Mary bleeding
I loathe South Park, and think that Trey Parker and Matt Stone's pureile, misogynist liberatarian politics come through in every episode that I've watched. But I am wondering about this latest fuss.
Everything I've read about the episode of South Park that is outraging Catholics , focuses on the fact that the virgin Mary menstruates. Now I don't know a lot about Catholic theology, but surely that's not controversial? She was a woman (she's half your complex - where's the whore without a virgin), women tend to menstruate as long as they're in reasonable physical health. There does seem to be a whole 'periods are yucky and we must not besmirch Mary by mentioning that she had one' tone to this whole debate. Did anyone watch it, can anyone tell me what people were so upset about?
I saw the episode, and may I say first of all that apart from the "controversy" it was probably the least entertaining episode I had ever seen...
ReplyDeleteRegarding what caused offence, first off the "Virgin Mary" in the episode was a statue, not an acutal woman. I think the offence mostly came more from the fact that they were poking fun at "the miracle of stigmata" - which Catholics tend to take pretty seriously, and do believe that when Stigmata occurs, other miracles such as healing the sick occur around it.
In the episode the supposed "stigmata" story was tied in with the sub plot that "alcoholism is a disease", propogated by Alcoholics Anonymous.(Which Matt and Trey obviously dont agree with)and as such can be cured by a healing miracle (which they also obviously dont believe).
So I think the offence caused stems primarily from the implication that:
1) Catholics are stupid as they believe that a bleeding statue can heal you.
With a seconday jibe not discussed in the media..
2) Alcoholics Anonymous are stupid as they lead Alcoholics to believe that they are suffering from a disease.
There was also the implication that Alcoholics Anonymous while claiming to be non religious actually promotes a religous agenda.
Matt and Trey may have had other intentions, but this is my interpretation.