Can controversies make content more known?

Controversies are the salt of the internet and media in general. It makes people angry, and causes a lot of fighting and discussion. Also news media companies can excaggarate the controversies by writing clickbait titles to gain some sweet sweet clicks and cash. For example here in Finland, many magazines and news companies like Iltalehti (Evening magazine in english) make a lot of clickbait titles like ”People got mad!” or ”Look at the pictures!”. Of course the other entertainment gossip magazine called Seiska (or Seven in english) really excaggarate and overdramatize their content. Here’s a sample what their magazine’s cover usually looks like.

There is some shenanigans about the large age gap, a 10 year old kid having cancer, A guy having a bad surgery, something about the marriage between Danny and his wife, a trans woman getting breast implants, and other shit. You can see the colorful and excaggarating design, just to shock people. Many people in Finland hate this magazine (including me) for those reasons.

Many TV shows, movies and video games are controversial. I’m going to tell my picks for these shows.

First, let’s talk about the most popular one, South Park. Oh boy, South Park sure has seen a lot of controversy during it’s over 20 years of running. At first, the show was criticized for it’s crude humor, since in the 90s the adult animation was starting to gain air to it’s wings. During the first season of the show, the show’s humor was more childish, and there were a lot of tasteless toilet jokes. Some children still watched the show, althrough they shouldn’t. Some kid even wore some South Park clothing. The show’s creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone later put a warning to the start of every episode.

The show also made fun of religions. Jesus Christ was portrayed in the show the way that Christians got furious. The Christians started to protect their children from viewing the show, and they want to ”restore the child’s morality, and protect the child’s life for the individual, morality, and so on.” (Basically they protected their children from themselves.) The show was also infamous among the Russian religious conservative groups, and they demanded the channel that broadcasted South Park shut down. The shouts went to deaf ears, and the channel still runs today in Russia.

The 1999 movie adaptation of South Park was inspired by the controversies. Even the episode ’”It hits the fan” commented the show’s vulgarity. Althrough the n-word was said 43 uncensored times, the black civil rights organization praised the show for showing how black people feel when hearing the word. Scientology wasn’t safe either. The voice actor of Chef quitted from the show after it, and the character was removed from the show. The portrayal of Muslims and Mormons also made the show even more controversial. The LDS church called the episode a gross portrayal of Church history. The Catholic church demanded apology from the Comedy Central, but they didn’t receive it. Muslims got offended by the portrayal of the prophet Muhammed. The episodes 200, 201, Cartoon wars part I and II portrayed to caricature of the prophet Muhammed. The episodes were later censored. The more recent controversy is about the portrayal of Meghan and Prince Harry. They got angry to South Park for their portrayal in the show.

I have discussed about South Park enough. Let’s talk about another controversial tv show, Family Guy. Family Guy is the grotesque copy-cat of the Simpsons, and has spawned a whole bad subgenre of adult cartoons.

Most of the controversial episodes take place around christmas time. The holiday of peace. Well, in Family Guy, this is not usually the case. They depicted the North Pole as a sweatshop with slavery. Family Guy depicted Jesus as a depressed guy living with loneliness, and later a playboy with women for all of his fingers. Religious communities hated this episode for the portrayal of Jesus.

Family Guy also made fun of the death of Trayvon Martin, which didn’t go well. Imagine if they made an episode about the death of George Floyd in 2020. The show would get cancelled. The show also made fun of Judaism, and the episode was too offensive for tv, and it saw the light of day when it got into DVD 3 years after the scheduled release in 2000.

Islam wasn’t safe either. The episode of season 11 ”Turban Cowboy” was about Peter befriending a muslim man, and converting to islam. He changed his mind, when he found out the muslim man planning to blow up a bridge. It was removed from the streaming services after a terrorist attack in Boston.

Also Family Guy made fun of transgender themes in an episode where Quagmire’s dad changes his gender to a woman. The show’s creator stated that the episode treated it’s themes gently.

There are so much more controversies about Family Guy.

At last, but not least, I want to talk about Jackass and it’s Finnish counterpart the Dudesons. Oh boy, I do remember watching these both shows when I was a kid. I didn’t do any my own stunts, since I wasn’t so stupid. Many other children endangered themselves when they mocked the stunts of the show resulting in severe injuries and deaths. The episodes and movies came with a warning in the start stating that the stunts in the show should not be done at home.

There are a so much more controversial shows, and if I cover them all, this article would be too long. So, the question is do controversies make content more known? Yes, sort of. Most of the media runs on drama and shock value. But if we pour too much gas in the flames, it would result in a wildfire. We shouldn’t rock the boat too much. Many shows are cancelled for being controversial and offensive.