South Park calls out Disney, the NBA and even themselves for our great American sellout.
Since normalizing relations with Communist China back in 1979, the U.S. government and its companies that do business with the country have, for the most part, turned a blind-eye to its numerous human rights abuses.
In China's Muslim-majority province of Xinjiang, it's believed that over a million members of its Uighur population are being arbitrarily imprisoned and tortured in concentration camps. Female Uighurs in detention are being given forced abortions and subjected to sexual mistreatment.
For the past four months, mass anti-government protests in Hong Kong have been savagely beaten in the streets. The gathering began as a peaceful demonstrations of an extradition bill and have expanded to become protests against oppression by the Communist party.
Elsewhere in the country, the government attempts to control society through mass surveillance systems and DNA samples. It's also working to develop a social credit system to reward and punish its citizens.
The country has a long history of imprisoning those that disagree with the party sees homosexuality is seen as a mental illness.
Comedy Central's "South" Park produced a hilarious and eye-opening take down of how U.S. businesses have allowed Chinese influence to help shape the arts in America.
The October 2 episode, "Band in China" follows Randy March in his attempts to export his brand of marijuana to China, while his son Stan's death metal band attempts to make a biopic that's approved by Chinese censors.
Randy is imprisoned for bringing marijuana to China where his is brainwashed by his captors. "Party is more important than the individual," he reads off a card.
Meanwhile, to make a biopic that can be exported to the Chinese market, Stan's documentary has any mentions of freedom or the Dalai Lama removed from the film.
The episode also takes shots at Disney for kowtowing to China censors so it can profit of exporting its lucrative Marvel and "Star Wars films to the country.
The company notably minimized the image of "Star Wars" star actor John Boyega (who is black) on its Chinese marketing for fear it would drive away movie-goers.
The South Park episodes also featured stars of the NBA. The league recently extended a $1.5 billion deal to stream its games in China.
The episode proved eerily prescient four days later when Houston Rockets general manager Darly Morey, tweeted to express his solidarity with Hong Kong's pro-democracy protests.
The NBA immediately chastised Morey for speaking out against the Chinese oppression saying his tweet "deeply offended many of our friends and fans in China, which is regrettable."
Morey deleted his tweet and issued an apology.
The NBA's response to Morey's tweet seemed hypocritical. It's players and coaches have always been encouraged to discuss social justice issues in the United States — which makes sense give in its younger, urban fan base.
But the moment someone spoke out about social injustice in China, a country where the NBA has billions at risk, they were quickly silenced.
"You gotta lower your ideals of freedom if you wanna suck on the warm teat of China," the manager of Stan's band says in the episode.
You can watch the entire episode at South Park Studios.
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