The Ultimate South Park and Philosophy (18 page)

Every generation has its
South Park
. It was
The Simpsons
more than a decade ago and before that, explicit lyrics à la 2 Live Crew and, before that, punk. And before that, it was rock ’n’ roll, drugs, hoop skirts, two-piece bathing suits, chewing gum, sarsaparilla—you get the picture. There’s always a scapegoat. Civilization isn’t declining. The fact that there were no cartoon riots in the US—nor have there been
South Park
riots—indicates that freedom of speech is working. Tolerance does not require silence, nor does it require an absence of criticism, mockery, or even ridicule.

In fact, many of the blasphemous episodes of
South Park
make just this point. In “The Passion of the Jew,” Stan lectures Mel Gibson, who insists that being a good Christian requires enjoying Gibson’s “The Passion.” “No, dude, if you wanna be Christian, that’s cool, but, you should follow what Jesus taught instead of how he got killed. Focusing on how he got killed is what people did in the Dark Ages and it ends up with really bad results.” In “Red Hot Catholic Love,” Randy, ­having once again learned a lesson from his son, reclaims his faith, observing: “[Father Maxi’s] right, Sharon. We don’t have to believe every word of the Bible. They’re just stories to help us to live by. We shouldn’t toss away the lessons of the Bible just because some ­assholes in Italy screwed it up.” In “Do the Handicapped Go To Hell?” Timmy’s inability to give confession or complete his first communion doom him to hell according to Father Maxi, even while some nuns suggest that because he is good, he shouldn’t go to hell. Finally, in “All About Mormons,” Gary, the little Mormon kid, voices the lesson that Parker and Stone frequently teach in their messed-up way:

Look, maybe us Mormons do believe in crazy stories that make ­absolutely no sense, and maybe Joseph Smith did make it all up, but I have a great life, and a great family, and I have
The Book of Mormon
to thank for that. The truth is, I don’t care if Joseph Smith made it up, because what the church teaches now is loving your family, being nice, and helping people. And even though people in
this
town might think that’s stupid, I still choose to believe in it. All I ever did was try to be your friend, Stan, but you’re so high and mighty you couldn’t look past my religion and just be my friend back. You’ve got a lot of growing up to do buddy.

This same loving yet mocking attitude is displayed in spades in Parker’s and Stone’s hit musical
The Book of Mormon
, illustrating even more clearly their love of Mormons while ridiculing their ­religion. In a radio interview I did when the show opened, the Mormon counterpoint to my point of view was in near complete agreement with me. They’re really nice people, and no death threats have ensued over the musical either.

South Park
’s ultimately pragmatic view of religion is just this: they mock not the belief, but the believer, and credit the believer where their lives reflect good, ethical practice. They also point out hypocrisy wherever possible. Because the show treats nothing as sacred, this lesson comes across as genuine rather than as preachy. By mocking everything, the show’s lessons have a deeper meaning. So, what good did Comedy Central do by censoring a depiction of Muhammad giving someone a helmet? What positive impact is there from refusing to re-air an episode that explains the actual tenets of Scientology? In fact,
South Park
’s continual quest for reason and its mockery of irrationality is legitimate cultural criticism. The mockery of religion is subordinate to mockery of society, a society that overreacts to ­perceived affronts. There’s plenty to be offended by in
South Park
, and it’s all treated on an equal basis. Nothing is sacred, and that’s what comedy is about. To quote Gary, from the end of the soliloquy above, if you don’t like it, Comedy Central, “suck my balls!”

1
.
Zeisweiss v. James
, 63, Pa. 465.

2
. See Fred Whitehead and Verle Muhrer,
Free Thought on the American Frontier
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus Press, 1992).

3
. John Stuart Mill,
On Liberty
(New York: Penguin Book, 1975). See
The Infidel Tradition: From Paine to Bradlaugh
, ed. Edward Royle. (New York: Macmillan Publishers, 1976), 206.

4
. Leonard Levy,
Blasphemy: Verbal Offense Against the Sacred, from Moses to Salman Rushdie
(Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1993).

5
.
Lemon v. U.K
., Decision of the Commission, May 7, 1982. 5 E.H.R.R 123, para. 11. Also see Sheldon Leader, “Blasphemy and Human Rights,”
The Modern Law Review
46 (1983): 338–345.

Kevin J. Murtagh

In “Bloody Mary,” a statue of the Virgin Mary is depicted as bleeding, apparently “out its ass.” People come from all over to witness this supposed miracle, and a cardinal is sent by the Vatican to inspect the statue. He looks closely at the blood mark, and the statue seemingly farts and sprays blood all over his face. “It’s a miracle!” he decrees. Shortly thereafter, Pope Benedict XVI shows up to inspect the statue himself. After the statue “farts” blood into his face, he declares that the statue is not bleeding out its ass, but out its vagina, and that a “chick bleeding out her vagina is no miracle. Chicks bleed out their vaginas all the time.”

A statue of the Virgin Mary
bleeding out its ass
? The thought alone is disgusting, and finding out later that the statue was just having its period does nothing to lessen the disgust. And menstrual blood being sprayed
on the pope’s face
? This all struck me as over the line, and something about it seemed
wrong
. Have I “gone soft” as I’ve gotten older? Perhaps I’ve become a bit of a prude, the kind of person that younger people like to mock for being too stuffy and serious. But I doubt that. After all, “Bloody Mary” made me laugh, even as I cringed.

Are Parker and Stone doing something morally wrong by using blasphemy for comic effect? There seemed to me something morally wrong about the “Bloody Mary” episode. I had, you might say, an
intuition
that some moral boundary was crossed. But, though moral philosophy (the branch of philosophy that’s about what we ought to do and how we ought to live) can sometimes begin with intuitions, it can’t end with them. A philosophy that proclaims an action moral or immoral has to be grounded in good reasons and solid evidence along with intuitions. Perhaps examining this question through the lens of
utilitarianism
—a very influential moral theory popularized by John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)—will help us to answer it. Utilitarians attempt to calculate the potential positive and negative consequences of acting in a situation. They believe that the morally right decision is the one that promotes the greatest balance of positive over negative consequences, taking everyone who’s affected by the decision into consideration.
¹
So, from a utilitarian perspective, it may be that blasphemous humor is morally acceptable on grounds that it makes a lot of people happy; or, it may be immoral on grounds that it causes a lot of shock, anger, and displeasure. But before we discuss this ethical issue, it will be helpful to get a better idea of what blasphemy is.

“Blasphemy” is difficult to define. Like many words, we have a ­general idea of what it means, but giving a precise definition of it proves to be difficult. Blasphemy is characterized by irreverence or disrespect for something deemed sacred, such as a god, gods, or “people of God” like the pope, priests, and nuns. Often in
South Park
, a sacred figure is depicted as performing actions that are at odds with his supposed character. The episode “201” provides lots of examples of this sort of blasphemy, including the exchange between Jesus and Buddha after Buddha snorts cocaine:

JESUS:
Buddha, will you lay off that stuff already? It’s getting to be a problem.

BUDDHA:
Oh, and you’re one to talk, with all of your Internet porn.

JESUS:
Watching porn isn’t like doing coke, fag.

In addition to this kind of irreverence, blasphemy often involves showing contempt for or hatred of God.
²
Consider the Mole in the
South Park
movie, who calls God many names, including “cocksucking asshole,” “bitch,” “faggot,” and “fucking rat.” If there are any clear instances of blasphemy, these certainly are.

Playing on or making statements that contain religious stereotypes isn’t necessarily blasphemy, though. In the episode “Jewpacabra,” Cartman claims that “a bloodsucking creature called the Jewpacabra” is in South Park, and he describes it as being “like a Sasquatch, only more elusive, more ferocious, and a little more greedy.” This statement, of course, plays on the stereotype that Jews are greedy. As such, it may involve prejudice, but not blasphemy. It’s important to point this out, since
South Park
is full of humor that trades on religious ­stereotypes. This sort of humor, provided it does not also show disrespect for the sacred, is not blasphemous. Of course, that doesn’t mean that it’s morally acceptable. It just means that it’s not blasphemous.

It may also be helpful to offer a definition of blasphemous humor. This is difficult for the same reason that defining blasphemy is ­difficult: we have a general idea of what
humor
means, but how to formulate a precise definition? Whatever humor is, it seems to have something to do with amusement or funniness.
³
So, for our purposes, we can define
blasphemous humor
as some presentation that’s intended to be amusing or funny, in which something deemed sacred is portrayed in a disrespectful or irreverent manner. This definition is far from perfect, but it will suit us just fine. Given this definition, it’s clear that
South Park
contains a great deal of blasphemous humor.

Now that we’ve clarified some concepts, we can return to our question. Are Parker and Stone doing something morally wrong by using ­blasphemous humor? Let’s attempt to answer this question with ­utilitarian ethics.

In Chapter 2 of his book
Utilitarianism
, Mill explains his theory in the following way: “The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals ‘utility’ or the ‘greatest happiness principle’ holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the ­privation of pleasure.”
⁴
Mill believes there’s a single basic moral principle, which he refers to as the “principle of utility” or the “greatest happiness principle.” This principle demands that we focus on the consequences of our actions and, in particular, on the happiness and unhappiness produced by them. The moral action will be the one that produces the greatest balance of happiness over unhappiness, everyone considered.

Now, we can’t just take into consideration the happiness and unhappiness of those we care about, or those in our community; we have to account for
everyone
who’s affected, directly or indirectly, by the action. Beyond this, we must weigh the happiness and unhappiness of each individual equally. Mill is very clear that I can’t treat my own happiness as more important than yours, and I cannot take the happiness of my friends to be more important than the happiness of strangers just because I happen to have a close bond with my friends. The happiness of every individual affected by the action must be given equal weight.

A utilitarian needs to consider alternative courses of action and, for each course, must attempt to determine the balance of happiness over unhappiness that would be likely to come about as a result. Here are two alternatives: (1) Parker and Stone making
South Park
with the blasphemous humor, the way they do in fact make it, or (2) Parker and Stone making it without the blasphemous humor. Which course of action would have better consequences? Or, to pose the question in a way that’s closer to the language of Mill’s theory, which course of action would produce the greater balance of happiness over unhappiness? To answer this question, we need to look at the ways in which the blasphemous humor in
South Park
leads to happiness and the ways in which it leads to unhappiness.

First, let’s look at the negative consequences. Quite obviously, blasphemous humor is offensive to many people, and offending people tends to promote unhappiness. Returning to “Bloody Mary,” it’s clear why Christians were offended by that episode. According to Christian teachings, Mary was the mother of Jesus Christ, the son of God. As the mother of Jesus, Mary is considered to be a sacred figure in the Christian faith. Many Christians pray to Mary, and Catholics especially view her as an individual of immense spiritual importance. So, it’s not terribly surprising that many Christians were offended by an episode that depicted a statue of Mary spraying blood out of a bodily orifice onto people’s faces (whether it’s her “ass” or her vagina seems to matter little). This offense was presumably compounded by the fact that she sprayed blood onto the face of a cardinal and, later, the pope.

In “Cartoon Wars Part I” we actually find Cartman (of all characters!) objecting to blasphemous humor. A little set-up is required here. In this episode, the adults in South Park are terrified because an ­episode of
Family Guy
that will be aired shortly is supposed to contain a depiction of Muhammad, the Islamic prophet and a sacred figure in the Muslim faith. Muslims consider any sort of depiction of their prophet to be blasphemous, and the adults in South Park are worried that Muslims will be upset by the
Family Guy
episode and will react violently.
⁵
The episode airs, with the image of Muhammad blacked-out, and Cartman, Stan, and Kyle discuss whether or not it was wrong for the people behind
Family Guy
to attempt to show an image of Muhammad: