Criticism
Comedy Central has been a frequent target of criticism from the conservative group Parents Television Council, which accuses them of bigotry and blasphemy, especially within the programs South Park, The Sarah Silverman Program, Halfway Home, and the annual "Roast" special. PTC has used their criticisms against Comedy Central for their support of the Family and Consumer Choice Act of 2007, which would allow American cable TV subscribers to choose which channels they subscribe to, and to persuade advertisers to stop advertising on the channel. PTC founder and former president L. Brent Bozell III has called the channel unfunny, claiming the channel has managed "to reach the top of its field in spite of – or, better put, because of – the network's sheer lack of comedic talent" by its "extensive reliance on shocking or disgusting humor". The channel has also received criticism from certain parents for airing advertisements for "Girls Gone Wild". The channel also airs the least cut version of the popular film Not Another Teen Movie, as well as uncut versions of films such as Coming to America, Dogma and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
On November 5, 2007, an open letter was written by VideoSift to protest publicly the blocking of Comedy Central's embedded video content for non U.S. based viewers.
On April 21, 2010, Comedy Central censored the South Park episode, "201", in response to a death threat issued by users of a radical Muslim website over the episode's planned depiction of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, which led several newspaper columnists to condemn the network's actions as tantamount to abetting terrorism. As a result, "201" and the episode that preceded it were heavily edited and not shown in repeats.
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Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world—though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst—the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“Unless criticism refuses to take itself quite so seriously or at least to permit its readers not to, it will inevitably continue to reflect the finicky canons of the genteel tradition and the depressing pieties of the Culture Religion of Modernism.”
—Leslie Fiedler (b. 1917)
“Like speaks to like only; labor to labor, philosophy to philosophy, criticism to criticism, poetry to poetry. Literature speaks how much still to the past, how little to the future, how much to the East, how little to the West.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)