van Gogh crying out while the other it shows him close-mouthed, symbolic of his being silenced by his fanatical murderer.
Van Gogh’s Submission, is a 10-minute film dealing with the violence Muslim women endure in Islamic societies, the script for which was written by Somali-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The film tells the story of four abused Muslim women, and its title, “Submission” is directly translated from the world “Islam”. The film shows women’s naked bodies veiled with translucent shrouds as they kneel while recounting their stories, as if in prayer to Allah. Qur’anic verses hostile to women are projected onto their bodies in Arabic. Soon after the movie’s broadcast on public Dutch TV, Van Gogh and Hirsi Ali also received death threats. Unfortunately, Van Gogh did not take them seriously and refused protection. He reportedly told Ali, “Nobody kills the village idiot,” a term he often used to describe himself. Despite Bouyeri’s attempt to censor Van Gogh and Hirsi Ali, the film was widely broadcasted throughout Europe and provoked a number of people to examine the movie. For example, Film Threat movie critic Phil Hall stated that "If its methods were harsh, nonetheless 'Submission' was bold in openly questioning misogyny and a culture of violence against women because of Koranic interpretations. The questions raised in the film deserve to be asked: is it divine will to assault or kill women? Is there holiness in holding women at substandard levels, denying them the right to free will and independent thought? And ultimately, how can such a mindframe exist in the 21st century?" And despite having gone into hiding, Hirsi Ali has stated she would like to make a sequel to Submission because "By not making 'Submission Part II,' I would only be helping terrorists believe that if they use violence, they're rewarded with what they want." When asked if she would submit to threats against her life, Hirsi Ali responded, "Not me."
Despite his mocking and often inflammatory rhetoric, van Gogh utilized his free speech as an all-too serious method to inform people of the violence and hatred so prevalent in fundamentalist Islamic societies (van Gogh called the film a “political pamphlet”). The style in which South Park creators Stone and Parker operate, however, is the polar opposite of van Gogh’s Submission. Over its 14 years on the air, the show has gained fame and infamy for tackling controversial topics with an ingeniously moronic and often hilarious approach. In such episodes, South Park toes the politically-correct line, and in some people’s eyes barrels right over it. The show has taken on countless topics of controversy, from Scientology to gay rights to abortion to stem cell research. It’s portrayed Mickey Mouse as a child-hating-corporate fearmonger, Jesus as a porn addict, Buddha as a cocaine addict, and Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, as a manipulative fraud. Most relevant to the current South Park controversy is its 2006 two-episode story “Cartoon Wars” provoked by the 2005 Danish Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons ordeal. Here, too, Comedy Central chose to censor South Park’s portrayal of Mohammad to the degree that they have even refused to re-air the episode; many websites which stream the show have been forced to pull the offending episodes, but you may watch them here, one of the only remaining websites which have not removed them.
It is very likely that Stone and Parker do not fully comprehend the evils that run rampant within radical Islamic societies. As an avid watcher of the show, I feel it safe to make the assumption that they focused the story on Mohammad in order to point out the absurdity of the very thing that ended up happening to them. Using humorously stupid scenarios in order to underscore the real stupidity of the topic featured in the episode at hand is South Park’s signature style of ballsy humor. When taken at its face value, it comes off as perhaps one of the most idiotic shows on the air; when analyzed on a deeper level, though, the viewer discovers an opinion or message that makes all the idiocy and humor of the past twenty minutes seem suddenly brilliant and sharp. Indeed, that Comedy Central censored South Park for focusing on Mohammad can almost be seen as a joke that is part of the show serving to underline its message– in this case, people trying to forbid others from making fun of them or their religion are not only immature and imbecilic, but they expect the socially impossible (the story ends with Tom Cruise, so sick of being made fun of in the media [just like the Muslims who tried to censor Parker and Stone], tries to escape social ridicule by going to the moon– where he suffocates and dies). It’s important to note that not only did Comedy Central censor all visual portrayal of Mohammad, but just to be safe it censored all mention of his name, too. The Muslim belief that nobody should pictorially display Mohammad is inane enough, but not even they have a rule forbidding people to use Mohammad’s name.
Comedy Central’s embarrassing actions are a dark foreboding of the world to come if others are to follow their example. People like van Gogh, Parker, and Stone, whether they know it or not, are now beacons of hope for free speech. Parker and Stone released a heartening response to their network’s spineless decision, stating “In the 14 years we’ve been doing ‘South Park’ we have never done a show that we couldn’t stand behind.”
Why does this matter?
Parker’s and Stone’s confident defense of their own free speech has inspired a number of people online to plan an “Everybody Draw Mohammad Day” event slated for May 20th. Originally begun as a single person’s response to the whole South Park-Mohammad fiasco, it has snowballed into a viral online event.
This upcoming event, just like the censorship of South Park, is a hard example of why the world today needs people like van Gogh and Parker and Stone. We need people with the courage to stand up in the face of terrifying idiocy and say, “No,” whether they say it through a serious documentary or a bear costume. Van Gogh had the courage to sign his name and face to Submission. Parker and Stone have the strength to stand up for South Park no matter who it offends. They have all already set examples for the free-thinking world. They’ve shown that nobody should be given special treatment above everyone else; a heavy drinking cocaine-addict will not stand for being censored out of fear, nor will the creators of a foulmouthed twenty-minute cartoon. It is vitally important that people like this continue to stand up for their right to free expression and not back down in the face of danger like Comedy Central did. They are in the public eye, and they are setting examples. Had Parker and Stone released a statement apologizing for the offending episodes, or censored the episodes themselves, it would have sent a drastically different message. Such actions would have told us that our human freedoms are meaningless, that we need to submit to hostility instead of fighting back. This is the message Comedy Central has given, and I can only hope Parker and Stone find a new and braver network that will stand alongside them in the name of free speech.
Van Gogh, Parker, Stone. The three of them have more in common than they may or could know. These people will inspire. They will drive to action. The free world is not going to sit around as a gag is tied around its head, but it needs figures of leadership and inspiration to get it on its feet. The world population’s free speech is coming under an attack the likes of which it has never seen before, using the very free speech we cherish in order to shut us up. We need people, free speech soldiers like van Gogh, Parker, Stone who are willing to stand behind what they believe in. What we all believe in. It doesn’t matter if Parker and Stone stand behind the episodes in question because they believe in their right to make fun of anyone and everyone, and not because of the encroaching Islamic threat as van Gogh did. They all stand behind their work for the same, single reason:
“It’s our right as human beings to make fun of you. And you’re going to deal with that.”
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