Media audiences

For our recent project for Matt, we have been asked to create Vox Props on a controversial TV show of our choice but instead I am doing it as an essay. The controversial show I have picked is South Park. With South Park, the show is not really violent, it can be at times but it is very rare. In the show, one example of violence I can give you is when one of the main characters dies in nearly every episode. The character is Kenny and he always meets a nasty end. In one of the newer episodes it is very rare that they kill him off but with South Park, the show is known for its more offensive humour against everyone. When you watch South Park nobody is safe at all. One of the biggest spoofs they did was the - trapped in the closet episode where Tom Cruise goes to a house party with the boys and one of them calls him gay. He goes and hides in a closet with them hinting that he is a secret closet gay. 

In the episode R Kelly also joins them but not because they think he is gay but because of the song he did from which the episode is inspired. John Travolta also joins them and again the creators are hinting that he is a secret closet gay. The biggest controversial moment of the whole episode is the part where they rip Scientology apart saying that it is a load of rubbish. This caused many people who believed in the faith to kick up a fuss and tried to get the episode banned. I think if you do not believe in Scientology you are not going to get annoyed about the episode and just find it funny, but if you are a firm believer of the faith then I think you are going to be mad about it because they are mocking your beliefs saying that it is a load of crap so there are two sides of the argument.   

With South park and its advertising the only controversial adverts I can think of is when the movie came out and they had one of the main characters called Eric Cartman dressed as a German and was he doing a German dance and saying that all Germans that dress and dance in a certain way are gay. So they are in a way stereotyping because he was wearing a suit that looked like something a blonde girl would wear in a German pub and hand out beer to drunken fat German men with facial hair and those are stereotypes.The other forms of advertising the show used are when the show was aired on Channel 4 they used to promote the show by showing a clip for the show. Another way they do it again is comedy central show an advert for the promotion on the show.

With regards to the shows censorship one of the biggest examples I can think of is an episode called Cartoon Wars Part 1 and 2 which is where they show the Muslim prophet Muhammad and they actually created a cartoon version of the prophet but with the censorships company being scared that there would be a batch of attacks from the Muslims they edited him out. How they did this was that they don't ban the scenes where the prophet appears but when the scene appears what ever network the show is airing on the company make the screen all black and saying Comedy Central refuses to show the Prophet Muhammad on there network. They do this out of respect for the Muslims but before the anger came from the Muslim community they were going to show the Prophet so that outcome would have been interesting.

Now with the watershed, South Park is shown at 9 to 10 o'clock in the evening and that is because of the offensive material shown within the show. If the show was shown before 9pm this would kick up a storm because of the content.

I think South Park appeals to people with an open sense of humour .South Park is a show that doesn't play it safe and I think if people want a safe comedy they should watch a show like Mrs Browns Boys because that is for a wider audience. Children watch it with their parents in their room. I watched South Park as a child with my parent's permission because at the end of the day they trusted me  to know the difference between fact and fiction. It is up to the parents and it really annoys me when parents complain to Ofcom about Material shown in shows like South Park. It is not the company's fault at all but people just want the attention from the media and parents should know what they want their children to watch and not watch just because someone makes a black joke in South Park and laughs doesn't mean that they are racist .I also think a big part of TV is how you are brought up. If you were brought up with parents who did not give a damn about you I think South Park would affect behaviour.