Jon Stewart and his magical jokes

Remember when TIME did that poll and found out that Jon Stewart was America's most trusted newscaster? And everyone sort of went "Yup, yup, that's about right"?


Last week Jon Stewart opened his show with a short segment on the recent comedy central/south park controversy and I found it strangely poignant. Recently an episode of South Park was created in which the Prophet Muhammad is satirized. Apparently this ticked off a new york based group called Revolution Muslim who posted a written response to what they called an "outright insult" of the Prophet:

"We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid, and they will probably wind up like Theo van Gogh for airing this show. This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them.”

(Which is basically like saying "Dude, I'm not gonna go after you, but someone else might. And in fact I can pretty much confirm that they will. I mean, I don't know who it's gonna be since it won't be me. But it's definitely gonna happen. By someone else. Not me. But it will definitely for sure 100% happen...by someone else who is as yet unknown.")


Theo van Gogh was the Dutch filmmaker killed by an Islamic militant in 2004 in response to a film he made criticizing aspects of Muslim society. 


Comedy Central, the network which hosts South Park, censored the episode by "bleeping out" several words and sections. They also decided not to put it online as they normally do and to not re-air it during the expected repeat-performance time-slot. Though this was all confirmed by a Comedy Central spokesperson, they declined to say it was in response to the Revolution Muslim blog posting. 


Though the creators of South Park have censored their own work on the Prophet before it was just that: self-censorship. This time however, they say that Comedy Central took a red pen to the episode on their own accord. 


During Jon Stewart's piece last night he expertly toed the line between serious commentary and hilarious satire. Jon (also hosted by Comedy Central) recognized that what had happened was definitely censorship but suggested that it had been done to protect staff. After revealing that Revolution Muslim was a group based in NYC, and subsequently protected by Free Speech he thanked the audience for how well they've handled the barrage of religious jokes over the years. After playing a montage of past clips in which all religions, including atheism ("The religion devoted to the worship of one's own smug sense of superiority) were equally manhandled in the tradition of The Daily Show. 


Then Jon launched into an interview with his "Senior Islamic Correspondent" Aasif Mandvi, asking him what he thought about the controversy to which Aasif responded "Well, What am I Jon? Every Muslim in the world? I represent all Muslims?" to which Jon smirked, shrugged and replied "Well in this building actually...". When Aasif was asked if he would be offended by a depiction of the Prophet in some form (Islam forbids the depiction of Muhammad) to which Aasif responded in an unusually frank tone, that while being a "Liberal Muslim" he would in fact be uncomfortable and that he can "understand people being upset about it". Did anyone else find this to be a particularly brave acknowledgment and then subsequently do an internal "wow-that-reaction-is-uncomfortable" double-take? Pretty poignant for The Daily Show.


Aasif then berated the New York based group, saying "Here's what's more upsetting; someone in the name of a faith that I believe in, threatening another person for doing it" because "A, It's just so 12th century and B, I don't like having to walk around wearing this suit". He then stood up and turned around to show the audience that his suit-back was covered with an American flag. 


Bravo to the writers of the Daily Show for telling the truth in style.