This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
YKTTW: Clumsy Copyright Censorship
launched as Clumsy Copyright Censorship
Prfnoff: Don't think this has anything to do with copyright...
- An interesting case arises in an episode of South Park that revolved around an episode of Family Guy that would show an image of Islam founder Muhammad (an act that is strictly forbidden by practitioners of Islam; this episode was inspired by a real-life controversy in 2005 when a Danish newspaper did just that.) At the end of the episode, the FOX president decides to run the episode, but instead of us seeing Muhammad "just standing there looking normal", the scene is replaced by a simple black screen with white text explaining that- in a twist of irony- Comedy Central had refused to air an image of Muhammad on its network. The black screen was at the request of the South Park creators, who wanted to show their protest at what they saw as self-censorship.
- Of course, the show depicted Muhammad years ago with no controversy whatsoever in the episode "Super Best Friends."
- Incidentally, depicting the image of Muhammad is forbidden only by the Shia Muslims, while the Sunni have no problems with it as long as it isn't disrespectful. (The Danish cartoonist depicted him as a terrorist, not actually to compare him to one, but to mock the Muslim terrorists who apparently did - needless to say, few got the point.)
