Was the Scientology SOUTH PARK on Wed- 3-15?

Cafe Society
41

Well, most people don’t think to look up Scientology, because it probably doesn’t even cross their paths. To most people, it’s just some weird religion that a lot of Hollywood belongs to. Before I came to the SD, I thought it was just some religion that worshipped science.
I don’t always watch the show-sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s just plain stupid. It’s pretty hit or miss. But I thought the Scientology episode was bang on, because I hate that stupid cult and it’s bullshit. Then some others are just plain nasty. I think Matt and Trey tend to be assholes, but on this issue, I’m behind them 100%.
Larry Mudd, I don’t think that’s it. I think it’s more, billions of years ago, the earth was overpopulated, and it was called something like Teeaccgguk or something. So the overlord of the galaxy, Xenu, trapped all these souls in planes that were like DC-8s, took them to earth, trapped them in volcanos, and then nuked the volcanos. He caught their souls in some kind of spiritual fly paper, and forced them to watch weird movies about psychology and Jesus or whatever, and now they stuck together in clumps, and they stick to people’s souls. The tech or whatever is supposed to get rid of all these souls on you.

They believe in reincarnation as the after life. Xenu is supposedly still alive, imprisoned in a volcano, and Hubbard was the reincarnation of the guy who defeated him. That’s why Sea Org makes you sign billion year contracts-so when you’re reincarnated, you’ll come back to serve Hubbard again.

Scientology would be harmless, if bullshit, if it were only the Xenu story. But it’s not-read the book A Piece of Blue Sky. It’s pretty scary.

42

If you haven’t seen it already–and I’m guessing many at this board already have–Scientology is more completely exposed at the Operation Clambake website.

43

I promise, the prison planet deal is a big part of it. It doesn’t get talked about as much, because it’s not quite as b-movie sounding as the Xenu deal.

I read this in actual Scientology publications, and the Scientologist fella that I lived with even recorded an entirely unlistenable song that was supposed to represent the death-and-rebirth experience of Scientology mythos: Zooming past the outer planets, feeling exhilaration at being freed from the body, then being intercepted by patrol ships, dragged off by robot monsters and taken to an interrogation room and being forced to submit an accounting of your life experiences for their massive database, re-imprinted with controlling engrams, and then fed into a machine and projected back into an embyro in a new womb, to do the whole shebang again. (The best part was the Dalek-like vocoder voice yelling “REPORT! REPORT! REPORT!” during a bridge.) Seriously, incomprehensibly weird, recorded on an eight-track Tascam with him doing all the instruments and vocals, heavy on the FM synthesis and drum machines, and sort of acid-jazz bass and guitar.

Scientologists believe in reincarnation, not as the natural order of things, but as something imposed by evil aliens who seek to control us. If you pay for enough courses, you’re supposed to be able to get past that, leave your body behind, and go anywhere in the universe, instead of being stuck here on earth.

I kind of assumed that everyone in this thread knows the Xenu story, but you can’t really boil Scientology down to just that. The thing with Scientology is that a Scientologist is always “on course,” and the goalposts keep moving. My friend had advanced to OT VI, by which time he had spent something like $150,000 on courses. (Not including course materials, bulletins, each new “upgraded” e-meter, travel expenses to Clearwater, non-course Bridge publications, tuition to send his son to a private Scientology school, etc.) And he was happy to pay. He worked two jobs, played in a band, and he still lived hand-to-mouth. He had just enough clothes to appear “up-stat.” As far as he was concerned, though-- he was moving forward.

You don’t string people along for years and years like that with an elegant little mythos that fits on one page – you’ve got to have lots of courses to keep people on track, and training routines, and technical bulletins, etc.

44

There are private Scientology schools? How do they work?

45

You’re kidding, right? Just about the entire Dadaist movement was essentially one big troll:

46

Wow, I stand corrected. That’s just madness. Then again, the guy who wrote the book might not have progressed that far yet.

Soul traps? Jesus.

KarlGrenze, they’re probably run through the Scientology centers. From what I’ve read, they’re total bullshit. Kids learn how to “project” an ashtray or whatever.

47

To be fair, it sounds a bit like buddhism. As reimagined by a hack 1950’s science-fiction writer, but the central “you reincarnate, but only because you’re not enlightened enough to move on” dogma is a close match.

Of course, Buddhism is usually not so parasitical to its faithful, and they’ll tell you about their doctrines up front, so they get extra points for morals and honesty, at least.

48

Yes it’s all fun and games until it’s your (royal you) ox that’s being gored isn’t it? Then it’s just “hate filled”. Maybe the larger lesson here is that all sacred cows need to be killed.

(FWIW, I don’t watch South Park with any regularity at all. Maybe once at most twice in a given season)

49

Did you see the episode in which Mr. Garrison got a sex change? It’s hard to imagine how you could decide that it was anything but “hate-filled”, but feel free to try to justify that. If you’re arguing that South Park frequently is hate-filled, that’s pretty much the case nowadays. The fact that people are more liable to react if the hate is directed their own way is not really a surprise.

I think that you’re giving the show far too much dignity if you think that the episode in question had anything to do with “killing a sacred cow”. It was simply hateful towards transgendered people - and it wasn’t similar to a lot of their episodes in which they criticize religions or social movements. For instance, the episode telling the story of Mormonism was offensive - but at the same time, the family of Mormons was depicted in essentially a positive light, as decent people (even if they were following a wacky religion.) That was vastly different from their depiction of transgenderism. Watch the two episodes and compare them - they’re not in the same realm at all.

50

. . . and, you see, that’s one of the reasons they get away with so much. If you take issue with anything they say, you’ll be accused of having “no sense of huuuumor! Lighten up!”

Mind you, I’m not calling for a boycott or asking anyone else not to watch the show, I’m just saying that because of their willful ignorance (would a little research have killed them?) and the vilest major-media hate speech I have ever encountered, I no longer watch the show.

(By the way, Dr. Biber, a hero in my book, died a month or two after they pilloried him . . . )

51

I’ve seen pretty much every episode and for the longest time, I was one of South Park’s biggest defenders, but I have to agree that over the last few years, they’ve seemingly run of things to mock and have delved into a level of crudeness, just for the sake of being different or “cutting edge”. Eve used the term willfully ignorant and I think thats an apt statement. They seem to purposefully portray things they disagree with, in a light that anyone with a decent level of intelligence can see as slanted or flatout false, in order to get their point across.

In the past, they never seemed to take themselves too seriously. But from reading recent articles, I think Stone and Parker have decided that they have this vehicle with which to put across their viewpoint and suddenly they’re an important political pundit or whatever. But they either don’t care or don’t have the intelligence to put out an intelligence debate. So instead, its slanted and increasingly crude.

52

Precisely. I haven’t watched regularly lately - but every time I turn on the show, it seems like it’s oriented around some other stupid political point they’re trying to make. Do they still do episodes with, you know, stories? About the kids in South Park?

53

After a quick glance over the episode guide for the last two years, it seems that during the last season, it was about half and half between regular episodes and what I would call political ones. The previous season however, it seems that every episode had a some sort of topical point to make.

54

IMO you are utilising a double standard.

The average Mormons were portrayed as basically decent people who were stupid enough to be brainwashed by an organisation despite the claims being patently ridiculous. And in the re-assignment surgery episode Kyle and his Father were portrayed as portrayed as basically decent people who were stupid enough to be brainwashed by an organisation despite the claims being patently ridiculous. There was absolutely no difference.

In both cases the people in question were portrayed as being basically normal (for the SP universe) but were manipulated by an immoral individual. In the case of the Mormons they were being manipulated by Smith, who produced fraudulent material to scam people for money. In the case of those suffering from ‘cognitive dissonance’ they were being manipulated by a Doctor who produced fraudulent material to scam people for money.

I really can’t see any reason to say that either of those episodes was more hate filled than the other SP episode. This is a long standing SP theme. Take the characters and have them remain themselves but manipulated by someone who is portrayed as evil and immoral. The same theme has been applied to Mel Gibson, David Blaine and ‘Earth Day’ amongst other. In all cases the common people were portrayed as victims of an evil lunatic.

What I find most interesting is that this really does only seem to be an issue when it is our sacred cow that is being slaughtered. It’s funny as hell when it’s people who believe in LDS or Scientology or Roman Catholicism or Environmentalism who are portrayed as being gullible enough to believe in and be and manipulated by ridiculous arguments. But when the same show uses exactly the same method to portray people who agree with me as being gullible and manipulated by ridiculous arguments then it’s suddenly hateful.

Hogwash IMO. Either we accept that it’s hateful to portray Mormons as gullible fools swayed by conmen in the church establishment or it’s not hateful to show the transgendered as gullible fools swayed by conmen in the medical establishment. Portraying common folk as basically decent but prone to manipulation can’t just be hateful when it implies that I’m misinformed and being manipulated.

55

Except you seem to have missed the description of the only actual transgendered person in that episode.

56

No, I didn’t. Perhaps you missed where I clearly stated “This is a long standing SP theme. Take the characters and have them remain themselves but manipulated by someone who is portrayed as evil and immoral.”?

Mr. Garrison is a completely screwed up headcase, even by SP standards. He has always been portrayed as having serious issues with his sexuality. The character remained true to what it has been since day one: a a screwed up headcase with issues surrounding his sexuality. Had Mr Garrison been rational about his sexuality or sane it would have been completely out of character.

Should we somehow think that his behaviour in that episode was less weird than his behaviour in any other episode? Or should we believe the entire character should have been re-written just for that one episode so that when he became a transsexual he magically became rational and sympathetic?

Either way we are expecting special treatment when it’s our sacred cow that’s being butchered.

57

I guess perhaps my sacred cow is “Transgendered people are not grotesque monsters.” Because that’s the clear implication of the episode - forget the ridiculous depiction of a doctor talking people into getting SRS surgery when they don’t actually want it (expecting Parker and Stone not to play fast and loose with reality is a bit too much, I guess.) Look at Stan’s dad - isn’t the implication pretty obvious? He got turned into some horrific facsimile of a dolphin by the doctor - what does that say about people who receive SRS? I didn’t see anything like that in the Mormon episode. The religion was fake, yes, but the Mormon family also was depicted as far more together and generally decent than most people. Stan’s dad in the transexual episode was not given the same courtesy - but maybe that just means my “sacred cow” got slaughtered.

58

Actually, it sounds more like Gnosticism. I seem to recall that Hubbard had some familiarity with Aleister Crowley’s ideas, though I’m feeling too lazy to look it up at the moment. Paul Twitchell, the founder of another fringe religious movement called Eckankar, was a fairly high muckity muck in Scientology before he decided to become a prophet himself. I understand Eckankar is relatively innocuous, though.

59

Hubbard explicitly wrote that Scientology is “gnostic”, and the similarity between scientology and gnosticism is pretty undeniable - specifically the need to “escape” from reincarnation upon death because some force is trying to push you back to earth.

60

As if he even needs to promote it…I dislike this dude more with each passing day.