Frank

In case you haven't heard, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park signed a three-season renewal contract Tuesday. The $75 million deal will make the duo filthy rich, but more importantly, it guarantees that one of the most important shows on television will continue to air until 2011.http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070828/tv_nm/southpark_dc;_ylt=Alp1fpZ8pgcWt.7Ol578UGxxFb8C

You read that last part right, South Park, the same show that features talking feces, an action hero Jesus and countless other offenses, is one of the most important, no necessary shows on television today.

Over and over South Park has have pushed the envelope in areas other programs refuse to touch and in the process the show has done a service to the First Amendment and freedom of expression. No religious group, ethnicity or trend is safe and given the hectic production schedule of each episode (which is animated, voiced and edited in a week) a timelier sitcom cannot be found.

An excellent example of this is the two-part "Cartoon Wars" episode from season 10.

Created during the protests over the political cartoon in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten newspaperhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_reactions_to_the_Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy#_note-45, the episodes focused on the taboo that began to form around the image of Muhammad and the ramifications this taboo had on the First Amendment. While the episodes ignored the concept of cultural sensitivity, it made the point that whenever anyone, be it a single person, a nation or television network submits to the manipulative qualities of threat and fear, terrorism wins.

Parker and Stone backed up their statement by featuring an image of the prophet in one of the final scenes of the episode, only to see Comedy Central censor the image for fear of a backlash. Later, a crudely animated, reprisal cartoon from the terrorists featured images of Jesus shitting on George W. Bush and vice versa. This scene was aired uncensored, reinforcing the point that in topics of free speech, it is either open season on everything or nothing. Showing disrespectful images of one religious figure and not another creates the illusion of favoritism and limits expression.

While statements like this one have been echoed throughout opinion columns and the Internet, since the initial fervor, South Park is a show watched by a largely 18-24-year-old audiencehttp://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/29/business/nielsen.php. These are issues everyone should be considering, but especially students and young people who will play a vital role in the future of this country. Every now and then South Park is able to sneak a message in between fart jokes and that is why it's necessary.