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'We good now China?' South Park creators issue mock apology

theguardian.com

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Re: 'We good now China?' South Park creators issue mock apology

#141

Post by blix »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #88
corodra wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, lets not forget their detention camps for ethnic minorities they don't like: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/23/china-footage-... I mean at this rate, I seriously think in a decade or two, we're going to find a Holocaust level event has been going on in China that's going to make the Nazis look like amateurs. But instead, we're focused on stupid left/right political differences and figuring out wheth…

Putting ethnic minorities in concentration camps is an early-Holocaust atrocity today .

Or maybe it's just a Japanese-internment level atrocity.

Re: 'We good now China?' South Park creators issue mock apology

#142

Post by wbl »

ddrdrck_ wrote: post #101
elliekelly wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Brainwashing millions of people is a terrible thing to do, but I don't believe it is on the same level of atrocity than genocide and mass murdering. Nazis did not try to "assimilate" Jews by forcing them to reject their religion and traditions, and by forcing weddings between aryan and jews (could you imagine that ?).

It's still genocide under the definition in the genocide convention.

Re: 'We good now China?' South Park creators issue mock apology

#143

Post by Stevvo »

corodra wrote: post #102
smitty1e wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comedy is threatened by corporations and people assuming the position for tyranny.

To be fair for Viacom, they still haven't pulled South Park. In fact, they renewed it until 2022. Yes, they've forced censorship here and there. But when you take South Park as a whole, you'd be hard pressed to find a big entertainment conglomerate who would allow South Park antics. Matt and Trey really don't take prisoners and Viacom has been bank rolling that. They've done what they can to protect themselves legall…

South Park is in a unique situation, because they make fun of everyone, it's less toxic to brands than a show that has offeneded a specific group.

Re: 'We good now China?' South Park creators issue mock apology

#144

Post by whereistimbo »

brodouevencode wrote: post #134
whereistimbo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, according to official south park website southpark.cc.com: SOUTH PARK ©2019 COMEDY PARTNERS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. COMEDY CENTRAL. SOUTH PARK AND ALL RELATED TITLES, LOGOS AND CHARACTERS ARE TRADEMARKS OF COMEDY PARTNERS.

Wikipedia says it's owned by Viacom - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Park_(franchise) Maybe there's some nuance in rights vs ownership, idk.

Comedy Partner is a subsidiary of MTV Networks, which itself is a subsidiary of Viacom, so it makes sense I guess, although I still lean towards South Park official website.

Re: 'We good now China?' South Park creators issue mock apology

#145

Post by cestith »

Roark66 wrote: post #123
dTal wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they weren't, how on Earth would you know? Being anything other than publicly "overwhelmingly supportive of the government" gets you killed. I believe many Chinese citizens are aware that their situation is not ideal ("oppressed" is probably not quite the right word), because I believe at least some subset of Chinese citizens are not brainwashed morons and any idiot can see what's going on. If they really had over…

I think many Chinese citizens are taught from a very young age a carefully crafted ideology that tells them that their country used to be oppressed by the west, that the west despises them and looks down at them because they are Chinese. At the same time they are taught Chinese people couldn't handle the kind of "freedom" that exists in the west because politically the country would fracture and chaos would ensue, al…

To be fair, the Chinese have in fact been treated horribly many times in many places by many other countries including at least the US and Japan.

Re: 'We good now China?' South Park creators issue mock apology

#146

Post by blix »

throwaway_bad wrote: post #120
hevi_jos wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For your information, Mr Hitler killed over 5 million people. Mao killed way over 30 million. Absolutely incompetent, he manage to remain in power just using terror. The other day there was an 70th anniversary of the founding of PRC and this criminal's gigantic picture was at the hotspot.

Technically speaking it's not really apples to apples. One is due to malice (hitler was actively trying to exterminate a race). The other is due to incompetence (mao would've preferred if those people didn't die but was too stupid to predict the result of his actions). Not trying to defend either of them of course. But just for the record books we would should have a saner way of counting. If you're going to attribut…

> When there is not enough to eat, people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.

I think you are overattributing his stupidity here. Engineered famine is a fantastic way to make sure populations that don't like you are less of a problem in the future. The Holdomor and Irish Potato Famine are two other obvious examples.

Re: 'We good now China?' South Park creators issue mock apology

#147

Post by corodra »

throwaway_bad wrote: post #120
hevi_jos wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For your information, Mr Hitler killed over 5 million people. Mao killed way over 30 million. Absolutely incompetent, he manage to remain in power just using terror. The other day there was an 70th anniversary of the founding of PRC and this criminal's gigantic picture was at the hotspot.

Technically speaking it's not really apples to apples. One is due to malice (hitler was actively trying to exterminate a race). The other is due to incompetence (mao would've preferred if those people didn't die but was too stupid to predict the result of his actions). Not trying to defend either of them of course. But just for the record books we would should have a saner way of counting. If you're going to attribut…

You're not aware of how communist regimes form. They're actually really smart in this regard.

You kill everyone that doesn't agree with you, along with their family. That's anyone who didn't fight with you either. Let along just against. The 20-45 million that died from famine is in addition to a rough estimate of 30 million killed during and shortly after the revolution. You see the same in Russia too. Oh and in Cambodia. They all actually focused on the "intelligentsia" community first. Cambodia just decided to wipe them all out. Russia and China were big on making double sure they were with the party (not just neutral), before they passed up on killing them. The book 1984 really wasn't accidental in that regard. The more you could think for yourself, the more dangerous you were to the party.

It's not an accident that people are scared to criticize these governments. That's where John Steinbeck really fucked up in his book the Russian Journal. Saying "Oh, do you know anyone that's disappeared because of the soviet regime". If you don't know any Russians (at the time)... I mean, duh, you're probably not going to. But talk to even one dissident against the soviet regime in any of the eastern bloc, they'll give you a list of names of who they personally know.

Re: 'We good now China?' South Park creators issue mock apology

#148

Post by a0zU »

throwaway_bad wrote: post #47
dekhn wrote: post #39

I have to say, this is really the only way to respond to China when it comes to their no-humor censors: just come out and mock them. They don't really have any way to reply. One wonders if there is an entire revolutionary class within China sharing South Park videos for freedom.

Sometimes we forget that getting disappeared in china is not just a meme. Police will show up to arrest you just for posting comments online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCOAbkTs_a4

Nobody's forgotten that it isn't a meme.

Re: 'We good now China?' South Park creators issue mock apology

#149

Post by forgottenpass »

diveanon wrote: post #9
peteretep wrote: post #7

There was a time when the fact that they’re Americans would definitely protect their right to do stuff like this, but these days I’d worry that China will invalidate some Ivanka trademarks, and the creators will find themselves under very heavy pressure from above.

I truly doubt they would cave to any pressure at all. Those two thrive on this kind of controversy, I can basically picture them sitting back and rubbing their nipples while watching this unfold. We need more people like Trey Parker and Matt Stone who aren't afraid of starting some controversy to get a conversation started. They choose to do it through cartoons and satire, but I honestly believe they understand our s…

>We need more people like Trey Parker and Matt Stone who aren't afraid of starting some controversy to get a conversation started.

The part of Parker and Stone worth duplicating is that they they somehow have political opinions orders of magnitude better informed than whatever keeps celebrities and tv/movie writers so goddamn dumb.

Re: 'We good now China?' South Park creators issue mock apology

#150

Post by cestith »

SmirkingRevenge wrote: post #57
chrisweekly wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without touching on the ethical / moral aspect of stereotyping or disrespecting large groups of people, I'm curious if "racist" is the right adjective here, vs some other term that relates more to nationality vs biological ethnicity?

The way South Park employs xenophobic/racist/sexist tropes is interesting - they are either so silly that its really hard for anyone to take offense, or they spread it around so much - no one group is ever singled out - and no one group is ever spared. That gives us all permission to laugh at them, and laugh at ourselves, when the time comes. Or... the portrayal isn't actually targeting group of the character embodyi…

To be more precise he's the only black fairly major child character. He has a family, there was Chef in earlier seasons, there are a few black minor recurring characters besides those, and there are black single-episode characters. But yes, after the death of Chef it turns out Token is the only major character who is black.
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