Here's a worthy repost, due to breaking news - Isaac Hayes, who had gained new fame as the voice of Chef in "South Park", left the show, because they "continually ridiculed religion". Hayes didn't mention a particular episode. Acutally South Park creator Matt Stone said: "In 10 years and over 150 episodes of South Park, Isaac never had a problem with the show making fun of Christians, Muslims, Mormons or Jews." But being a member of the Church of Scientology, Hayes obviosuly objected to the episode 'Trapped in the closet" that revealed the secret doctrine of Scientology, which only long-time members are supposed to know after years of visiting so called 'clearing' sessions:
The real butt of that joke was of course Scientology's most outspoken advocate Tom Cruise. There's a whole website called Scientomogy that shows nothing but outrageous clips of the star proseletyizing and/or flipping out on TV.
The episode's plot: when South Park’s Stan gets tested on the Church’s E-meter, he registers as an instant "Operational Tetan 9", which is the highest stage of enlightenment you can reach in their belief system. Stan is considered the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard. Subsequently Cruise comes to South Park to talk to the ‚prophet’ and asks Stan what he thinks of his work. The boy replies "You're O.K. I mean you're not Leonardo DiCaprio or Napoleon Dynamite or anything." Cruise is devastated, whines: "I'm a failure in the eyes of the Prophet!" and subsequently locks himself into Stan's bedroom closet. Everybody comes together in Stan’s bedroom and begs: „Come out of the Closet, Tom.“ Later John Travolta, Nicole Kidman and R. Kelly try to help, with Travolta and Kelly getting locked up in the closet as well.
Last week a scheduled rerun of the episode was canceled, supposedly after Cruise threatened to not promote "Mission: Impossible 3," a surefire summer blockbuster, if the offending episode ran (Comedy Central is owned by Viacom, as is Paramount, which is putting out the film). Cruise's spokespeople adamently deny this though.
That hasn't kept Matt Stone and Trey Parker from declaring war: "So, Scientology, you may have won THIS battle, but the million-year war for earth has just begun!" they said in a statement. "Temporarily anozinizing our episode will NOT stop us from keeping Thetans forever trapped in your pitiful man-bodies... You have obstructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail!"
Tomorrow "South Park" starts it's new season with an episode called "The Return of Chef", which will no doubt pick up the thread.
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Watch the whole "Trapped in the closet" episode.
1 comment:
holy crap. i knew scientologists were weird but i had no idea they were actually wibbly in the brain. Is this true? South Park must have exaggerated. Outside of the mainstream religions this is the weirdest stuff i have heard
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