South Park Controversies - Criticism and Protests

Criticism and Protests

As the series first became popular in the United States, schools in the states of Georgia and Connecticut suspended students for wearing South Park-related t-shirts, while a group of school principals in New Jersey mounted a small campaign to notify parents of the show's content. In a 1999 poll conducted by NatWest Bank, eight and nine-year-old children in the United Kingdom voted the South Park character Cartman as their favorite personality. This drew the concern of several parent councils who were expecting a character from a children's television show to top the list, and the headmaster of a Cambridgeshire public school urged parents to prevent their children from watching the show. Parker and Stone, who are not opposed to allowing older children and teenagers to watch the show, assert however that the show is not meant to be viewed by young children, and the show is certified with TV ratings that indicate its intention for mature audiences.

The conservative advocacy group Parents Television Council has frequently criticized South Park for "over-the-top vulgar content" and "tastelessness", condemning the show as a "curdled, malodorous black hole of Comedy Central vomit" that "shouldn't have been made". Among the episodes that the PTC has criticized include, according to columns by its advisor and former president L. Brent Bozell III:

• "It Hits the Fan" for excessive use of the expletive "shit".
• "Red Sleigh Down" for depicting a desecration of Jesus Christ.
• "Proper Condom Use" for depiction of teaching sex education to young children.

Action for Children's Television founder Peggy Charren, despite being an outspoken opponent of censorship, claims that the show's use of language and racial slurs represents the depravity of Western civilization, and is "dangerous to the democracy".

Several other Christian activist groups have protested the show's parodies of Christianity-related matter and portrayal of Jesus Christ— who South Park has depicted saying "Goddamn", shooting and stabbing other characters, and as unable to perform actual miracles. In its review of the South Park movie, the ChildCare Action Project stated that children who watch either the show or film would have their efforts to "understand or an understanding of the Gospel" hindered or corrupted. The Christian Family Network prepared an educational guide on how to "protect our youth from vile trash like South Park", and claims their efforts to "restore morality, and protect life for the individual, family, and community" would be impeded if children watched the series.

Matt Stone insists that " don't have any kind of social tact or etiquette", and claims that parents who disapprove of South Park for its portrayal of how kids behave are upset because they "have an idyllic vision of what kids are like".

Several groups have called for a boycott of the show, its sponsors, and the networks which air it. In attempts which have all been unsuccessful, fewer have pleaded with a network known to be more prone to peer pressure and complaints to remove the show from its lineup or prevent a specific episode from initially airing. In late 2008, a group of prosecutors in Moscow, on behalf of Muslim activists and members of the Russian Pentecostalist Church, sought to have the Russian channel 2×2 closed in an attempt to prevent them from broadcasting the series, which they claimed promoted "hatred between religions". Their appeal was rejected by Russian media officials, and the channel's broadcasting license was extended until 2013. Aside from the efforts in Russia, no group or individual in a country where the show is aired has mounted a significant campaign to ban the series and its availability on home media entirely.

In 2010, James Delingpole of the Telegraph Media Group wrote: South Park's satire is the most gratuitously offensive in the history of television. ... South Park is ugly to look at, unpleasant on the ear, badly drawn, execrably voiced, puerile, cynical, expletive-ridden, vulgar, trashy and almost entirely free of likeable or, indeed, psychologically plausible, characters.