Chef gone, claims South Park "religious bigotry"
Chef has departed the sunny highlands of South Park, Colorado for parts unknown. The reason? South Park has become infested with religious bigotry. While I might sympathize with Isaac - religious bigotry is not a pretty sight - one might have made with equal force the claim that South Park is banal and tasteless. Or homophobic, racist, speciesist, discrimatory towards those with mental, physical and spiritual handicaps, and in general highly offensive to celebrities.
In the words of Nathan Arizona (nee Huffheim), "that's its whole reason de etra." But is this the whole story? Did Chef realize only last Tuesday that the show is offensive to the faithful? SP co-founder Matt Stone has a different perspective:
He didn't come right out and say the word, but Stone is hinting strongly that Hayes is being a hypocrite when he says he's leaving "South Park" because of the way it treats religions. Stone says he feels Hayes' beef with the show stems only from the fact that the musician is a Scientologist and last year, the show began poking fun at his religion.
Stone said, "This is 100 percent having to do with his faith of Scientology. He has no problem -- and he's cashed plenty of checks -- with our show making fun of Christians."
Stone said they never heard a peep out of Hayes until they did a show on Scientology.
Well, if that is the case, I am not particularly surprised. Scientologists are a prickly lot. I imagine this is a natural result of maintaining faith in an artificial religion created by a hack science fiction writer on a bet.
I haven't watched the show in years, so Chef's departure will cause me no pain. Nevertheless, I am sure that the Ministry will join me in wishing Chef well as he ventures into the wide world beyond the borders of South Park. And maybe convert to a sensible religion, like The Church of Elvis, or the Mormons.
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IF you haven't seen South
IF you haven't seen South Park in years, you're missing a lot. Although it's as uneven as it's always been (in that there's good episodes and great episodes), the best episodes of the recent seasons are better than anything I've ever seen from the show. In particular, the one where Jimmy takes steroids to win the Special Olympics, the one with all the plastic surgery and Stan gets his balls made into new knees so he can play basketball, the one where Mr. Garrison tries to gay it up so he can get fired and the town embraces his diversity (and Lemmiwinks becomes King of the Gerbils), the Scientology episode, the Lord of the Rings/Porno movie episode, the one where the boys get real ninja weapons and half the episode is animated in Anime style and Butters loses an eye...
You're missing some great TV, is all I'm sayin.
As for Isaac Hayes, I feel deep regret that he's such a tool.
I did see the last two you
I did see the last two you mentioned. They were indeed fun. I just can't get into it anymore, as Spongebob is occupying that niche in my brain.
The best thing, though, is
The best thing, though, is that -- if I know Matt Stone and Trey Parker -- this will almost certainly become an episode of the show itself, with the character of Chef quite unceremoniously destroyed/humiliated/whatever. And it will be a joy to watch!
How does the joke go: "Two
How does the joke go: "Two Scientologists, No Opinions"?
Is it two Scientologists, or
Is it two Scientologists, or two Unitarian">http://uufnorthiowa.org/humor/whatisauu.htm]Unitarian Universalists?
Anyhow, regarding Hayes: I don't pay any particular attention to religious slanging of any sort, however it's directed. This frees me to never be offended if, at some point in the future, I again become less irreligious than I am today and I find people making light of my confessional habits. It also frees me to enjoy all well targeted humor, regardless of its subject.
Hayes is of course free to do anything he wants in this matter, but if his only problem is when elRon's brain farts are attacked, then Hayes is also free to personally be made fun of. And he is.
Sounds to me like Hayes has
Sounds to me like Hayes has common cause with the Cartoon Jihadis - they can dish it up, but the can't take it.