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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

#191

Post by IllogicalLogic »

azangru wrote: post #186
StaticRedux wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not privilege. It's a right the country has fought and died for for over 200 years. It's a principle the country was founded on. "Privilege" has lost all meaning in today's world. It's just a word to throw around to slow how "woke" you are. Calling our rights "privilege" is throwing out the struggle and sacrifice of everyone that fought for those rights. You may have been Lucky to have been born in the US, but n…

> Calling our rights "privilege" is throwing out the struggle and sacrifice of everyone that fought for those rights. But isn't it the very definition of privilege, when through no effort of your own you get to enjoy the benefits for which others have "fought", "struggled", and "sacrificed"? How is it different from the privilege of being born into a rich (or just functional) family? > You may have been Lucky to have…

> Calling our rights "privilege" is throwing out the struggle and sacrifice of everyone that fought for those rights.

Next South Park should do an episode that shows how greedy western leaders running opium/heroin for the better part of now two centuries, turned the most populous country into a paranoid dictatorial hellhole for the Chinese people.

US introspection would be too on the nose?

You ever ask yourself what percentage of the heroin/opium supply would be pulled off the market if China could extradite people from HK? More than 50%... and who gets hurt by that?

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

#192

Post by j8014 »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #95
RankingMember wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you start to add conditions/exceptions to free speech, it ceases to be free speech. Unpopular speech, however painful/nauseating, is explicitly protected in the U.S. If all speech was agreeable, there'd be no need for free speech laws.

This is false. There are many laws preventing different types of speech. For example death threats. Or sexual harassment. The list goes on.

Yes, targeting individuals by telling them you are going to kill them is not protected by the first amendment lol It has nothing to do with

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

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

#193

Post by SimbaOnSteroids »

jotm wrote: post #68
Phillips126 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing the causes of WW1[0] and WW2[1], seeing the name "South Park" on the WW3 wikipedia page [assuming the world still exists] would be the most bizarre thing I could imagine. That being said, it may just happen! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_World_War_I [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_World_War_II

That would go down as the single dumbest reason of civilization collapse, surely?

It would be up there with everyone turning on their hair dryers at the same time.

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

#194

Post by ddrdrck_ »

elliekelly wrote: post #124
ddrdrck_ wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?).

[flagged]

I was referring to "Chinese government's mass incarceration of ethnic minorities". The purpose of these camps is to brainwash these people so they lose their ethnic (muslim) identity and do not even think about rebellion.

This is terrible and horrible, especially children separated from their parents, most probably for ever. But once again it is a totally different "evil" than what Nazis did. It would be closer to what North Korea did to their entire population.

Organ harvesting is a different issue, it certainly happens in Xinjiang but also in any other place in China where there is prisoners. I mean, China government did not put in place all these camps just for taking organs or for forced labor, from an economic perspective it would be a nonsense.

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

#195

Post by corodra »

Stevvo wrote: post #143
corodra wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't know, I think they pretty much offend everyone poignantly. At such a level I find it hard that a brand, especially these days, wouldn't be scared to be affiliated with them. To their credit, yes, they tend to offend both sides of an issue in a rather honest way. There's a good reason they got a liberal award. They play middle fence pretty damn well... so well the group giving the award didn't know they were republicans.

Still, they do specifically call out groups. I can't think of any that are actually safe or get a pass. I mean, they rag on Christianity and Judaism all the time. Then they do an episode harpooning and calling out atheists & Dawkins for being a bunch of assholes and make the case that religion isn't so bad.

I don't know if we'll ever see another South Park. Tight turn around times on episodes so their content is fresh and relevant. Best example of balanced opinion thus far... as a show where kids swearing and making fart jokes are the tame/mild highlights of the episodes... It's just... I think it's a straight up anomaly, not simply a unique situation. Seinfeld being as long running, successful and "sophisticated" show, that was unique. South Park said "hold my beer" to that and then shits in your hand just to get laughed at by a fat kid with an alien dish satellite popping out of his ass. And we are all okay with it!

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

#196

Post by vkou »

nilkn wrote: post #152
zarro wrote: post #83

Before this episode I always wondered why they kept making those bad transformers movies, turns out China loves em. I think its fine if people want to make movies for the China market, but what I find alarming is copycat behavior trying to bring that sort of censorship here. It doesn't make any sense to me why anyone should apologize or censor themselves creatively just because someone got salty about it. I find the…

It's really not about morals at all. It's about money. China is the world's most populous country, and a surprising number of American industries are fairly dependent on revenue from Chinese customers. This effectively gives China indirect control over multiple major US corporations. Until recently, this has been hidden behind the scenes exceptionally well, but the curtains are being pulled aside as China is becoming…

Every artist that cares about mass market appeal has to self-censor, lest they not offend a large market segment.

That is the point this episode of South Park very deliberately avoids talking about.

Nobody's stopping them from creating art. Really is, unfortunately, putting constraints on which kind of art is going to get bankrolled by millions of dollars of say, Hollywood money.

Those constraints have always been there, and will always be there.

Want free speech? Don't ask for other people's money... They may have opinions about what you should say, using it.

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

#197

Post by klagermkii »

akiselev wrote: post #173
klagermkii wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main issue is that the choice of the words "privilege" or "right", when used by enough people, has the power to set societal expectations. Why should a privilege ever be extended to more people, the people who have them should just consider themselves lucky they aren't taken away. And I think there are plenty of things that are "privileges", but it's based on the idea that it is impossible to extend it to…

Wouldn't the privilege be in the ability to exercise rights without paying a price like so many groups have had to in our history? This all sounds like a confusing semantics game.

Every right has been resisted at some point. It doesn't drift in and out of privilege status depending on how must resistance is being applied at any one moment.

A right gains its power from people's belief that it should be universally granted, and that they will stick up for others when that right gets breached. Once a thing gets redefined as a privilege there is no expectation for people to stand up for other privilege.

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

#198

Post by farisjarrah »

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…

Tropic Thunder Robert Downey Jr. compilation from youtube for context. NSFW due to violence and swearing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9eUnzGc_Kw

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

#199

Post by throwaway13372 »

siruncledrew wrote: post #2

What’s kinda funny is how made fun of China was in past South Park episodes[0] and China didn’t care at all about the show, but last week’s episode was the one that set them off. [0] “The China Probrem”: https://images.app.goo.gl/mDqxY6pSuNHtA66M8

Had any one or any group of people left any impression that they can be consistent across long time frame?

If so, let me know, I'd be very interested in studying their logic thinking and memory, and how they manage to be consistent at all.

That said, there are billions of reasons why things was reacted this way or ignored altogether, and later differently.

That's the norm.

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

#200

Post by AnthonyMouse »

azangru wrote: post #186
StaticRedux wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not privilege. It's a right the country has fought and died for for over 200 years. It's a principle the country was founded on. "Privilege" has lost all meaning in today's world. It's just a word to throw around to slow how "woke" you are. Calling our rights "privilege" is throwing out the struggle and sacrifice of everyone that fought for those rights. You may have been Lucky to have been born in the US, but n…

> Calling our rights "privilege" is throwing out the struggle and sacrifice of everyone that fought for those rights. But isn't it the very definition of privilege, when through no effort of your own you get to enjoy the benefits for which others have "fought", "struggled", and "sacrificed"? How is it different from the privilege of being born into a rich (or just functional) family? > You may have been Lucky to have…

> But isn't it the very definition of privilege, when through no effort of your own you get to enjoy the benefits for which others have "fought", "struggled", and "sacrificed"? How is it different from the privilege of being born into a rich (or just functional) family?

The reason this framing is despicable is that rights and privileges are not the same.

Being able to afford a Lexus is a privilege. Not everyone has it and that's OK.

Having access to clean water is a right. Not everyone has it and that's not OK.

Free speech is a right. Everyone should have it even if some people currently don't.

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