It's bloody sacrilege!

Offensive language warning*. Skip this first blue passage if you're easily offended. Hell, skip the whole post.

"Defamer" at Yahoo! News reports, "Bloody Mary" Episode Ensures South Park Guys a Bungalow in Hell: Perhaps the most outrageous and offensive South Park episode of all time (and that's really saying something), "Bloody Mary," which first aired Dec. 7 as this season's finale, was pulled from the network schedule last night. Its plot involves a statue of the Virgin Mary, which appears to be miraculously bleeding from its rectum. Pope Benedict XVI is called in to investigate, and upon discovering the statue is instead hemorrhaging from its vagina, says, ahem, "A chick bleeding out her vagina is no miracle. Chicks bleed out their vaginas all the time." Quoting from the E Online article, Somewhat predictably, the Catholic League was incensed by the satirical portrayal of the Virgin Mary and the pope and by the fact that the episode aired on the day before the Catholic Church celebrated its Feast of the Immaculate Conception. The conservative group demanded an apology from Viacom, Comedy Central's parent company, to Roman Catholics everywhere and "a pledge that this episode be permanently retired and not be made available on DVD." The Catholic League succeeded, apparently. We may never see this episode again. Was it tasteless? Yeah. South Park often is. Can I see how this would offend devout Catholics? Sure, but . . . why the hell are they watching South Park in the first place? And is Defamer right that this is "Perhaps the most outrageous and offensive South Park episode of all time"? Max from PGNX.net says it well: South Park lambasts homosexuals, transsexuals, Scientologists, vegans, Jews, Mormons, atheists and everyone else under the sun. But suddenly the Catholics are off limits? They've nailed the Catholics before; in "Red Hot Catholic Love," Trey and Matt skewered the Church on their hypocrisy vis a vis pedophilia. But they don't pick on the Catholics -- that's Max's point. They pick on everyone. My Japanese-American wife isn't offended by the Chinpokomon episode. I'm not offended by the fact Cartman slams Kyle for being Jewish in every single episode. In "Ike's Wee Wee", the writers dealt with circumcision, while in "Jewbilee", they misrepresented the whole religion. (Jews worship Moses, who appears in the sky as a spinning draedel and demands sacrifices of macaroni art.)

God Himself shows up from time to time on South Park. In case you haven't seen Him, He looks like this:

Devout Jews (like Moslems, too, if I'm not mistaken) don't want to see images of God (or Moses, for that matter), so any image is sacrilegious. Depicting God as a freak of genetic engineering? Well, that's just icing on the cake. Jesus is a regular character on the show, and (in "Red Sleigh Down") once used automatic weapons to gun down a bunch of Iraqis who had kidnapped Santa Claus. AND don't forget Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo.

There's something in South Park to offend everyone. Is there anyone in the English-speaking universe who doesn't already know this? I've been offended by them, too -- not for any of their Jewish jokes, but for their occasional support of questionable political positions. (For example, if I remember correctly, their "Rainforest Schmainforest" episode got my goat.) Usually, but not always, South Park is funny as hell. That buys them a lot of mileage in my opinion. Tasteless and humorless media deserves the fate it gets -- a rapid fall into a cultural black hole. (Does anyone but me remember Joan Rivers' movie Rabbit Test?) But if you're funny, hey, I'll cut you some slack. It's not the first thing that comes to mind when I watch South Park, but the show is also a wonderful demonstration of the First Amendment in action. Enjoy it while it lasts. Do we really need another voice to say, "If you don't like it, don't watch it"? D. *Maureen, to answer your question: since now.