Banned ‘South Park’ lampoons both China and NBA

FPI / October 14, 2019

While the NBA was groveling at the feet of Chinese supreme leader Xi Jinping, many observers said the creators of South Park were giving the communists a more appropriate message.

A recent South Park episode titled “Band in China” got the long-running cartoon program banned in China.

The episode showed Randy Marsh, a Colorado marijuana grower, traveling to China where he is arrested while carrying a suitcase of samples he had hoped to use to break into the Chinese market.

Marsh is sent to a prison labor camp, where Chinese guards are shown torturing prisoners and forcing them to make products for export. Marsh then meets Winnie the Pooh — another character banned in China because dissidents use the cartoon bear to covertly criticize Xi, who they say resembles Pooh.

That episode did not find favor at the very top of the Chinese Communist Party.

South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone issued a mock apology after the Chinese government censored all access to the show’s past episodes, which had been available on the Chinese Internet and social media platforms.

“Like the NBA, we welcome the Chinese censors into our homes and into our hearts,” Parker and Stone said in a statement. “We too love money more than freedom and democracy. Xi doesn’t look just like Winnie the Pooh at all. Tune into our 300th episode this Wednesday at 10! Long live the Great Communist Party of China! May this autumn’s sorghum harvest be bountiful! We good now China?”

The South Park episode “Band in China” was screened on the streets of Hong Kong on Oct. 8.

“I am laughing with tears in my eyes,” one anonymous user wrote on a protester forum in response to the screening.

South Park celebrated its milestone 300th episode on Oct. 9, and true to form, doubled-down on its China stance. One of the subplots of the new episode, titled "SHOTS!!!", revolved around the phrase, "F--k the Chinese government."

Free Press International