Racy Cartoons Make Bart Simpson Look Like a, Um, Saint

Medill Reports ^ | June 7, 2007 | Phillip Turner

[EveningStar]

When cartoons lampooning religion can make even Bart Simpson look like a saint, you know you’re dealing with some racy material.

Tune into Comedy Central's "South Park" and you'll find Jesus boxing Satan, while over on Fox's "Family Guy," you'll find God as a white-robed, bearded creator setting off the world's big bang by passing gas.

Writers for Fox's "The Simpsons" long ago tapped into religion as a source of gentle jokes and story lines. In doing so, the show opened the way for hip, animated comedies like "South Park" and "Family Guy" to up the ante in joking about religion, often to the point of mockery...

[The Blitherer]

To south parks credit, they tried and got shot down, and were not to happy about it.

Exactly, so they did the next best thing. They took on the Western "don't touch anything Muslim" Thought Police.

[cubreporter]

If I want to watch trash I’ll go into the garbage cans!

[The Blitherer]

Bravo! Well said!

[baclava]

Actually, South Park has gotten pretty lame in the last year.

I still watch all the old episodes, but they just got too preachy and drag out the soapbox on too much stuff that isn’t funny.

I miss chef.

[reagan_fanatic]

I don't have a problem with Southpark for the most part since, like another FReeper mentioned, they lampoon religious hypocrisy instead of the religion itself.

Family Guy, however, seems to revel in mocking not only Christians, but God himself. It can be a very funny show (I still watch it when then episodes don't involve Christian bashing) but I sure would like to find out just what the creators of Family Guy have against Christinanity and Christians in general.

I just don't find mocking someone's religion like that to be funny, that's all.

[The Great RJ]

I am a real fan of South Park because they satirize just about everything which is just what we need in our increasingly PC world. Where else can someone poke fun at cheating in the Special Olympics?

[Chewie84]

I thought the article was a little too soft on ‘The Simpsons.’ Recent episodes have done everything they can to portray people of faith (Flanders in particular) as brainless, bigoted loons who are inevitably proven wrong every time they’re featured in an episode.
I just hope the Simpsons movie is less biased than the last couple seasons of the show have been.

[Kirkwood]

“I don’t have a problem with Southpark for the most part since, like another FReeper mentioned, they lampoon religious hypocrisy instead of the religion itself.”

I dunno. What SP did to the Mormons was really leveled at the foundations of their faith and not any kind of hypocrisy. How many times did they say Mormons were “dumb, dumb, dumb” for their beliefs?

[EveningStar]

Family Guy, however, seems to revel in mocking not only Christians, but God himself. It can be a very funny show (I still watch it when then episodes don't involve Christian bashing) but I sure would like to find out just what the creators of Family Guy have against Christinanity and Christians in general.

Family Guy vs Christianity

[Sir Clean Plate Club]

Hippitus hoppitus.

[Conan the Librarian]

I am not sure what version of the Simpsons you have been watching, but, I haven’t seen them ever portray Flanders as anything but a kind and protective (sometimes overprotective) father. He is sometimes shown as Naive, but, many people are naive without being stupid. Flanders is also shown as overcoming adversity with faith.

I have always thought the Simsons were very respectful to Faith, while ragging on religions.

In fact, when they actually have shown God, they show God with normal human features (five fingers and toes) and normal colored skin. Of course God is not human, but, many have personified God in the past, and, I am sure that many more will in the future.

Of course, the best show was left out.

(to the opening theme)

Futurama...Futurama...Futurama...FUturamamama.

[Tanniker Smith]

C'mon, are people really offended by Hitler and Satan singing "It's Christmastime in Hell!"?

The only time that I've really been offended by them (so I guess they aren't trying hard enough) is when they phone it in, like the Oprah-Towelley episode.

[Thoro]

To be fair, you can’t nitpick parts out of the Mormon episode without the context of the resolution dialogue:

Stan: You guys were right, okay? The new kid’s a douche. Now I just gotta find a way to keep him away from me.

Gary: [shows up] Hey Stan.

Stan: Oh brother.

Cartman: Uh oh, the jilted lover returns.

Gary: Listen, I just wanted to let you know you don’t have to worry about me tryin’ to be your friend anymore.

Stan: I don’t?

Gary: Look, maybe us Mormons do believe in crazy stories that make absolutely no sense, and maybe Joseph Smith did make it all up, but I have a great life. and a great family, and I have the Book of Mormon to thank for that. The truth is, I don’t care if Joseph Smith made it all up, because what the church teaches now is loving your family, being nice and helping people. And even though people in this town might think that’s stupid, I still choose to believe in it. All I ever did was try to be your friend, Stan, but you’re so high and mighty you couldn’t look past my religion and just be my friend back. You’ve got a lot of growing up to do, buddy. Suck my balls. [turns around and walks off. All four boys just look at him in wonder, even Cartman.]

Cartman: Damn, that kid is cool, huh?

---

It’s not quite that black and white.

[Chewie84]

“I am not sure what version of the Simpsons you have been watching.....”

I’ve been watching the version of the Simpsons they show on Fox at 8:00 EST on Sunday evenings.

“...I haven’t seen them ever portray Flanders as anything but a kind and protective (sometimes overprotective) father.”
Well, see, that WAS how he was portrayed for most of the show’s run, but over the last few seasons, the episodes where he plays a prominent role appear to be more geared towards portraying him as a mean, dumb zealot whose views are always shown as wrong.
For example, in the episode “The Monkey Suit,” Flanders was portrayed as stupid and ignorant for believing in Creationism (In fact, that’s how pretty much ALL of the Creationists in that episode were portrayed). In the recent episode “You Kent Always Say What You Want,” Kent Brockman curses on the air, and Ned Flanders is depicted as a pathetic, paranoid nutcase for alerting a religious watchdog group to this outburst and ultimately getting Brockman fired.
I WISH they’d go back to portraying Ned as the prudish yet friendly and warm- hearted guy next door.

[lesser_satan]

I think the point of that ep was that the Mormon family, however bizarre their theology was, were the nicest people in town. In other words, judge them by their actions, not their beliefs. Btw, SP co-creator Trey dated a Mormon girl when he was younger, and maintains that she and her family were the nicest, happiest people around, so that may be his basis for using Mormons as a vehicle to advance this point. BTW, he played a Mormon missionary in his movie Orgazmo.

[Oztrich Boy]

They had one particularly offensive episode with a “blood orgy” for Christmas.

Best. Episode. Ever! (for the boy in the red poofball hat)

[MacDorcha]

16 minutes.

[MacDorcha]

Why even bother to post here then? Seems like a waste of time.

[ozzymandus]

South Park is great. Did this guy just discover it or something?

[ozzymandus]

So don’t watch it. Nobody cares what you watch.