Last week, Moscow prosecutor's office issued a warning to the domestic TV channel "2x2" for showing "South Park," which, as the ruling says, "disgraces Christians and Muslims and is offensive to all believers regardless of their religion, can provoke ethnic conflict and extremist activities and instigate violence between adherents of different religions."
Under the Russian law, a second warning of this kind would lead to revoking the channel's license, which means that the situation around the channel is more than serious. Incidentally, this is not the first time authorities are cracking down on "2x2."
About six months ago, Rossvyazokhrankultura, a governmental agency that has the power to withdraw TV channels' licenses, issued a warning to the channel accusing the animated series "The Adventures of Big Jeff" and "Happy Tree Friends," which it had been airing, of "propagating violence, doing harm to children's physical and mental health, as well as infringement on public morals." Back then, the channel backed down and took the two "offensive" series off the air, which settled the matter and helped the channel to be left alone for a while.
And, writing about that in my column, I suggested that the channel, which is controlled by the Prof Media group, could have fallen pray to companies that were after its frequency. Business reasons often mingle with politics and concerns about "public morals," so I wouldn't be surprised if someone tipped Rossvyazokhrankultura about the "offensive" content of some cartoons shown by the channel in a hope that "2x2" would lose its license and its air frequency will be auctioned.
I still don't rule out this kind of game, although some events have taken place over the last six months or so that make me think that reasons behind the attack on "2x2" may be different. At different levels of power, they have been talking a lot about "public morals" and the need to improve the situation in that area. And many of the steps proposed have been either not feasible or not thought out well, but always formally "positive" in essence.
Sure, erotic content on television should be somehow controlled. Sure, mass media should not only inform and entertain people, but also help to educate and promote healthy and positive ways of life. But how can you achieve that? Are there any workable tools that could be applied?
At this point, authorities seem to want to "purge" society and cure it of "diseases," such as, for instance, emo-kids or goths - in accordance with a recently discussed program of the state policy towards youth. Along the same lines, any "offensive" or extremist content on television should not be tolerated. And while it's hardly possible to really prevent kids from wearing goth and emo outfits, which the authors of the program suggest, bringing the content of federal television channels in order seems like a much easier task.
But it only seems to be so. In reality, everything is much more complicated. "South Park" has always been a "politically incorrect" cartoon, making fun of everyone and everything, and not being restricted by concerns about religious and family values. And that's what art should do - provoke thought rather than feed the audience with lots of mindless rubbish.
Why can't people who say that the cartoon series is "extremist" understand that? The most obvious explanation in this particular case is cultural differences. Certainly, there are rather vast cultural differences between Russia and the United States, and the way South Park is viewed at in the one country may be quite different from the other. But I'm not going to go deep into that issue, which extends far beyond this particular column. All I could say that having a Russian equivalent of South Park wouldn't hurt, but this is just impossible in the current political and social context.
By Vladimir Kozlov
