Comedy Central has pulled a controversial “South Park” episode that parodied Charlie Kirk after the conservative activist was gunned down at a Utah college on Wednesday.
The Paramount Skydance-owned network quietly removed the rerun of the episode “Got a Nut” from its cable lineup Wednesday night, just hours after Kirk, 31, was shot and killed while speaking at Utah Valley University.
Instead of airing Season 27, Episode 2 — in which Eric Cartman adopts Kirk’s mannerisms and appearance for a satirical college debate podcast — Comedy Central slotted in Episode 1 from the same season.
37 Comments
snooggums@piefed.world · 95 pts · 341d
What a bunch of bullshit. Stop pulling episodes!
themeatbridge@lemmy.world · 68 pts · 341d
It's a rerun. The episode still exists, they just didn't want to run an episode making fun of a guy who just died. I don't have anything nice to say about Charlie Kirk, but I don't think it's cowardly to decide not to shit on the man while his body is still warm. They didn't run a tribute or a moment of silence instead. They just switched out the rerun.
Awkwardparticle@programming.dev · 40 pts · 341d
He made it very clear that he does not think empathy should exist. There is no such thing as too soon when you declare that.
themeatbridge@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 341d
I agree with you entirely about all of that, but we're not talking about making a statement, we're talking about doing the absolute bare minimum to avoid a controversy in the middle of a chaotic situation. Would there be more violence? Would there be retaliation? Would arsonists decide now is their chance to target the "liberal" media?
Also, to your point about his statements on empathy (and gun control, in the same context) I agree that Kirk is undeserving of our respect or our empathy. But empathy is not a gift given to others. It's a choice you make about your own character. People like Charlie Kirk are the prime examples of how hollow life becomes when you live without empathy.
I won't say he deserved to be killed, but I will say he lived a life deserving of ridicule, and his death doesn't change that. We are all of us defined by our choices. Charlie Kirk made his decisions, and I think they were the wrong way to live. I choose to live with empathy because that's the person I want to be.
I'm not saying that you or anyone else should feel empathy for the man, because I have empathy for you. I understand how Kirk made you feel, and how he made me feel. But I also have empathy for satirists who chose to pull punches yesterday, not because of some performative respect for the dead, but simply because they weren't sure exactly how they wanted to respond yet.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 340d
How he lives, and the cruel opinions he so loudly pushed, thats his character.
Now he's dead. How WE deal with the death of a notable person, that's our character.
Most of the time I'm disappointed he was such a hateful personality right up to his death. I want to believe that experience and a cataclysmic event can introduce people to a better way of thinking. He didn't get his chance for this second chapter, like so many people don't.
That's the tragedy here, and most of the time I believe that.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de · 0 pts · 340d
Are his beliefs yours?
Awkwardparticle@programming.dev · 3 pts · 340d
Okay, I'll bite. No, he was formerly a vile being made of pure excrement pulled from a sewage processing facility. In the rest of the world his beliefs would make him an outcast and he would be spreading his message in churches and rural community centers. Suggesting that someone shares his beliefs is actually pretty offensive
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de · 0 pts · 340d
I'm just pointing out that him not having empathy doesn't mean you shouldn't have empathy.
Myself, I only feel bad that his children seen it.
snooggums@piefed.world · 27 pts · 341d
He was a shitstain on society and does not deserve the consideration.
Randomgal@lemmy.ca · 9 pts · 341d
That's what he would've said.
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 338d
which.. is why people are giving him the treatment he would have given everyone else
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 340d
the amount of sanewashing from MSMs is pretty telling.
givesomefucks@lemmy.world · 44 pts · 341d
"Pulled" is a bad choice of words...
They were going to play that episode on air, like on the actual cable channel Comedy Central.
He died a few hours before. So they swapped it for a different episode.
I'm watching the episode right now on Paramount, it was never taken offline
wetbeardhairs@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 22 pts · 341d
I guess they never saw the Streisand effect episode
onslaught545@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 341d
The episode isn't permanently gone, they just didn't play the rerun on the day he was killed.
qfe0@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 341d
They don't care, they just don't want to be seen as doing nothing.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 340d
Cowards
zr0@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 11 pts · 341d
Oh. That should have been Kirkie-boy? I doubt it. Can anyone please check? Would be a real shame if no one clicked here to manually check the episode
IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 341d
And here I was wondering how they would make fun of this in next weeks new episode…
EccTM@lemmy.ml · 11 pts · 341d
This was a Comedy Central decision, not a Matt and Trey decision. For all we know, the next South Park episode could be following Charlie's ghost for the day.
MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 341d
Ha, that was a great episode!
It's the Kristi Noem's slam fest that makes it hilarious.
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 8 pts · 341d
Did the episode even say his name? If not the only way someone would think it was a parody of someone in particular would be to recognize someone acted like that.
My thought would be, John Doe doesn't act like that, so it must not be them. And whoever I thought did act like that, well.. it's not much of parody then. Just a shoe that fit. If it is okay to act like that, then why take it down? If it isn't okay to act like that, why would a person acting like that not have been reguarded as bad.
pivot_root@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 341d
In one single scene, referencing him by name as a throwaway joke. "The Charlie Kirk award for young master debaters"
Evotech@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 341d
Nope, they just use the kids name. But it’s obvious it’s a take on him. (Even though any and all similarities are purely coincidental ofc )
ABetterTomorrow@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 341d
Bring it back!
HorikBrun@kbin.earth · 4 pts · 341d
Fukin cowards
the_riviera_kid@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 341d
Cowards
Marshezezz@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 341d
ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml · -10 pts · 341d
Cowardly lib bs
actionjbone@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 341d
The programming directors are hardly "libs."
The South Park auteurs aren't even "libs."
Bebopalouie@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 341d
I read somewhere they were libertarians?
pivot_root@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 341d
They are. But when people say "libs", they specifically mean "liberals".
Bebopalouie@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 341d
Yes. That is what I meant. They are libertarians not liberals (Libs).
ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml · -5 pts · 341d
They are most certainly liberals. I do not mean Democrats. I mean Liberals. American "Libertarians" are big L Liberals.
actionjbone@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 341d
Libertarians are not liberals. They are very much "other."
Their beliefs don't conform to liberal democracy in the traditional since.
ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 340d
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism
Some liberals, who call themselves classical liberals, fiscal conservatives, or libertarians, endorse fundamental liberal ideals but diverge from modern liberal thought on the grounds that economic freedom is more important than social equality.[35] Consequently, the ideas of individualism and laissez-faire economics previously associated with classical liberalism are key components of modern American conservatism and movement conservatism, and became the basis for the emerging school of modern American libertarian thought.[36]
actionjbone@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 340d
I'm not sure what you're trying to prove to me.
onslaught545@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 341d
It was just a rerun they swapped out with a different episode. Totally reasonable given the circumstances.