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China Bans American Cartoon by Karl F. Cohen
Randy, 'South Park' father and weed entrepreneur getting hauled away by Chinese customs police for bringing in a suitcase of product. image: courtesy Trey Parker/Matt Stone
A FEW MONTHS AGO, CHINESE CENSORS
banned the cuddly character Winnie the Pooh, created by A. A. Milne in 1921, after some internet users compared it to Chinese president-for-life Xi Jinping. The censors were concerned people might adopt Winnie the Pooh as a nickname for Xi.
Now Beijing decided they can no longer tolerate “South Park”, Comedy Central's long-running cartoon about four fourth graders living in Colorado. Although it has periodically poked fun at China, after “Band in China”, the second episode of its 23rd season and 299th show, which aired in early October, the Chinese response was not only to remove the episode but scrub the internet of all references to the show!
Now, if you search for “South Park” in China, you get a notice that reads, “According to the relevant law and regulation, this section is temporarily not open.”
Why is there an international controversy over an animated cartoon comedy show? The episode calls attention to issues that will probably embarrass China, including their prejudicial treatment of Muslims.
The show, created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, is also critical of Hollywood’s practice of shaping films to please Chinese censors, since there are enormous profits to be made having a hit feature shown in that country. Indeed, Disney’s “Avengers: Endgame” (2019) grossed about $614 million in China.
Trey Parker (left) and Matt Stone creators of 'South Park' press conferencing about the controversy generated by their new episodes. photo: courtesy Trey Parker/Matt Stone
In “Band in China”, Randy, the father of Stan, one of the four boys, gets busted at Chinese customs trying to bring in a suitcase full of his own weed.
As it happens, “South Park” is wildly irreverent about almost everything, including Colorado’s legalization of marijuana in 2014. Indeed, Randy, who used to be a fairly typical, if cartoon character, father, has evolved into a spaced-out stoner entrepreneur, who has dragged his unhappy family out to live in a big house on a weed farm. Called Tegridy Farms, as in “integrity,” an ad for Randy's weed business is now the show’s opening credits, albeit with their standard, crazed-country opening-credits music still playing in the background.
Space-case Randy is so eager to cash in on the booming Chinese market, he didn’t even stop to think weed might not be legal there. Hence, he’s busted and interred in a work camp similar to those Beijing setup in Xinjiang Province to house an estimated one million Chinese Muslims, supposedly for political indoctrination and reeducation. At the work camp, Randy runs into another prisoner, none other than Winnie the Pooh.
At another point in the episode Stan, Kenny, Jimmy and Butters (Stan and Kenny being principals, the other two being secondary characters) form a metal band.When it suddenly becomes popular, it attracts the attention of a manager interested in making a film about them. Unfortunately, the script keeps changing so that the film can be distributed in China without censorship problems.
Mickey Mouse even does a cameo to remind everybody to be nice to Chinese authorities.
After Parker and Stone, the show’s creators, heard about the controversy that their new episode was generating, they issued a mock apology, which also happened to be a plug for their next episode, their 300th.
Mr. Mouse, the CEO of Disney, wants to know who screwed up the deal with China (hint: he's standing behind Mickey). image: courtesy Trey Parker/Matt Stone
It reads, “Like the NBA, we welcome Chinese censors into our homes and into our hearts. We too love money more than freedom and democracy. Xi doesn’t look just like Winnie the Pooh at all. Tune into our 300th episode this Wednesday. Long live the Great Communist Party of China! May this autumn’s sorghum harvest be bountiful. We good now China?”
At one point in “Band in China”, Randy says, “You gotta lower your ideals of freedom if you wanna suck on the warm teat of China.”
Those guys are masters at promoting their show, so it came as no surprise that show #300 was well planned. They must have expected China to react in some negative way to show #299, so it features Randy saying, after he gets back together with his weed-farm partner who actually has integrity, “Fuck the Chinese government!”
In this episode Randy, who had done time for pot in the previous episode, tells his former business partner Towelie, how he now feels about doing business in China. First he mumbles something that can’t be clearly understood. Then to make sure there is no misunderstanding, he yells, “Fuck the Chinese government.”
That episode is titled “SHOT!!!” although that refers to a completely different plot line, this time poking fun at the anti-vaxers, mostly middle class white people obesessed with possible side-effects from vaccinations.
Parker and Stone thrive on controversy. But on a basic level their “Band in China” and “SHOT!!!” episodes have succeed in making more of the world aware of China’s deplorable history of human rights violations, along with Hollywood’s pandering to Chinese censorship. Disney and DreamWorks have tailored several projects so they will not include anything that Chinese censors consider questionable.
Butters rocks a very hard metal guitar in 'South Park''s suddenly rather radical episode 'Band in China'. image: courtesy Trey Parker/Matt Stone
The media coverage that this controversy has gotten—The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, etc.—is impressive. It proves that film, television, even a “lowly” cartoon can go beyond being just popular entertainment. The topics “South Park” explores raise moral and ethical questions about the values and beliefs of different societies.
China’s reaction “South Park” suggest to me that artistic freedom and free speech are precious values in our democracy, values which are so powerful even cartoon characters can strike the fear into the Chinese government—values we must work to maintain, even at the expense of sometimes offending people.
cineSOURCE magazine welcomes your comments on this and other topics.
Karl F. Cohen—who decided to add his middle initial to distinguish himself from the Russian Karl Cohen, who tried to assassinate the Czar in the mid-19th century—is an animator, educator and director of the local chapter of the International Animation Society and can be reached .