Here Are the Nations That Have Gone to War With ‘South Park’
Going to war with South Park rarely ends up in anything less than a disaster. Just ask Mecha-Streisand, Tom Cruise or what’s left of Toronto.
Ever since its inception in 1997, South Park has made little effort to be diplomatic about its portrayal of different cultures and countries — including those of America and mid-sized-town Colorado. As the most iconoclastic comedy series in adult animation, South Park goes out of its way to create international incidents of indecency, mocking different peoples and nations across the world with each passing season. And, while Canada has certainly gotten the worst of South Park’s mockery and most of its nuclear strikes, the real Great White North has taken the joke much better than many other countries that had axes to grind with Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
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Despite the constant jabs at our northern buddies, Canada airs South Park uncensored, and the country’s people and representatives have never been so foolish as to pick a fight with the heavyweight series. But these countries mistakenly decided to take some swings…
Mexico
Before the Season 13 South Park episode “Pinewood Derby” could air on MTV Latin America, the network suddenly pulled the episode over purported fears of offending Mexican South Park fans and Mexican president Felipe Calderón over the depiction of the leader frivolously spending “space cash” on needless water parks. President Calderón prided himself on his fiscal responsibility, calling himself the “Employment President,” and fans still believe that political reservations were behind the self-censorship — though MTV Latin America maintains that they only scratched the episode because they couldn’t get a special permit to show the Mexican flag on TV before the scheduled airing.
Costa Rica
Anyone who has seen Season Three’s “Rainforest Schmainforest” won’t be the least bit surprised to learn that Costa Rica and its people weren’t crazy about Cartman spending an entire episode complaining about how the proud country “smells like ass” (in his completely bigoted opinion), as nobody wants to see one of the most popular TV shows in the world proclaim that their homeland is of “prostitutes, shantytowns and trash.” In 2007, Costa Rica finally banned “Rainforest Schmainforest” from the airwaves until a more culturally sensitive re-dub could be completed.
Sri Lanka
In all of South Park history, no double-episode arc has ever garnered as much controversy as “200” and “201” from its fourth season. And, despite being the center of the most controversy, The Holy Prophet Muhammad, Peace Be Upon Him, wasn’t the only religious figure whom South Park offensively depicted in the infamous storyline about every celebrity the show’s ever mocked conspiring to bring down the city. As it turns out, Buddhists also hated “200” and “201” for how South Park animated The Buddha snorting cocaine, causing the government of the Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka to ban the entire series from their country.
India
Now, this one is an interesting case because there doesn’t seem to be a specific episode, character or culturally insensitive punchline that preceded the ban, but, in 2010, India deported the entire South Park series over vulgarity concerns. Strangely, India banned South Park shortly before the airing of the aforementioned “200,” but Indian news outlets reported that it was mere hilarious coincidence that the government decided to censor the entirety of South Park shortly before it brutally insulted half the world. South Park returned to India by way of Netflix in 2019.
China
In one of the boldest moves in South Park history, Parker and Stone, fed up with American media giants sucking up to the Chinese Communist Party, went out and deliberately placed themselves on the outside of the Great Wall with the aptly titled 2019 episode “Band in China.” This masterpiece aired all of China’s dirty laundry, ranging from their treatment of the Dalai Lama, their practice of performing forcible organ transplants on political prisoners and President Xi Jinping’s crushing insecurity about his resemblance to Winnie the Pooh.
Just as the title predicted, South Park has been banned in China ever since.