With Apologies to Jesse Jackson
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"With Apologies to Jesse Jackson" is episode 1101 (#154) of Comedy Central's animated comedy series South Park and the premiere of the show's 11th season. It was first broadcast on March 7, 2007. This episode referenced an incident at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles, California, in which actor Michael Richards angrily shouted racial slurs at a black audience member who was heckling him.[1] This episode is particularly notable for its use of the word nigger, which is used a total of 43 times uncensored.
Additionally, other strong profanity was left uncensored for the first time on downloadable versions available through the iTunes Store and on Xbox Live Marketplace. The episode was also uncensored on the Comedy Network in Canada.
Plot
Randy Marsh appears on Wheel of Fortune and is presented with a bonus round puzzle whose category is "People Who Annoy You" and solved letters are "N_GGERS." With five seconds to go he reluctantly guesses: "NIGGERS!" on live national television, shocking his family, friends and millions of viewers worldwide. The correct answer is actually naggers, and Randy loses.
The next day, Cartman warns Stan that Token will be mad at him, so Stan attempts to defend his father. Token tells Stan he doesn't understand how black people feel about that word. Despite Cartman's attempts to escalate the incident into a "race war," Token refuses to fight.
Randy attempts to rectify his mistake by officially apologizing to Rev. Jesse Jackson. Jackson only accepts after getting a picture of Randy literally kissing his ass, which is published in several newspapers. Stan thinks everything is okay now, but Token states that "Jesse Jackson is not the emperor of black people!" (despite Jackson apparently telling Randy that he was). Meanwhile, Randy goes to a comedy club and the black comedian recognizes, points him out and makes jokes, calling him "the nigger guy," which soon catches on as Randy's new epithet.
Back at school, a dwarf by the name of Dr. David Nelson (voiced by Trey Parker while exhaling helium) is called in to give a presentation on sensitivity. He insists "words are like bullets; they go through me." As soon as Cartman sees him he begins to laugh, disrupting the assembly so Dr. Nelson cannot speak. Dr. Nelson decides to go against his standards and get revenge by making the other kids mock Cartman's weight problem.
Randy continues trying to redeem himself by founding a scholarship for blacks. However, he is soon accosted by a gang of socially progressive rednecks, who hunt the "nigger guy." They criticize him for "insulting an entire race on national television" and say "We don't take kindly to social ignorance." A group of other "nigger guys," including Michael Richards and Mark Fuhrman, scare the rednecks away and invite Randy to join their organization of people who have become pariahs for the use of the word nigger. They successfully lobby Congress to pass a law saying at least seven words must always separate the words nigger and guy.
Cartman and Dr. Nelson wrestle to Disturbed's "Down with the Sickness," and Cartman forces Dr. Nelson to submit by saying "uncle" and "Carol Anne, don't go into the light!". Stan and Kyle say that they have no idea what Dr. Nelson's point was, but then Stan concludes that not knowing the point is the point. He explains to Token that, as a white person, he will never understand why Token is so upset by the word, and why it can make black people mad when a white person says it in any context. Token is finally satisfied that Stan gets that he doesn't get it, thus creating an understanding between them.
Reception
This episode had news broadcasts on the CNN programs Showbiz Tonight and Paula Zahn Now [2] in the days following the broadcast of this episode. Kovon and Jill Flowers, who co-founded the organization Abolish the "N" Word, which is linked with the NAACP, praised this episode, saying it was a good example of how it felt to be called nigger. However, the Parents Television Council founder L. Brent Bozell claimed that there was a lack of protest against this episode compared to radio host Don Imus's comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team, even challenging the Flowers' comments that the episode's use of nigger was not intended to be racist.[3] In fact, the PTC named this episode, along with the episode of The Sarah Silverman Program that aired right after this episode, the "Worst Cable Content of the Week" in its campaign for cable choice.[4] The episode received about 2.8 million viewers.[5]
This episode's initial few runs' closed captioning changed every incidence of nigger to n-word or n-guy. Later runs had the captions uncensored.
Life imitated art in 2007 when a tape surfaced of Duane "Dog" Chapman using "the N-word" numerous times. Pundit Sean Hannity quickly came to Chapman's defense, stating that he believed Chapman's apology was sincere and that A&E's pulling of Dog the Bounty Hunter was unfair.
References
- ^ Lisa de Moraes (2007). "The Show That Keeps Them Hanging On" (HTML). The TV Column. The Washington Post. Retrieved 2007-04-11.
- ^ Transcript of "Paula Zahn Now" from 8 March, 2007. CNN. Retrieved April 14, 2007.
- ^ L. Brent Bozell. "The Incomplete Anti-Imus Lobby". Parents Television Council. April 12, 2007. Retrieved April 13, 2007.
- ^ White, Keith (2007-03-15). "Worst Cable Content of the Week - South Park and the Sarah Silverman Program on Comedy Central". Web.archive.org. Parents Television Council. Retrieved 2007-07-03.
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