Comedy Central has pulled a controversial “South Park” episode that parodied Charlie Kirk after the conservative activist was gunned down at a Utah college on Wednesday.
The Paramount Skydance-owned network quietly removed the rerun of the episode “Got a Nut” from its cable lineup Wednesday night, just hours after Kirk, 31, was shot and killed while speaking at Utah Valley University.
Instead of airing Season 27, Episode 2 — in which Eric Cartman adopts Kirk’s mannerisms and appearance for a satirical college debate podcast — Comedy Central slotted in Episode 1 from the same season.
It’s a rerun. The episode still exists, they just didn’t want to run an episode making fun of a guy who just died. I don’t have anything nice to say about Charlie Kirk, but I don’t think it’s cowardly to decide not to shit on the man while his body is still warm. They didn’t run a tribute or a moment of silence instead. They just switched out the rerun.
He made it very clear that he does not think empathy should exist. There is no such thing as too soon when you declare that.
I agree with you entirely about all of that, but we’re not talking about making a statement, we’re talking about doing the absolute bare minimum to avoid a controversy in the middle of a chaotic situation. Would there be more violence? Would there be retaliation? Would arsonists decide now is their chance to target the “liberal” media?
Also, to your point about his statements on empathy (and gun control, in the same context) I agree that Kirk is undeserving of our respect or our empathy. But empathy is not a gift given to others. It’s a choice you make about your own character. People like Charlie Kirk are the prime examples of how hollow life becomes when you live without empathy.
I won’t say he deserved to be killed, but I will say he lived a life deserving of ridicule, and his death doesn’t change that. We are all of us defined by our choices. Charlie Kirk made his decisions, and I think they were the wrong way to live. I choose to live with empathy because that’s the person I want to be.
I’m not saying that you or anyone else should feel empathy for the man, because I have empathy for you. I understand how Kirk made you feel, and how he made me feel. But I also have empathy for satirists who chose to pull punches yesterday, not because of some performative respect for the dead, but simply because they weren’t sure exactly how they wanted to respond yet.
How he lives, and the cruel opinions he so loudly pushed, thats his character.
Now he’s dead. How WE deal with the death of a notable person, that’s our character.
Most of the time I’m disappointed he was such a hateful personality right up to his death. I want to believe that experience and a cataclysmic event can introduce people to a better way of thinking. He didn’t get his chance for this second chapter, like so many people don’t.
That’s the tragedy here, and most of the time I believe that.
Are his beliefs yours?
Okay, I’ll bite. No, he was formerly a vile being made of pure excrement pulled from a sewage processing facility. In the rest of the world his beliefs would make him an outcast and he would be spreading his message in churches and rural community centers. Suggesting that someone shares his beliefs is actually pretty offensive
I’m just pointing out that him not having empathy doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have empathy.
Myself, I only feel bad that his children seen it.
He was a shitstain on society and does not deserve the consideration.
That’s what he would’ve said.
which… is why people are giving him the treatment he would have given everyone else
the amount of sanewashing from MSMs is pretty telling.