"Trapped in the Closet" is the twelfth episode in the ninth season of the American animated television series South Park. The 137th episode of the series overall, it originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on November 16, 2005. In the episode, Stan joins Scientology in an attempt to find something "fun and free". After the discovery of his surprisingly high "thetan levels", he is recognized as the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the church. The episode was written and directed by series co-creator Trey Parker, who was credited as John Smith.
"Trapped in the Closet" generated significant controversy when a rebroadcast scheduled for March 15, 2006, was replaced by the episode "Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls". Comedy Central stated the change was a tribute to Isaac Hayes after Hayes announced his departure from the show, but other reports claimed Tom Cruise, who is portrayed in the episode, threatened to back out of his promotional obligations for the Paramount Pictures film Mission: Impossible III if Viacom, the owner of both Comedy Central and Paramount, allowed a repeat airing of the episode. Cruise and his representative denied the claims. A statement from Hayes, also a Scientologist, said he left the show in response to the episode, though Hayes's son later said the statement was written without the knowledge of his father, who had not recovered from a stroke. The episode has since been rebroadcast on Comedy Central regularly.
"Trapped in the Closet" was nominated for an Emmy Award in July 2006, in the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour) category. The episode was also featured among Comedy Central's list of "10 South Parks That Changed The World". TV Guide ranked the episode #17 on its list of "TV's Top 100 Episodes of All Time".
Plot Stan takes a free "personality test" offered by Scientologists on the street. After answering the questionnaire, Stan is informed that he is extremely depressed and therefore a perfect candidate for Scientology. They offer to help him for $240. Stan returns later and pays the Scientologists using money he had been saving for a bicycle. He is taken into an auditing room where an attendant reads his thetan levels using an E-meter. Stan has such a high reading that the Scientology headquarters is notified. There, the president of Scientology determines that Stan is a reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology's founder and prophet.
Later that night, a group of Scientologists gather outside the Marsh house to celebrate Hubbard's "second coming". The president of Scientology arrives and talks with Stan's parents, who oppose Stan's participation. Randy sends Stan to his room, where he finds Tom Cruise waiting. When Stan comments that Cruise's acting is okay but not as good as others', Cruise despairs and locks himself in Stan's closet. He refuses to come out despite numerous requests to "come out of the closet"; several other celebrities, including Nicole Kidman, John Travolta, and R. Kelly, attempt to coax Cruise out of hiding, but to no avail; Travolta eventually joins Cruise in the closet, and subsequently so does Kelly.
Downstairs, the church president tries to convince Stan's parents to allow their son to participate. He privately tells Stan the story of Xenu, according to the Scientology Operating Thetan III document. During this, an onscreen caption reads "This is what scientologists actually believe". He then begs Stan to write new teachings as Hubbard. Stan is impressed by the story and shows his writings to the president who initially approves of the work. When Stan suggests that Scientology should stop charging people for their services, the president admits to Stan that the church is in reality a global money-making scam. He asks that Stan continue with that in mind; Stan appears to agree and keeps writing.
The president introduces Stan to his followers. However, instead of presenting a new doctrine to them, Stan explains that he is not the reincarnation of Hubbard and that Scientology is a scam. The outraged Scientologists and the celebrities who leave the closet vow to sue Stan. The episode ends with Stan looking directly at the camera and demanding that they sue him. The closing credits name only "John Smith" and "Jane Smith", in reference to Cruise and the Church of Scientology's reputation for litigiousness.
Production South Park had previously parodied Scientology in a spoof at the 2000 MTV Movie Awards. The MTV short was titled "The Gauntlet" and included "John Travolta and the Church of Scientology" arriving in a spaceship to defeat Russell Crowe (as a gladiator) and attempt to recruit the boys into Scientology. Travolta, along with his fellow Scientologists, was depicted as a Psychlo, as he appeared in the film Battlefield Earth. They had also made fun of Scientology in an earlier episode, titled "Super Best Friends", in which David Blaine formed 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.
Parker stated that Isaac Hayes' membership had previously kept the show's creators from writing a full episode which parodies Scientology. However, the decision to ultimately produce a South Park episode satirizing Scientology was partially inspired by the friendship the show's creators have with Penn Jillette. Jillette was originally planning to do an episode of Bullshit! based on Scientology, but Showtime prohibited him from doing so to avoid the possibility of legal action from the Church of Scientology. Parker commented, "We're going, That's fucked up. And hearing other people say, 'You can't do that' – you can only say 'You can't do that' so many times to Matt and me before we're gonna do it. Finally, we just had to tell Isaac, 'Dude, we totally love working with you, and this is nothing personal, it's just we're South Park, and if we don't do this, we're belittling everything else we've ripped on.
Although some questions were raised prior to the episode's screening about whether it was wise to take swipes at Cruise and Scientology, Comedy Central declared that it supported Stone and Parker. A Comedy Central spokesman told Radar magazine in November 2005 that "they are free, and have been, to satirize anybody and anything they want to. They've made fun of MTV, they've made fun of Viacom, they've made fun of Comedy Central, and we've never interfered with them."
During production on the episode, investigative journalist Mark Ebner served as a consultant to Stone and Parker. Ebner had previously authored The New York Times best seller Hollywood, Interrupted, which includes an analysis of the Church of Scientology and its effects on the culture in Hollywood, and has a chapter on Cruise and Travolta's relationship to Scientology. On the official Comedy Central website for the South Park episode, it is asserted that the section of "Trapped in the Closet" that explains Scientology's portrayal and beliefs was not exaggerated: "Nothing about what you see here is exaggerated in the slightest. Seriously." The title is a reference to the R. Kelly song and music video series of the same name, and a depiction of R. Kelly appears in the episode to sing a parody of it.
Controversy
Isaac Hayes' departure
On March 13, 2006, a statement credited to Hayes, a Scientologist himself, announced that he was quitting the show because of the series' treatment of religion, saying, "There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins. Religious beliefs are sacred to people, and at all times should be respected and honored. As a civil rights activist of the past 40 years, I cannot support a show that disrespects those beliefs and practices." The Guardian observed that the show had mocked most other religions, but that he drew the line at Scientology. Later in an interview on CNN's Showbiz Tonight, Hayes added he did not see the episode itself, but was told about it. In a separate interview, he reportedly said regarding Trey Parker and Matt Stone, "Guys, you have it all wrong. We're not like that. I know that's your thing, but get your information correct, because somebody might believe that shit, you know? But I understand what they're doing. I told them to take a couple of Scientology courses, and understand what we do."
Responding to Hayes' departure, Stone asserted that "This is 100 percent having to do with his faith of Scientology... He has no problem—and he's cashed plenty of checks—with our show making fun of Christians." According to Stone, neither he nor Parker had "heard a peep out of Isaac in any way until we did Scientology. He wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begin." Stone commented that "In 10 years and over 150 episodes of South Park, Isaac never had a problem with the show making fun of Christians, Muslims, Mormons and Jews. He got a sudden case of religious sensitivity when it was his religion featured on the show. To bring the civil rights struggle into this is just a non sequitur. Of course we will release Isaac from his contract and we wish him well." According to a later commentary by Stone, prior to the episode's screening Hayes had asked the South Park creators to have Comedy Central pull the episode before it aired and not include it in the series DVD, which they refused.
There were several different stories about Hayes' departure. Ten months after Hayes' departure he said, "They didn't pay me enough", and "They weren't that nice". In late 2007, a journalist reported that Hayes was in no condition to stay, because of a stroke he suffered in January. According to a Fox News article, Hayes' agent Christina Kimball, herself a practicing Scientologist, was the source of the statements that Hayes quit South Park. Stone lent support to this view in a 2007 interview with Rolling Stone, commenting that "There are reports that Isaac had a stroke and Scientology quit the show for him, and I believe it... It was a brutal, up-close, personal thing with Isaac. If you look at the timeline, something doesn't add up." In a 2016 interview with The Hollywood Reporter alongside Stone and Parker, Hayes's son Isaac Hayes III confirmed that his father was disabled at the time of his resignation and that the decision must have come from one of his assistants, all of whom were Scientologists. Due to the absence of Hayes, Chef was voiced in "The Return of Chef" using pre-recorded snippets of dialog from previous episodes. The character was written out of the series by a scene near the end of that episode in which he is struck by lightning, burned, impaled, and mauled to death by a mountain lion and a grizzly bear, before being resurrected as a Darth Vader-type being by that episode's villains.
Tom Cruise parody The creators used the ambiguity of "coming out of the closet", having Tom Cruise literally refusing to come out of Stan's closet, in a parody of rumors that Cruise was homosexual. Cruise has a documented history of litigation against others involving rumors as to his sexuality, and some speculated whether Cruise could sue South Park. Entertainment Weekly asked in December 2005 whether South Park was "cruisin' for a bruisin'" and wondered "how that sort of Cruise-bashing is going to go over with Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone's new bosses: Paramount Pictures just inked the dudes to a three-year deal. Other people with Paramount deals? Oh, just, you know, Tom Cruise. Should be one hell of a studio Christmas party".