Release
Paramount Pictures won a jump ball with Warner Bros. (parent companies Viacom and Time Warner, respectively, jointly owned Comedy Central until Time Warner exited the venture in 2003) to release the film in the United States and international releases from 2004–present, with WB getting the international rights until 2004 when Viacom bought all of Comedy Central.
The film was rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America; this rating did not come as surprise to most media outlets, as many had predicted long before that the film would likely be for ages 18 and over. However, there was much more discussion within the MPAA than initially reported in the media. The board's objections to the film were described in highly specific terms by Paramount Pictures executives in private memos circulating at Paramount. For months the ratings board insisted on the more prohibitive NC-17. South Park was screened by the MPAA six times - five times, the board returned the movie to Paramount with an NC-17. The last submission the filmmakers received was an NC-17, two weeks before release. A marketing agent from Paramount called the two and explained that the studio "needed" an R. In response, Stone called producer Scott Rudin and "freaked out." Rudin then called a Paramount executive and, in Stone's words, "freaked out on them." The next day the film was changed to an R rating without reason, with the original film intact. "The ratings board only cared about the dirty words; they're so confused and arbitrary," said Parker to The New York Times shortly before the release of the picture. "They didn't blink twice because of violence." During production of trailer for the film, the raters objected to certain words but had no problem with a scene in which cartoon bullets are killing soldiers. "They had a problem with words, not bullets," he said. The MPAA gave Paramount specific notes for the film; in contrast, Parker and Stone's NC-17 comedy Orgazmo, released in 1997 by independent distributor October Films, was not given any specifications as to make the movie acceptable for an R rating. The duo attributed the R rating to the fact that Paramount is a member of the MPAA; the distributor dismissed these claims. The film was given a 15 certificate by the British Board of Film Classification with no cuts made. It was rated MA15+ (Mature accompanied for those under 15) by the Australian Classification Board without cuts.
As predicted through the actions of the boys in the film, there were numerous news reports of underage fans of South Park engaging in unsuccessful attempts to gain entrance to the film at theaters. There were reports of adolescents purchasing tickets for WB's own Wild Wild West and instead sitting in to see South Park. This came as a result of a movie-industry crackdown that would make it tougher for minors to sneak into R-rated films, as proposed by President Bill Clinton at the time in response to the moral panic generated by the Columbine High School massacre, which occurred two months before the film's release. South Park was cited, along with American Pie as explicit films released the summer of 1999 tempting teens to sneak into theaters. When the film was released in the United Kingdom in August 1999, there were similar reports of the film drawing an underage crowd.
Hayes, voice of Chef in the film, responded to conservatives urging prudishness as a cure for society's ills: "If we give in to that and allow to become a scapegoat, you might wind up living in who-know's-what kind of state.... If you believe in and you've got a moral conviction, take it to 'em!" The rating of film later brought comparisons to Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, released in theaters in a digitally altered and censored version just two weeks after South Park. Another Warner Bros.-distributed film, Kubrick's original cut of Eyes Wide Shut initially was given an NC-17 rating, but Warner Bros. then blocked out characters in an orgy scene so the film could be rated R. In response to these debates and controversy, Stone called the MPAA a "bumbling, irresponsible organization".
Read more about this topic: South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
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“We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others.”
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