South Park is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Its frequent depiction of taboo subject matter, unusual (especially sophomoric) humor and portrayal of religion for comic effect has generated controversy, ire from critics, and debate throughout the world over the course of its 28 seasons. Stone and Parker, who also write the show, use it frequently to lampoon a wide range of topics and both sides of contentious issues.

Parker and Stone usually reply to such controversies by regarding themselves as "equal opportunity offenders". They reject the notion of political correctness, and state that no particular topic or group of people will be exempt from mockery and satire, out of fairness to any person or group of people who have been ridiculed before.

Rating

United States In the United States, South Park is mainly rated TV-MA. To note, some episodes in syndication have been reclassified TV-14. However, starting in 2017, uncut airings of South Park on Comedy Central have been receiving a TV-14-DLSV rating, mainly from the first 20 seasons. Episodes from season 22-onwards, as well as particularly offensive episodes (i.e., "Bloody Mary", "Trapped in the Closet"), still carry the TV-MA rating.

Australia In Australia, the first three seasons, and some episodes in season 4, were rated M: Recommended for mature audiences 15 years and over. The M rating is unrestricted and moderate in impact, and it is equivalent to America's TV-14 rating. The latter seasons are rated MA15+, which is a rating restricted for people 15 years and older unless accompanied by adult, and is strong in impact. Despite being rated M on television, the season 3 DVD set was the first season to receive an MA15+ rating. The consumer advice usually goes as follows; Adult themes (A), coarse language (L), sexual references (S) and/or animated violence (V). Depending on the rating, the terms "moderate" and "strong" precede these descriptions.

The video game, South Park: The Stick of Truth, was initially banned. Due to backlash, however, a censored version would be released for Australia along with Israel and Europe, receiving an R18+ rating, much like the other video games based on the series. One scene and one minigame were banned in the Australian release. The banned scene featured a character (the show's protagonists are depicted as primary school children) surrounded by aliens, being probed with a so-called 'anal probe' in the shape of a penis. Additionally, the scene was interactive. The scene was classified as "child sexual abuse" and banned twice. The banned minigame was also interactive and instructed the player to perform abortion on Randy Marsh. South Australia was the last state to decriminalize abortion, doing so on January 1, 2021.

United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, the show is generally rated 15 but only season 7 received an 18 rating due to the audio commentaries (the episodes are only rated 15). However, some episodes, such as those in the first four seasons, do have a 12 rating (Cartman Gets an Anal Probe). Furthermore, the season 3 DVD set was originally rated 18 in the United Kingdom, Canada and Ireland, due to references to child molestation in the final episode, World Wide Recorder Concert. It was re-rated 15 in the United Kingdom upon its re-release in 2008, although in Ireland it is still rated 18, as are a number of episodes in the latter seasons. Later in the series, season 20 was rated 18 due to strong sex references, and season 22 was also rated 18 for child sexual abuse references.

Canada In Canada, the VHS/DVD sets were originally rated 18A, but later re-rated to a 14A rating. On Canadian streaming services such as CraveTV, it carries an 18+ rating for violence (V), strong language (L), sex (S), nudity (N) and mature themes (M).

New Zealand Season 4 and Season 16 are the only seasons rated R13 in New Zealand and the first season is rated M, akin to Australia's rating. The rest of the seasons have an R16 rating. The television rating of the show in New Zealand is AO (adults only).

Spain In Spain, the show is rated 13 (years and above).

India South Park was banned in India in 2010. According to VH1 India's channel head Ferzad Palia, after being reviewed by the Indian Ministry of Broadcasting, the show was banned for its vulgarity. However, in 2019, South Park was added to Netflix India, where it is rated 18+ for strong language and nudity.

Criticism and protests As the series first became popular in the United States, several schools punished students for wearing T-shirts related to the series, while a group of school principals in New Jersey mounted a small campaign to notify parents of the show's content. Hickory Flat Elementary School in Cherokee County, Georgia, issued a ban on wearing any South Park clothing. In a 1999 poll conducted by NatWest Bank, eight and nine-year-old children in the United Kingdom voted the show's character Eric Cartman their favorite personality. This drew the concern of several parent councils, who were expecting that a children's television show character would top the list, and the headmaster of a Cambridgeshire public school urged parents to prevent their children from watching the show. While not opposed to allowing kids to watch the show, Parker and Stone, did however assert that the show is not meant to be viewed by kids, and it is almost always rated TV-MA, while being accompanied by the following warning: "All characters and events in this show—even those based on real people—are entirely fictional. All celebrity voices are impersonated... poorly. The following program contains coarse language and due to its content it should not be viewed by anyone."

Conservative activist L. Brent Bozell III, founder of the advocacy group Parents Television Council (PTC), has frequently criticized the show. Calling it "sordid" and "filth", Bozell said it "shouldn't have been made".

Action for Children's Television founder Peggy Charren claimed that the show's use of language and racial slurs represents the depravity of Western civilization, and that it is "dangerous to the democracy".

Several other Christian activist groups have protested the show's parodies of Christianity-related matter and portrayal of Jesus Christ—whom South Park has depicted blaspheming, shooting and stabbing other characters, and as unable to perform actual miracles. The Christian Family Network prepared an educational guide on how to "protect youth from vile trash like South Park", and claims that their efforts to "restore morality, and protect life for the individual, family, and community" would be impeded if children watched the series.

Stone insists that "[kids] don't have any kind of social tact or etiquette", and claims that parents who disapprove of South Park for its portrayal of how kids behave are upset because they "have an idyllic vision of what kids are like".

Several groups have called for a boycott of the show, its sponsors, and the networks that air it. For example, in late 2008, on behalf of Muslim activists and members of the Russian Pentecostal Church, a group of prosecutors in Moscow sought to have the Russian channel 2×2 closed in an attempt to prevent them from broadcasting the series, which they claimed promoted "hatred between religions". Their appeal was rejected by Russian media officials, and the channel's broadcasting license was extended until 2013. Aside from the efforts in Russia, no group or individual in a country where the show is aired has mounted a significant campaign to ban the series and its availability on home media entirely.

A Canadian judge in the Calgary Judicial District has described South Park as a "vulgar, socially irreverent program that contributes nothing to society".

Critics have also panned the show for being "preachy". In The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie!, the film adaptation of another Comedy Central animated series, Drawn Together, South Park was criticized for its sense of humor and use of social commentary. The show was also parodied in The Simpsons episode "The Bart of War".

These protests actually inspired the plotline of the show's 1999 film adaptation.

Vulgarity and depiction of racism The show further lampooned the controversy surrounding its use of profanity, as well as the media attention surrounding the network show Chicago Hope's single use of the word "shit", with the season five premiere "It Hits the Fan". A counter superimposed on the bottom left corner of the screen tracked each of the episode's utterances of the word "shit", which was said 162 times without being bleeped, while also appearing uncensored in written form 32 times, totaling 194 times used. The backlash to the episode was mostly limited to 5,000 disapproving e-mails sent to Comedy Central.

The PTC also criticized the show for its excessive use of the racial epithet "nigger" in the season 11 (2007) premiere "With Apologies to Jesse Jackson". Despite its 43 uncensored uses of the word, the episode generated relatively little other controversy, as many black communities and the NAACP praised the episode for its context and its comedic way of conveying other races' perceptions of how minorities feel upon being targeted with racist language.Transcript of "Paula Zahn Now" from 8 March, 2007 . CNN. Retrieved April 14, 2007. While some in the Jewish community have praised the show's depiction of the character Eric Cartman holding an antisemitic attitude towards fellow student Kyle Broflovski as a means of accurately portraying what it is like for a young Jewish person to have to endure bigotry as an ethnic minority, other Jewish people have blamed South Park and Cartman for having found themselves surrounded by "acceptable racism".

Parody of Scientology

South Park parodied Scientology in a short that aired as part of the 2000 MTV Movie Awards. The short was titled "The Gauntlet" and also poked fun at John Travolta, a Scientologist. The season five (2001) episode "Super Best Friends" features illusionist David Blaine forming his own cult, called "Blaintology". Parker and Stone have acknowledged that this is meant to be a reference to Scientology.Episode Commentary on South Park: Season 5 DVD boxset.

In the season nine (2005) episode "Trapped in the Closet", Stan Marsh is recognized as the reincarnation of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard before denouncing the church as nothing more than "a big fat global scam". Tom Cruise, also a Scientologist, is seen in the episode locking himself in Stan's closet and refusing to come out, as other characters ambiguously plead for him to "come out of the closet" in a parody of rumors involving Cruise's sexuality. One scene retold the story of Xenu, a story Scientology normally attempts to keep confidential and only reveals to members once they make significant monetary contributions to the church. The show's closing credits billed every member of the episode's cast and crew as "John Smith" and "Jane Smith" in a parody of both Cruise's and the church's reputations for litigiousness.

Departure of Isaac Hayes