I pride myself on my ability to laugh at anything and find offense in nothing. And i thought the movie was the funniest thing I've ever seen, even though it dragged in the middle. But anyway, I think the Mole was a good character, but some of what he said was just unnecessary. Having him call god a "cocksucking faggot" or whatever over and over again just seemed excessive. No one laughed and there was no real point to it. I wasn't offended by this, but I do think it detracted from the movie. But that's just my opinion.
Well, did you notice how the kids reacted to Mole? His cursing didn't have the gleeful giddiness of the rest of the movie. As always, it was to make a point.
Because he knows he's going to lick your face later?
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The humor wasn't so much in what he *said* but how that was purposefully included, to just encourage people to laugh at themselves. It wasn't meant to be taken seriously, as I see it. No one should take it too seriously, everyone should learn to laugh at themselves. That was the point of that, as I see it.
Just jam your hand up your ass....wait wait wait.....gettin' there...wait wait.....*SPLORSH" ...got it!!! Now that that bible is removed from your ass, you can laugh at The Mole's antics and call god a glorious faggot as well! After all, god is the biggest bitch of them all. :)
Greg
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"Rosie O'Donnell...is as exciting as a dry popcorn fart" -Doug Steckler
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"They may cut your dick in half, and serve it to a pig...and though it
hurts, you'll laugh...and dance a dickless jig!"
-La Resistance, "South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut"
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Who are you mad at, really? Did someone molest you or something? God does good things and loves all people, and here you go and blaspheme him. You should seek counseling. Seriously!
I'm not mad at anyone...relax buddy! (that's the canadian in me...wait...I'm not canadian...never mind). Dude, why would you equate molestation with my non-belief in a fictional deity? Now THAT is fucked up and is more deserving of counseling. I don't beleive in your little sky-daddy, and I'll "blaspheme" it all I want. :)
Peace and soybeans, Greg
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"Rosie O'Donnell...is as exciting as a dry popcorn fart" -Doug Steckler
======================================================================
"They may cut your dick in half, and serve it to a pig...and though it
hurts, you'll laugh...and dance a dickless jig!"
-La Resistance, "South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut"
======================================================================
It's you're making fun of something fictional, it's not blasphemy. Blasphemy doesn't exist if there's no god.
I've always explained that, on one level, I equate god, jesus, Satan, etc. with Santa Claus or Mickey Mouse. These days, I work for Disney, so the parallel has become more evident: There are quite a few (grown!) people whose offices are cluttered with obnoxious little stuffed animals, walls plastered with posters for saccharine cartoons. Say _anything_ remotely disparaging about Mickey, Ariel, Simba and the crew, or Disney Magic in general, and you're greeted with a look of stunned horror. It's just plain _funny_ to see people react with such reverence to something so silly and meaningless.
Know where the term "sacred cow" came from? There are many people on Earth who believe that cows are holy and shouldn't be killed. Does this mean the rest of us should refrain from killing cows, too, out of respect for their beliefs? It's not like the average Christian has any respect for beliefs other than his/her own. Just last month, the Fundie Republicans in Congress were arguing that the Wiccan religion should not be granted the same protections as "the Judeo-Christian faith upon which this country was based."
Mole was my favorite character, and the three audiences I've sat with so far laughed as loudly at his barbs as they did at the "Uncle Fucka" production number. His more crude comments were also greeted with the same "Whooooooa"s of disbelief as the coat hanger and "bleeds for five days" jokes. They obviously struck a nerve.
I wasn't offended by anything in the movie. The one serious(?) critic I've read who's had reservations is Roger Ebert, who said he laughed throughout, but felt bad about laughing sometimes. I can only assume the racial humor is what bothered him (come to think of it, I believe he's in an interracial marriage, so he would be sensitive, eh?) Cartman calls people "Filthy Jews" and whatnot, but he's portrayed, more or less, as a rotten, somewhat pathetic little kid. Anyways, it's obvious from his comments in the foxhole with Kyle that he doesn't really know what he's talking about, and he's just repeating what he's heard from adults. Operation Human Shield didn't bother me, either. It seemed to me to be a pretty obvious reference to the military's history of racism -- ever heard of the Tuskeegee Airmen? Racism is being ridiculed, not espoused.
I don't see why a person secure in his/her beliefs should find Mole personally offensive. A secure person would shrug it off: "How silly. Why make one of the kids a French Existentialist?" If you're bothered by your religion being ridiculed, I think it's because you are insecure in your faith. It's been shown in studies that the biggest homophobes are closet cases themselves; they are bothered by homosexuality because it forces them to confront something within themselves they _do_not_ want to. In the same manner, if you get bent out of shape hearing Jesus dismissed as a "cocksucking asshole," get serious for a minute and ask yourself why it bothers you. Maybe it's because you've been going along with this stuff because everybody else seems to believe it, and you've been taught it's true since you were born.
I may have taken the other side ten or twelve years ago, before I got into one particular argument defending Christianity. Afterwards, I had to seriously ask myself _why_ I believed in and defended the religion. Once I was able to look at the situation objectively, not only didn't I believe anymore, I _couldn't_ believe. The same way I can't believe 5+5=73. It just doesn't make sense, and I had believed it ever since I could remember simply because I was brought up to.
In any event, it's silly to complain that religion is the one subject off-limits for ridicule. Just accept the fact that you don't share the same point of view as the filmmakers and go watch something inoffensive like "Friends."
Ah, yes. Mr. Bob Barr. ::snort:: I loved how he was making these speeches at the same time Clinton was over in the Kosovo region talking about how wonderful the US is because it is tolerant of different religions and ethnicities. I'm still looking for a transcript of Clinton's speech so I can mail it to Mr. Barr.
A very good point, and one that, IMHO, deserves looking into. I'd thought of something similar the other day, realizing that there were a lot of folks who were getting their knickers in a twist over the film, and trying to decide what Matt and Trey could have put in there that would have offended *me* personally. And I couldn't come up with anything. It's not that I don't have firm beliefs in certain things, it's that I'm firm enough in those beliefs that I'm not going to be bothered by someone else's opinion of them. That and I know how to take a joke. ;)
<<Just last month, the Fundie Republicans in Congress were arguing that the Wiccan religion should not be granted the same protections as "the Judeo-Christian faith upon which this country was based."
OMFG. What the fuck were they on? Get that bible out of your ass, fundies. And what the hell did they mean by "protections"?
Long live the Bill Of Rights!
"Education is the ultimate weapon and the master key." -Daniel M. Gordon, IQ 123
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Let's see, six new posts from the Avenging Christian today, and FOUR of them are about...well, check it out:
* "Who are you mad at, really? Did someone molest you or something?" * "Why would you run away from these organizations, unless you were a pervert taking pictures of kids naked or something?" * "I think I'll kick his ass for looking at little girls like that." * "Okay, so with this rationale we could say that it is okay to fuck little kids because, after all, they're going to be doing that one day anyway, right?"
The icing on the psychological cake is his insistence that OTHERS should seek counseling for disagreeing with him. Any Christians out there should pray for his students.
Why is it that hard-core Christians have such a prediliction for pedifilia? This guy can't get off of the subject, maybe he is a cardinal that molested so many boys in his perish and that is why he has to e-mail 500 letters for community service or maybe that was in the hail marys.
Don't know, maybe never figure it out, because I am not Christian.
Let us delve into the Ontological Argument for a moment, and allow me to play Devil's Advocate, if God created the skies, the trees, the mountains, the people then he also created suffering, pain, death, hatred, and offensive sardonic humor, therefore God is a the creator of evil and is not only the representation of all good but of all evil.
How dare you limit your own God, you blasphemer. You are a mere peasent to this great spirituality that is omniscent, omnipresent and omnipotent and you, a mere mortal, have the ability to limit his powers. You are the only blasphemer, ironic that you are the token religious zealot. Doncha think...
Just jam your hand up your ass....wait wait wait.....gettin' there...wait wait.....*SPLORSH" ...got it!!! Now that that bible is removed from your ass, you can laugh at The Mole's antics and call god a glorious faggot as well! After all, god is the biggest bitch of them all. :)
Yeah, [bleep] God!!!! ::burns bible::
Long live the Bill Of Rights!
"Education is the ultimate weapon and the master key." -Daniel M. Gordon, IQ 123
And having Jesus in the army isn't excessive? Trust me, God can handle being called a faggot.
Everyone in my theater gasped at the coathanger line, and then half of them burst into tremendous laughter because that is just about the harshest thing a boy can say about his mother.
The punchline to the Mole's remarks is the fact that such a large portion of South Park fans find it offensive. I chuckled. Jordan Berman wrote in message news:895f3.12899$[email]...
That's a pretty shitty punchline, in my opinion. I don't think anyone knows what the purpose of including the Mole's remarks were. If you do, I'd like to hear them.
Jordan Berman wrote in message news:6tgf3.13429$[email]...
Time to chill out.
Take a step back from yourself, and ask: "Why are the Mole's comments offensive?" Because they offend your personal beliefs? Well, if you haven't learned to check *those* at the movie theater door by this point... then I don't know what to tell you.
Trust me, being an agnostic, I can tell you that when you're not all wrapped up in being personally offended by humour, the Mole is quite funny. My father is black. But I thought the military briefings with "Operation: Human Shield" were just as funny as the rest of the movie. Stone is Jewish. Need I say more?
DO NOT TAKE PERSONAL OFFENSE AT THIS HUMOR! I thought we all learned this a couple of years back?
Actually, it goes beyond personal beliefs. 95% of the world believes in a 'god', whatever form that higher power takes. To have a character repeatedly refer to 'god', the contruct, as a homosexual (and in the crudest possible terms) indicates not just a willingness to offend, but an earnest attempt to offend.
That was the purpose of the Mole's remarks; To offend those who would be offended by them.
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And among these 95% is Matt Stone, co-creator of South Park. He's Jewish. However, he apparently recognizes the distinction between humor (can anyone even count the number of Jewish jokes in SP?) and reality.
Oh, and Operation Human Shield doesn't show a willingness/attempt to offend? I think someone is missing the point of all of this.
Partially. They also served as a satire of French existentialism, to anyone who could see past their blinders long enough to catch the humor.
Hey, don't misunderstand me. I laughed at the most irreverant jokes in the movie, but I think it's pretty obvious that 'being offensive' was one of the main goals Parker and Stone set for themselves when they started the movie project. I'd be willing to bet that some scenes even had to be rewritten because they weren't offensive enough the first time.
I don't think so. I think you're just defensive because of the recent troll influx. I certainly didn't mean to imply that religion was the only sacred cow that got trampled in this movie. Far from it.
And in a larger sense, the main purpose of the movie's content was to offend. But to offend the right kind of people, as far as Parker and Stone were concerned. I believe they admitted as much in their interviews. If you offend the right people, the direct results are notoriety and profits.
A satire, perhaps, but not clever like a real satire. Too obvious, it was a carricature, or maybe more of a burlesque treatment.
OR, a great excuse to further piss off the right-wingers. Where else would the coat hanger comment have come from? "Not offensive enough. We need another line here. Brainstorm. Shoot it around the room. What do you have for me? Coat hanger? Bingo! Run with that..." ;)
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Actually, I figured it was yet-another pop culture reference to... well, something. The French Connection, maybe? The Mole *has* to be a reference to something - the character is so well-defined, and everything else in the movie is cleverly stolen from this or that movie or song.
(Spoilers here...) Incidentally, did I just imagine it, or was the whole scene with Satan tossing Saddam back into hell directly ripped from the end of Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock? "I... am getting tired... of you!" Heh... am I the only geek that gets that joke? Or am I just the only geek that remembers that painfully bad movie? :-)
As a matter of fact, I wouldn't mind seeing a comprehensive list of just what all Parker and Stone ripped for this film. I mean, there are some pretty clever ones. The "tomorrow night" song is rather obviously (and brilliantly!) stolen from Les Mis. Satan's "Up There" song reminded me heavily of Ariel's first song from Little Mermaid. And the opening song/segueway has *got* to be a reference to the opening song from Beauty and the Beast. And that was just from one viewing; and I was laughing through most of that. Are there any other really obvious ones?
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Because people take sky fairies like gawd to seriously, and it's funny to see people react to the bad-mouthing of a fictional character. :)
Greg
======================================================================
"Rosie O'Donnell...is as exciting as a dry popcorn fart" -Doug Steckler
======================================================================
"They may cut your dick in half, and serve it to a pig...and though it
hurts, you'll laugh...and dance a dickless jig!"
-La Resistance, "South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut"
======================================================================
On Sat, 03 Jul 1999 04:38:26 GMT, "Jordan Berman" wrote:
A. It was funny. B. There is no "B".
It all depends on where you stand. Personally, I laughed my ass off. The only thing I found excessive about Mole was the coathanger statement. I just didn't find that funny for some reason. I'm pro-choice too, so it's not like I'm offended by the idea of abortion. ========================== "...and I dreamed I was a spaceman burned like a moth in a flame and our world was so fucking gone"
On Fri, 02 Jul 1999 15:46:12 GMT, "Jordan Berman" wrote:
I think that Parker and Stone were aiming for an audience they hadn't offended yet (directly). I found the Mole to be one of my favorite characters. I laughed till I cried with him spouting his anti-religious diatribes. I think it was simply making sure that the fundamentalists saw the middle finger pointed their way.
It ridiculous in this day and age to see people offended at the comments of the mole. What is it about his comments against god did you find offensive? The mole was relating a point of view that the world is such a fucked up place there can't possibly be an all-loving all knowing god controlling it all and if there is some supreme deity that has mankind's best interests at heart then he is a fucking asshole for letting the world go to shit. With the wars, diseases, starvation, hatred and all other afflictions upon the world it's amazing to see that people can still hold some warped belief in a supreme and loving god.
Personally I laughed the loudest at the mole's comments.
On Fri, 02 Jul 1999 15:46:12 GMT, "Jordan Berman" wrote:
"Why did Abba cross the road?" "Because they were stapled to the Ace Of Base!" "It's simple as Geography, folks!" --Sifl & Olly (Believe this and you believe liars.)