This cartoon battle has gone too far. Attacking Denmark's embassies is one thing, but preventing an episode of "The Simpsons" from airing is over the line...
Cartoon furor puts Mohammed's guest role on "The Simpsons" in doubt
The controversy over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper has led the producers of The Simpsons to reconsider his appearance in a forthcoming episode. The offending cartoons included a picture of the founder of Islam wearing a turban, and have been slammed by Muslims for being blasphemous and Israelis as overly subtle.
“In light of the situation in Denmark, we have decided to withdraw our depiction of the Prophet out of sensitivity towards the Islamic community’s feelings,” creator Matt Groening said. “And also our sensitivity to our office being firebombed.”
In the cancelled episode, entitled ‘Don’t Have A Pig, Man’, Mohammed was to have appeared to Homer in a dream, converting him to Islam with a promise of 770 donuts in the afterlife.
Groening said that the decision to produce the episode starring Mohammed was not taken lightly. “We suspected there would be an adverse reaction if we drew the Prophet,” he said. “But we had no choice. He's the only celebrity guest we haven’t used before.”
The show's creator has also guaranteed Muslim viewers that he won't be depicting the Prophet anywhere else in future. “Since the cancellation, we can't just use all the rejected Simpsons ideas on Futurama anymore,” he said.
The furore over the incident has led the Danish press to vow to tone down its coverage of controversial events. "This will teach us to write stories that aren't about Prince Frederik's baby," the editor of Jyllands-Posten said.
Meanwhile a fatwa has also been declared on cartoonist Michael Leunig, although on account of the insipidness of his work rather than any blasphemy.
Source: The Chaser
This cartoon battle has gone too far. Attacking Denmark's embassies is one thing, but preventing an episode of "The Simpsons" from airing is over the line...
3 comments:
the chaser is a political spoof newspaper in australia, much like the onion. just so you know, this article is just a bit of fun.
D'oh! I was taken in by an Australian version of The Onion? Awesome. I thought it was suspicious that no other news outlet had picked up the story. In my defense, I thought the episode that was supposedly being canceled might be the same one that Kiefer Sutherland will be guest-starring in: "Sutherland will play an Army colonel in an upcoming episode, which will see Homer Simpson mistaken for a terrorist." Anyway, thanks for the info!
I thought the line about Futurama being cancelled so there was no place for rejected Simpsons jokes was pretty funny. But I was taken in by it as well. Sounded reasonable enough to me.
Side note: after checking out some of the other content on The Chaser, this Simpsons one was their funniest, at least from what I read.
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