"Like the NBA, we welcome the Chinese censors into our homes and into our hearts," they said. South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, no strangers to controversy, issued a fake apology Monday. dKzWYXP1xd- Kong Tsung-gan / 江松澗 October 8, 2019 Street cinema’s been yet another important facet of #HK protests, w ‘Winter on Fire’ on Ukraine’s revolution & ‘1987: When the Day Comes’ on Korea’s esp popular. Tonight in Sham Shui Po, episode ‘Band in China’ shown on street to large & appreciative audience. "Street cinema's been yet another important facet of HK protests." "Tonight in Sham Shui Po, South Park episode 'Band in China' shown on street to large & appreciative audience," wrote author Kong Tsung-gan. The Band in China episode angered Chinese censors, who wiped out video clips and discussions of the show on major platforms, such as the social network Weibo, according to The New York Times.īut the banned episode was apparently shown on the streets of Hong Kong. That episode also poked fun at American organizations such as Disney and the NBA for doing business with China, and mocked Chinese censorship of stuffed bear Winnie the Pooh after some Chinese people compared his looks to those of Xi Jinping, China's president. In that episode, Randy tries to expand his marijuana business to China and lands himself in a Chinese labor camp.
The episode was following up on the global controversy created by its previous episode, Band in China. Almost ten years later came last night’s episode of the Simpsons, with Bart writing on the chalkboard again (and again), but this time with solidarity.#SouthPark300 #BannedInChina /OdWLA2yzSS- South Park October 10, 2019 They both knowingly tow a line between controversial and conversational - Stone and Parker on the shout-y end of the spectrum, while Groening goes about it with a bit more subtlety. This near-decade long back-and-forth has evolved into quite the symbiotic relationship between the animated behemoths, not just through their mutual distaste for tangential, derivative shows like Family Guy but also through their similar approach to politics. Groening would then reciprocate a year later with Bart and Millhouse watching South Park in “The Bart of War.” So begins their back-scratching relationship, and more head-scratching.
Noting signs of an animated alliance, we began to wonder when and where signs of such a “relationship” between the shows first took shape…īack in 2002, having acknowledged that The Simpsons has already lampooned everything there is to lampoon, South Park‘s Stone and Parker paid homage to their “adult” cartoon counterpart, dedicating an entire episode to Matt Groening and his similarly hypercritical American satire. The bigger issue here, “Censorship In The Media,” is again referenced in the episode with a guest appearance from Bart Simpson, his skateboard, and his impeccable comedic timing. It is certainly nothing new for creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who have already tackled the issue of censorship and Muhammed with their “ Cartoon Wars” two-parter, when Cartman also goes on his Family Guy witch-hunt. At this point, you must have heard about the Prophet Muhammad brouhaha stirred up with last week’s South Park episode, “ 201“.