The television cartoon show of a Virgin Mary statue bleeding will go to air despite Catholic bishops urging their congregations to boycott TV3's news and advertisers.
Responding to an open letter from Catholic bishops, the chief of TV3 and sister channel C4 said if Catholics feared they might be offended by the "Bloody Mary" episode of the South Park show, they should switch it off.
"We absolutely expect there's segments of society that would be offended by the programme," said Rick Friesen, chief operating officer of CanWest-owned TV Works.
The bishops yesterday circulated a letter that was read at Masses and is published on the church's website decrying South Park's "ugly and tasteless" depiction of Mary, the mother of Christ, who is revered in Catholicism.
The episode shows a statue of Mary bleeding, which is taken to be a miracle, until Pope Benedict suggests it is simply menstruation. The statue then starts spurting blood.
The seven bishops' pastoral letter says the programme is demeaning of Mary and women in general.
It also suggests protesting against the "insults" by boycotting TV3 news and products advertised on TV3 and C4 - and telling TV3 and the advertisers why.
Auckland Bishop Patrick Dunn said he would stop watching TV3 news if C4 went ahead with the programme.
The bishops' letter follows one last month by Catholic and other religious leaders, including Jewish organisations and the Council of Christians and Muslims, to TV Works complaining about "Bloody Mary".
The "scurrilous" programme would give "grievous and gratuitous offence" to many.
"Mary is honoured and commemorated by millions of Christians, including Catholics, and is respected also by people of other faiths," the letter said.
In the United States, Comedy Central screened the episode once last year but pulled a repeat after pressure from a Catholic group.
Mr Friesen said it was no "edgier" than usual for South Park, which was a satire. "C4 viewers expect an edgier channel. They expect C4 to go a little beyond what TV3 would. They would be pretty disappointed in C4 and the brand if we didn't run it."
It was "definitely" a press-freedom issue, he said. "We definitely decide what will run on the channel.
"We absolutely want to respond to viewers, but don't want to be overly responsive to pressure groups."
He denied any parallel to the debate over the publication and broadcast by news media of cartoons featuring the Prophet Muhammad, one of which showed him wearing a bomb-like turban - an act which prompted widespread protests from Muslims and violence overseas.
"All this is a depiction of a statue of the Virgin Mary, commonly seen in churches," Mr Friesen said. He did not mention the spurting blood.
In reaction, Prime Minister Helen Clark said: "We respect the right of media to free speech, but it is a matter of taste and judgment and we hope they take care to show respect to all cultures and faiths."
Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres, who brought together Muslims, media and others to help settle the row over the Muhammad cartoons in New Zealand, yesterday urged CanWest to consider the submissions of those who objected to the South Park episode.
He said he generally did not comment on such issues, but he drew a distinction between news media, in which readers and viewers had little choice in their sources, and entertainment, where the choice was wider.
Parishioners at evening Mass at St Benedict's in Newton believed C4 should not broadcast the episode.
Consultant Michael Hart thought the episode insulted Christians and likened it to the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
"I think newspapers and television should be more attentive to the thoughts and feelings of people."
Regular South Park watcher Simon Dennerly said he would stop watching the programme. "It's clever stuff, but if they keep at it, why should I?"
Elly Blackwell said it was just one more in a series of high-profile insults to Catholics - another being the Te Papa exhibit Virgin in a Condom. "Now this, what's next?"
The episode will screen on May 10.
UPDATE -
Announced last night that the offending episode will screen tonight (22 Feb). I will still NOT be watching it.
This morning's Herald has Garth George - that local hero of the moral minority and all things good in society drawing a fine line between "the mild lampooning of the prophet Mohammad and the obsenity of a menstruating Virgin Mary".
I wish that, without having to pay for it, that I could access an earlier column of his (from last week) headed "Muslims must learn to live with blasphemy". The comparison in tone is fascinating to say the least.
George, your double standard looks fantasitic.
7 comments:
You probably just made a mistake and meant to bold the first paragraph, right? After all, I would assume that you are lauding the Catholics for their principled, mature response to something they find offensive. You know, like boycotting the actual entity responsible for the offense rather than, say, killing a bunch of innocent people half-way around the world.
Just wanted to make sure that's what you were going for with this post. Otherwise a guy might think you were just being pithy and exercising your right to morally equivocate a boycott of a TV station with rioting, murder and acts of war.
Tom,
Exactly the reaction I had hoped for.
I have not seen this programme. It will be screened here in May.
That has not stopped some of the Imams of the Catholic Church of NZ from doing a bit of rabble rousing of their own.
So, there are two points here.
First, I believe that their knowledge of the South Park episode in question is faulty. Their rabblerousing is in fact based upon falsehood and misinterpretation.
Second, the ease with which they (the Imams of the Catholic Church) have been able to spread (through the medium of an encyclical) those falsehoods and misinterpretations.
Now for a moment forget the responses (bombs and shootings vs boycotts and gnashing of teeth) and concentrate on just that one fact.
The religious response to this "outrage" has been no less engineered than the response to the "Virgin in a condom" instance I gave earlier; no less engineered than the response to the "Denmark cartoons".
There are two points -
First, my old hoe about freedoms and responsibilities.
Second, it shows that neither Christians or Muslims are immune to the provocation of irreverent imagery. The responses certainly differ, but there are very few who are arguing in the letters to the editor of the Herald this morning that broadcast of South Park should be considered an expression of "free speech".
I will not see the episode. South Park is not my idea of entertainment. There is very little on tv in this country (and 95% of the non-news content is imported from US) that would qualify for that description. I think I have seen perhaps 5 minutes in total of all SP broadcast here. Waste of time...
I have not argued (and I have not seen anyone else argue) that the Mohammad cartoons were not offensive, nor that they should not have elicited a response from Muslims. As a matter of fact, I expect that there would be an angry response from any group whose religion was insulted like that.
As for the South Park episode, do you have any actual information to suggest that the information being disseminated is incorrect? It certainly doesn't sound like you do, and since you're not going to even watch the show how can you possibly accuse anyone of inaccuracies? Sounds like a textbook case of making up facts to fit your predetermined conclusion. Ironic, since that's exactly what you accuse others of.
As for 'forgetting about the responses' of Muslims vs. Christains...umm, no. Like I said above, I have no problem with someone being offended by an insult and even getting angry. The whole freaking point, however, is that the mature response (read: that of the Christians in response to this episode) is to fight back with words and even boycotts of the insulting entity. The immature response (read: Muslim response to the cartoons) is to kill innocents, burn things and boycott a whole freaking country when the offending entity was a newspaper (which, again, only reprinted cartoons previously published in an Egyptian newspaper).
Nice try, but the two responses are in no way similar, and certainly not equivalent.
Tom, see the update...
Perhaps you could give me, from the founts of your great wisdomn, an idea of how a Muslim should have reacted when -
There are no products that they can boycott, they are either not available or unaffordable.
There are no publishers or advertisers to scream at or boycott because the blasphemy occurred in a different country.
___________________________
The programme, as described by the COO of the channel in an interview Monday night, shows the blood of Mary curing an alchoholic man. There have been far more lurid descriptions in this morning's news.
Finally, my comments are no less valid than any of those others - including Garth George and the RC Bishop of Auckland. Nowhere has GG said that HE has seen the programme, yet he is able to comment at length. The Bishop of Auckland saw fit to send an encyclical to the churches in his diocese yet he had to admit when interviewed in the same tv news item Monday night that he formed his judgement without having actually seen the episode.
Now, in those circumstances, should my right to express an opinion be any less that theirs?
More to the point, is my opinion any less valid?
"Perhaps you could give me, from the founts of your great wisdom, an idea of how a Muslim should have reacted when -"
Ok, let me just go get my ladle. All right, now that I've dipped into my fount...
Humm. Guess I was wrong. I can see now that since Muslims had no immediate peaceful recourse (they weren't subscribers to the Danish newspaper so they could hardly boycott it) they only thing they could do was riot, kill innocent people and burn stuff. Yep, I think that's the most reasonable response.
[/sarcasm]
What could they have done? Oh, I don't know. Maybe freaking deal with it. Maybe they could have written letters to the editor of their own newspapers expressing their outrage, while defending to the death the right of their insulters to insult (rather than death for those insulters). Heck, maybe they could have even drawn up some of their own cartoons poking fun at Denmark, Christianity or whatever else would float their camel. Or, better yet they could have really gotten back at them by finding some cartoons offensive to Christians that had been published a few months ago in a Danish newspaper and republished them. You know, like the Danes did in the first place.
As for the last question in your comment. For the last time, I am not arguing about the validity of anyone’s outrage/anger. Rather I am addressing (are you listening?) the actions taken in response to the outrage. So yes, Catholics can be pissed about the South Park episode even having not seen it, but I expect that they will refrain from rioting, killing innocent people and burning stuff. And yes, Muslims can be pissed at the Danes for republishing cartoons that insult Islam (remembering, of course, the forgeries added by the cleric in order to really get people pissed)…but I do not accept that they have the right to fly off the handle like they did/are by rioting, killing innocent people and burning stuff.
I hope that’s clear enough and that I didn’t spray anybody with fount-derived spittle.
Tom, through all of the spittle, I acknowledge that you can equate the cultural and religious reactions between Muslims and Catholics.
I also acknowledge (now having finally made the point) that the Muslim responses are as you have said inappropriate in our eyes and from the viewpoint of a predominantly Christian society.
And, while we are at this, it is no more appropriate for people to riot and burn buildings than it is for people to use tear gas, and live ammunition to control those riots. Otherwise where is the right of free speech?
"I also acknowledge (now having finally made the point) that the Muslim responses are as you have said inappropriate in our eyes and from the viewpoint of a predominantly Christian society."
Moral relativism. Nothing more.
"And, while we are at this, it is no more appropriate for people to riot and burn buildings than it is for people to use tear gas, and live ammunition to control those riots. Otherwise where is the right of free speech?"
Free speech = Rioting and burning buildings? Sorry, I just happen to disagree with you on that one. Fact is, violence is acceptable to repel violence. Me beating the crap out of someone after being attacked by him is different (and infinitely more acceptable) than me being unprovoked and beating the crap out of someone just for fun. Putting down riots is certainly a legitimate time to use force. Whether or not tear gas and live ammunition is warranted is something that needs to be determined case-by-case.
Anyway, we're not going to agree. The reason is simple; I have solidly based morals and beliefs that I apply to all, regardless of their backgrounds. You think that if someone's culture says it's ok to riot in response to freaking cartoons then it's ok (and how about honor killings of raped women...is that all right?). So, in the end, I point to something and say "That is wrong because morals are absolute." While you point at the same thing and say, "Well, it's ok because morals are relative." Just two different outlooks on life, I guess.
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