In the wake of the brutal assassination of college campus debater Charlie Kirk, I vociferously defended South Park against attacks, which, a month before, released an episode lampooning the slain conservative. They’ve now made a fool of me by making moves that suggest they feel some level of guilt over his death.
Comedy Central has responded to Kirk’s death by pulling the episode. The second episode of season 27, “Got a Nut,” is no longer available to watch there.
The episode is still available for streaming on Paramount+, which suggests some internal confusion about how to handle the situation. It’s also unclear who asked for the episode to be pulled from Comedy Central in the first place.
Pulling the episode makes absolutely no sense. Doing so is basically an admission of guilt in a situation where there’s nothing to feel guilty about.
The episode features Cartman doing a simple parody of Charlie Kirk. It never calls for or suggests violence against him. Charlie Kirk even liked the episode, considering it such an honor to be parodied by South Park that he briefly changed his X profile picture to a screenshot of Cartman doing his best Kirk impression.
Unfortunately, by pulling the episode from Comedy Central, Paramount is sending a clear message that even though they did nothing wrong, they think they did. If the company that made the episode thinks there’s something wrong with it, it becomes much harder for people like me to continue defending it.
So far, neither of South Park’s creators has commented on the incident. Trey Parker and Matt Stone offering condolences would go a long way towards eliminating further controversy. On a human level, they’ve just lost a fan of their show, and that’s something to feel bad about.
South Park is set to return with a new episode on September 18. Trey Parker and Matt Stone produce new episodes on the fly, in response to current events. It’s possible this upcoming episode may address the situation directly.