ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Thursday, Apr. 29 2010

So much for fearless Hollywood
By Colleen Carroll Campbell

Since their crude cartoon show began airing in 1997, "South Park" creators Trey
Parker and Matt Stone have used their animated characters and puerile humor to
mock everyone from Jesus Christ and his mother to presidents, popes and
celebrities. Fans see "South Park" as a beacon of courage in a politically
correct world. Critics see it as gratuitously offensive garbage. For its part,
host network Comedy Central sees the show as a cash cow that deserves free rein
to satirize everyone in sight.

Well, almost everyone.

This month, for their 200th and 201st episodes, Parker and Stone tackled the
ultimate taboo in our skittish, post-9/11 world: They constructed a storyline
around Muslim outrage over visual depictions of Mohammed. The first of the
two-part series featured other frequently lampooned religious figures and
celebrities marveling at Mohammed's ability to escape ridicule and showed what
appeared to be Mohammed (later, revealed to be Santa Claus) disguised in a bear
suit.

It's not exactly "The Satanic Verses," but even this comic poke at Muslim
sensibilities was enough to inspire a death threat. After the episode aired,
"South Park's" creators received an online "warning" about their impending doom
from the New York-based radical Islamist group Revolution Muslim. The group
posted Parker's and Stone's photos and addresses on its website, along with a
graphic photo of slain Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was murdered in 2004
after co-producing a film critical of Islam.

Comedy Central executives, normally so impervious to complaints from religious
critics of "South Park," suddenly discovered their sensitive side. They swiftly
censored the show's next episode, bleeping out every mention of Mohammed's
name, along with a concluding speech about — of all things — the need to resist
intimidation.

It wasn't the first time the irreverent network pulled its punches with regard
to Islam. In 2006, after violent protests had erupted across the Muslim world
in response to Danish cartoons satirizing Mohammed, Parker and Stone attempted
to weigh in on the controversy but Comedy Central thwarted their attempts to
depict Mohammed in the show. It seems that even the show that mocks everyone is
not free to mock Islam.

You don't have to like "South Park" — and I don't, at all — to worry about
cartoonists receiving homegrown death threats. We have seen journalists buckle
under this sort of pressure, as when newspapers and news networks covering the
Danish cartoon controversy refused to show the images that sparked worldwide
riots. Publishing houses have caved, too, as when Yale University Press decided
last year to publish "The Cartoon That Shook the World," a book about the
Danish controversy, without reprinting the actual cartoons.

In some ways, the "South Park" incident is even more alarming. Hollywood is the
land of self-styled iconoclasts, people who routinely conflate obscenity and
blasphemy with artistic excellence. Much of what they peddle in the name of
free speech is simply smut. Yet if there is one thing Hollywood elites loathe
above all else, it is theocracy. They can spot theocrats behind every church
door and angst ad nauseum about the civilizational collapse that would ensue if
they ever lost their license to mock conventional religious beliefs and mores —
especially those of Christians.

Given their famously bloated egos and exalted pretentions to artistic freedom,
it is significant when even Hollywood elites can be found cowering under their
desks for fear of fatwas. Their religious double standard — that Christianity
and, occasionally, Judaism may be mocked, but never Islam — is irritating, and
it's old news. But their palpable fear of jihad in response to an asinine
"South Park" episode, a fear that led to self-censorship over one rant on a
fringe website? That's something new and worrisome. More worrisome still is the
fact that anyone who has been paying attention for the past decade knows this
fear may be justified.

"South Park" may be the bottom-feeder of American entertainment, but it served
a useful social purpose this month. It reminded Americans how imperiled our
freedom of speech is in the age of Islamist extremism. And it taught us that
when it comes to confronting genuine threats of theocracy, as opposed to
imaginary ones, we cannot count on Hollywood.

Colleen Carroll Campbell is a St. Louis-based author, former presidential
speechwriter and television and radio host of "Faith & Culture" on EWTN. Her
website is www.colleen-campbell.com.