In episode "201" (S14E06) all the celebrities South Park has parodied over the years collectively sued South Park town for making fun of them. The town would be ruined by the lawsuit, and beg for the celebs to drop the lawsuit. They agree to drop the lawsuit for just one thing - if the city could give them Muhammed.

The celebs had developed a machine that would extract the magic goo that makes it impossible to mock Muhammed from him. Eventually they get Muhammed and extract the magic goo. Tom Cruise eats it, but is shocked to discover that people can still make fun of him.

Comedy Central, ironically, totally beeped out the speech that followed (but thankfully it leaked Jan last year):

Kyle: That's because there is no goo, Mr. Cruise. You see, I learned something today. Throughout this whole ordeal, we've all wanted to show things that we weren't allowed to show, but it wasn't because of some magic goo. It was because of the magical power of threatening people with violence. That's obviously the only true power. If there's anything we've all learned, it's that terrorizing people works.

Jesus: That's right. Don't you see, gingers, if you don't want to be made fun of anymore, all you need are guns and bombs to get people to stop.

Santa: That's right, friends. All you need to do is instill fear and be willing to hurt people and you can get whatever you want. The only true power is violence.

South Park was right as always.

All their Muhammad episodes should be watched, in this order:

1. S05E04 (Super Best Friends). It's the only uncensored episode with Muhammad, and ironically he's a pretty cool guy. Only on torrents, Comedy Central has tried to erase it from history.

2. S10E03 (Cartoon Wars Part I)

3. S10E04 (Cartoon Wars Part II)

4. S14E05 (200)

5. S14E06 (201). Comedy Central actually bleeped all mentions of the name Muhammad in this episode plus the speech above. Watch the censored version first before you torrent the real version - the censorship is downright tragicomical.

Then again, who wants to be the next Salman Rushdie, Theo van Gogh, Jyllands-Posten, or Charlie Hebdo. It's not like they stand to gain much from running the risk.

Not exactly what you would call "backlash." Then the church took out an ad in the playbill. [2]

[1] http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/church-statement-regar... [2] http://articles.latimes.com/2012/sep/06/entertainment/la-et-...

Thought experiment: Can the same really be done for (say) Judaism without fear of being labelled anti-semite, losing your job, or worse? Could they have done it for Christianity and shown it in Bible-belt? (Maybe they already have and I don't know about it).

Also, there's a sense of 'no true scotsman' about your comment where you state no 'real' satire is possible. As though it only counts if there's 'significant risk of violent reprisal'.

from: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/09/solidarity-cha...

"When we originally discussed publishing this article to make these points, our intention was to commission two or three cartoonists to create cartoons that mock Judaism and malign sacred figures to Jews the way Charlie Hebdo did to Muslims. But that idea was thwarted by the fact that no mainstream western cartoonist would dare put their name on an anti-Jewish cartoon, even if done for satire purposes, because doing so would instantly and permanently destroy their career, at least. Anti-Islam and anti-Muslim commentary (and cartoons) are a dime a dozen in western media outlets; the taboo that is at least as strong, if not more so, are anti-Jewish images and words."

This would suggest that there is plenty of commentary that does not result in reprisals.

Team America: World Police? Durka durka?

"Real" satire of Islamic culture has been performed for decades. For the most part, you don't have to include the image of Mohammed for every statement you want to make of Islam.

However, I do agree that you should be allowed to do so without fear of violent reprisal. Unfortunately, this is not the world we live in at the moment. It's going to take a while before Islamists change their views on this issue.

Abortion is obviously not the same thing as a cartoon, but it is a safe, routine, and legal elective medical procedure in the U.S.

Also realize that the vast (i.e. many orders of magnitude) majority of Muslims, while offended by satirical depictions of Muhammed, do NOT resort to violence.

It is the violence, and threats of violence--not the offense--that is the problem. Plenty of people take strong offense at things that seem silly to other people; for example, over software libraries to initialize Linux-based operating systems (init.d vs systemd). Or mobile device app store rules.

And finally before we all jump on our high horse about religion, remember that there are plenty of examples of violent threats within our own industry--say, for tweeting about a sex joke at a software conference, or complaining about videogame reviews.

Are we trying to "teach" these "uneducated and backwards" Muslims what freedom and freedom of speech are? Are we teaching comedy?

Sadly, in many cases those standing for "principles" are being defiant against the authorities in their own countries (as in who the hell is my Editor/Producer/Government to tell me what I can't say) whom the extremists have beef with and are getting caught in the crossfire. Yes, the extremists are wrong. I agree with the government not being able to tell me what I can and can't say. But to ignore reality is a whole different thing.

Let's extrapolate... Publish more content meant to offend so either they get used to it... or some fringe elements in the Muslim world commit terrorist attacks pretending to be the "defenders"... Then our government steps in and bombs said country back to the stone age (which incidentally is where these guys are most comfortable & can grab power the easiest). Think terror victims are pissed off/disturbed? I'm sure some kids in post war Afghanistan are a lot more ruthless than some of the meanest gangsters on our streets.

When I was on the streets, I recall being punched. The first thing that came to my mind was to kill the asshole that punched me, but I was able to catch myself before doing that. I realized that me punching back would eventually not just lead to one of us dying, but possibly his and my friends dying. He was astonished when I didn't punch pack, given I had a size advantage on him. I thought it through and made sure he, or anyone else there wouldn't punch me again, without anyone getting killed. We eventually became friends and started volunteering to feed the homeless.

If we're supposedly intellectually superior, and we're obviously in a superior position when it comes to the exchange of ideas in our society. If we can't stop and think a little more critically, then that's a shame. Principles are great. I know a gang member who is paralyzed from the waist down who really wished he's rethought that decision to fight. Sure the other guy ended up dead. The fight was about the principle of "respect". In the end they both lost.

It's stupid to jump on the bandwagon and stupid to complete forget. This is a good opportunity for us to think... There may be a better solution and machismo isn't necessary noble.

And it's not just Islamic religion that would cause this, exactly what you described happened when North Korea threatened "The Interview".

> Insurers wouldn't accept standard policies.

No insurance policy I know will pay out for events of terrorism unless specifically negotiated (and i have done a few).

I am pretty sure the outrage against anti-Semitic jokes would be ridiculous, too (which CH spoke out against and fired over).

I am not defending anybody here, just wanted to describe a slightly different point of view. Obviously it is CH's own choice to put out and condone whatever they want and that choice should be granted.