(PatrioticPost.com)- HBO Max has banned five episodes of South Park for depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad, serving as a reminder to viewers that almost all other religions are acceptable targets for parody but not Islam.
According to Screen Rant, the 1997-launched South Park series has five episodes that feature Muhammad: “Super Best Friends,” “Cartoon Wars Part I & II,” “200,” and “201,” all of which are absent from the HBO Max schedule.
The episodes are not only blocked from the streaming service but are also absent from the South Park Studios website, where each episode is marked as “currently unavailable.”
The cartoon character Stan recruits a group of superheroes in the episode “Super Best Friends,” which first aired on July 4, 2001, to combat magician David Blaine’s suicidal “Blainetology” cult, which is obviously a dig at Scientology.
The leaders of the world’s most well-known religions make up the superhero team: Jesus, Buddha, Moses, Krishna, Joseph Smith, Laozi, and Muhammad.
The 2006 television specials “Cartoon Wars Part I & II” feature Muhammad as a character. The controversies surrounding the Danish newspaper Jyllands-2005 Posten’s cartoon of Muhammad sporting a bomb for a turban served as the inspiration for the episodes.
In the episode, the fictional town of South Park is panicking after the show Family Guy announces it will be showing Muhammad in its series. The Kyle character contends that the Family Guy episode should be broadcast as a form of free speech, while the Cartman character claims that depicting Muhammad is offensive to Muslims.
Before the episodes’ initial airing in 2006, there were rumors that the South Park creators and Comedy Central were at odds over how Muhammad was portrayed. When Comedy Central finally aired the episodes, the Muhammad sequence was covered by a black title card. Nevertheless, despite existing censorship, the episodes were still prohibited from HBO Max.
In 2010, Comedy Central censored the episodes “200” and “201” because they were parodies of Islam. Viewers can see Muhammad covered by a large black box and his name obscured by audio bleeps.
