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May 09, 2010
Islam Becomes Taboo Topic on TV in Wake of 'South Park' Threats and Times Square Scare
Islam Becomes Taboo Topic on TV in Wake of 'South Park' Threats and Times Square Scare
By Jo Piazza
It isn’t worth endangering the safety of an entire staff or network by pursuing a storyline that Muslim extremists might find offensive, media executives and writers tell Fox411.com.
Don't mess with Allah. That's the new, unwritten code in Hollywood following the one-two punch of Islamic extremists' threats against the creators of "South Park" and the failed bombing attempt outside the cartoon’s parent company, Viacom, in New York's Times Square.
In the current, supercharged climate, it just isn’t worth endangering the safety of an entire production staff or network by pursuing a storyline that Muslim extremists might find offensive, media executives and writers tell Fox411.com.
Aasif Mandvi, a self-described “liberal Muslim” and the “senior Islamic correspondent” for Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, said on air after the “South Park” threats that it would upset him to see the Prophet Muhammad depicted in a cartoon. But, he added: “Here’s what’s more upsetting. Someone, in the name of a faith that I believe in, threatening another person for doing it.”
But after the failed Times Square terror attack, "The Daily Show" asked Mandvi not to comment further on the matter, according to his spokesman. In fact, reps for the networks and television shows reached for comment on this article, including Comedy Central, Cartoon Network, FOX, NBC, and CBS, either failed to respond or asked to speak on background for fear of retribution.
And it isn’t just comedians on fake newscasts who are being muzzled. One writer for a scripted drama fold Fox411.com that in one of his show's final episodes, there had been a minor plot point involving a Muslim extremist. Last week it was removed and the script was rewritten, he said.
Hussein Rashid, religion professor and religion dispatches associate editor at Hofstra University, said he is concerned that self-censorship will lead to a shutdown of the dialogue that must continue if people can be brought to understand the true meaning of Islam.
“I don’t think it is ever smart to self-censor,” Rashid told Fox411.com. “I am a big believer that the response to speech should always be more speech. I think this ‘South Park’ episode has been good for that conversation.”
But when it comes to Islam, the conversation seems only to be getting quieter.
Random House canceled the 2008 publication of Sherry Jones’ “The Jewel of Medina” out of fear it would incite acts of violence, and last year Yale University decided remove all images of Muhammad from Jytte Klausen's book, “The Cartoons that Shook the World,” a book commenting on the Danish cartoon controversy that sparked violence in the Muslim world.
The subject has gotten so sensitive, media pros are even chilling the conversation in forums where no one is watching.
“The writer’s room has always been a safe place for jokes of any sort, the dirtiest jokes you can think of that you could never tell in public because your own mother would hate you,” a network comedy writer told Fox411.com. “But for the first time we feel like there is a taboo.”
But religion in general hasn’t become taboo -- just Islam. The Cartoon Network squeaked under the radar in March when it showed a racy depiction of Jesus voiced by jailed rapper Lil' Wayne. And Comedy Central is developing "JC," a half-hour cartoon about Christ wanting to escape the shadow of his "powerful but apathetic father" and live a regular life in New York City.
One show recently appeared willing to go out on a limb. The April 27 episode of the CBS series “The Good Wife” featured a storyline in which a newspaper editor was killed for publishing an editorial cartoon showing the Prophet Muhammad being searched by airport security officers.
But that episode was written and filmed before the "South Park" threats, and it aired before the Times Square terror scare. Whether the same script would be written today is an open question.
"A liberal democracy depends on the principle that each person is entitled to hold and express his or her own beliefs," said Svetlana Mintcheva, director of the Arts Program for the National Coalition Against Censorship. "The failure to stand up for free expression emboldens those who would attack and undermine it.”
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Wild Thing's comment........
Good grief, sure let's all just cave in to Islam and let them rule and have their way all they want.
This is exactly what the Islam agenda is hoping for.
......Thank you RAC for sending this to me.
RAC has a website that is awesome. 336th Assault Helicopter Company
13th Combat Aviation Battalion - 1st Aviation Brigade - Soc Trang, Republic of Vietnam
Posted by Wild Thing at May 9, 2010 07:55 AM
Comments
In case you missed this site:
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
Monthly Jihad Report
April, 2010
Jihad Attacks: 149
Countries: 18
Religions: 5
Dead Bodies: 701
Critically Injured: 1793
Posted by: Duane at May 9, 2010 10:37 AM
Actually, what jihadists hate are the left/libtard idiots ruining our country we don't like much either, but we're paying the freight for said left/libtard idiots because those jihadists don't disciminate between all us no-go infidels anyway, we're all alike. (Stereotyping is, of course, bigoted but are left/libtards brave enough to point that out? Not versus islamists-- who scare them and would probably hang them as Godless pagans-- but about "islamophobic" conservatives, many of whom [unlike those left/libtards] are in the military, who defend their right to be buttheads.)
Posted by: Anonymous at May 9, 2010 10:52 AM
Every time I read a story like this I keep hearing my grandfather's voice in the back of my head saying "they're yellow, they're cowards!"
Posted by: MrHappy at May 9, 2010 11:09 AM
Left/libtards are afraid if we say islamists are violent and intolerant, the islamists will be violent ad intolerant... come to think of it, left/libtards are just cowards.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 9, 2010 08:23 PM
'It isn't worth endangering the entire staff' so they are just going to ignore the news. Fox shame on you. If I remember my history, thats exactly what the news in Germany did, ignore Hitler he'll just go away.
Posted by: Mark at May 9, 2010 09:04 PM
Duane, thanks that is an important site.
Anonymous, well said!
Mr.Happy, they sure are and yuor grandfather was so right too.
Anonymous, they really are cowards, I agree.
Mark, exactly and that is the perfect example too.
Posted by: Wild Thing at May 10, 2010 01:51 AM
