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<document>
<title>Trapped in the Closet (South Park)</title>
<authors>Wikipedia</authors>
<publisher>wikipedia.org</publisher>
<publishedplace>network</publishedplace>
<publishedyear>2010</publishedyear>
<edition></edition>
<category>Spoken articles</category>
<section id="34922" fatherid="0" title="" lv="" priority="-1" level="1">
"Trapped in the Closet" is the twelfth episode of the ninth season of the Comedy Central series South Park. It was originally broadcast on November 16, 2005. The plot of the episode centers on character Stan Marsh, as he joins Scientology in an attempt to find something "fun and free". After the discovery of his surprisingly high "thetan levels", he is recognized as the reincarnation of the founder of the church, L. Ron Hubbard. The title is a reference to the R. Kelly serialized song of the same name.
The episode generated significant controversy. Tom Cruise, who is portrayed in the episode, reportedly threatened to back out of his promotional obligations for the Paramount Pictures film Mission: Impossible III if Viacom, the owner of both Comedy Central and Paramount, allowed a repeat of the episode to air. Though the episode was originally scheduled for rebroadcast on March 15, 2006, the episode "Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls" was shown instead. Comedy Central representatives stated this change was made as a tribute to Isaac Hayes, but South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone thought otherwise; they issued a satirical statement saying they (Parker and Stone) were "servants of the dark lord Xenu". Hayes, the voice of staple character Chef, asked to be released from his contract shortly before the start of the tenth season. The reason for his departure, as reported by Matt Stone, was due to his membership in Scientology and this episode, which—despite initially supporting the show's satirical take on several talk shows—Hayes claimed was very offensive. The episode has since been rebroadcast on Comedy Central multiple times, and the episode is available on the Comedy Central website.
"Trapped in the Closet" was nominated for an Emmy Award in July 2006, in the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour) category, but lost to The Simpsons episode "The Seemingly Never-Ending Story". The episode was featured among Comedy Central's list of "10 South Parks That Changed The World", spoofed by Conan O'Brien in the opening segment of the 58th Primetime Emmy Awards, and mentioned in the Scientology critique film The Bridge. TV Guide ranked the episode #17 on its list of "TV's Top 100 Episodes of All Time".

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<section id="34923" fatherid="0" title="Plot" lv="" priority="-2" level="1">
Not wanting to spend any money and stumped for something to do, Stan takes a free "personality test" that is being offered by Scientologists on the street. After answering a long questionnaire, Stan is informed that he is extremely depressed and therefore a perfect candidate for Scientology; they offer to help him out for $240. Back at home, Stan asks his parents for money to help with his depression, and his father suggests he use the money he had been saving for a new bike. After he pays, Stan is taken into an auditing room, and an attendant named Michelle reads his "thetan levels" using an "E-meter". Stan has a high reading that shocks Michelle and the results are faxed to the Scientology headquarters in Los Angeles. There, the president of Scientology determines that, because his reading is so high, Stan must be a reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology's founder and prophet.
Later that night, a large group of Scientologists, including John Travolta, have gathered outside to celebrate Hubbard's "second coming". The president of Scientology arrives in a helicopter and talks with Stan's parents; they oppose his being in the group, but the president informs them that, "We're not asking him to join us; we're asking him to lead us." Randy sends Stan to his room where he finds Tom Cruise waiting for him. Cruise, thinking Stan is genuinely Hubbard's reincarnation, asks him whether he enjoyed his acting. When Stan tells Cruise that his acting is not as good as others', Tom locks himself in Stan's bedroom closet, believing he is "a failure in the eyes of the prophet". He refuses to come out, despite the attempts of Randy, Nicole Kidman, Travolta, and R. Kelly to persuade him to "come out of the closet"; Travolta and Kelly eventually go into the closet as well.
Downstairs, the Scientology president tries to convince Stan's parents to let their son join them. They want to reveal the great secret of life behind their church to Stan. Randy asks his son if he would like to know this information, and Stan responds with "sure". The president tells him a condensed version of the story of Xenu, based directly on the actual Scientology Operating Thetan III document, and accompanied by an onscreen caption reading, "This is what Scientologists actually believe." After explaining these beliefs, he tells Stan to continue writing where "L. Ron"  off. Stan begins writing and he shows his writings to the Scientology president, who approves of most of his work; but when Stan says, "to really be a church, they can't charge money to help", the president reveals to Stan that the church is a money making scam.
Outside the house, the president introduces Stan to his followers, to whom he will read his new doctrine. However, instead of presenting it to them, Stan states that he is actually not the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard, and that: "Scientology is just a big fat global scam." His followers grow angry, and threaten to sue him. Tom Cruise leaves Stan's closet and appears, threatening to sue Stan as well. Stan dares them to do so, and the episode ends with the credits listing only "John Smith" and "Jane Smith", a reference to Tom Cruise and the Church of Scientology's reputations for litigiousness.

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<section id="34924" fatherid="0" title="Production" lv="" priority="3" level="1">
South Park had previously parodied Scientology in a spoof at the 2000 MTV Movie Awards. The MTV short was entitled "The Gauntlet" and included "John Travolta and the Church of Scientology" arriving in a spaceship to defeat Russell Crowe (as a Gladiator) and attempt to recruit the boys into Scientology. Travolta, along with his fellow Scientologists, was depicted as a Psychlo, as he appeared in the film Battlefield Earth. They had also made fun of Scientology in an earlier episode, entitled "Super Best Friends", in which David Blaine formed his own cult, called "Blaintology". Parker and Stone have admitted that this is meant to be a reference to Scientology.Episode Commentary on South Park: Season 5 DVD boxset.

Parker stated that Isaac Hayes' membership had previously kept the show's creators from writing a full-episode which parodies Scientology. However, the decision to ultimately produce a South Park episode satirizing Scientology was partially inspired by the friendship the show's creators have with Penn Jillette. Jillette was originally planning to do an episode of Bullshit! based on Scientology, but Showtime prohibited him from doing so to avoid the possibility of legal action from the Church of Scientology. Parker commented, "We're going, That's fucked up. And hearing other people say, 'You can't do that,' - you can only say 'You can't do that' so many times to Matt and me before we're gonna do it. Finally, we just had to tell Isaac, 'Dude, we totally love working with you, and this is nothing personal, it's just we're South Park, and if we don't do this, we're belittling everything else we've ripped on.
Although some questions were raised prior to the episode's screening about whether it was wise to take swipes at Cruise and Scientology, Comedy Central declared that it supported Stone and Parker. A Comedy Central spokesman told Radar magazine in November 2005 that "they are free, and have been, to satirize anybody and anything they want to. They've made fun of MTV, they've made fun of Viacom, they've made fun of Comedy Central, and we've never interfered with them."
During production on the episode, investigative journalist Mark Ebner served as a consultant to Matt Stone and Trey Parker. Ebner had previously authored The New York Times best seller Hollywood, Interrupted, which includes an analysis of the Church of Scientology and its effects on the culture in Hollywood, and has a chapter on Tom Cruise and John Travolta's relationship to Scientology. On the official Comedy Central website for the South Park episode, it is asserted that the section of "Trapped in the Closet" that explains Scientology was not exaggerated: "Nothing about what you see here is exaggerated in the slightest. Seriously." The title is a reference to the R. Kelly song of the same name, and a depiction of R. Kelly appears in the episode to sing a parody of it.

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<section id="34925" fatherid="0" title="Controversy" lv="" priority="4" level="1">
<section id="34926" fatherid="34925" title="Isaac Hayes' departure" lv="" priority="1" level="2">
On March 13, 2006, Hayes announced that he was quitting the show because of the series' treatment of religion, though he did not specifically mention Scientology in his statement. In an interview on CNN's Showbiz Tonight, Hayes added he did not see the episode itself, but was told about it. In a separate interview, he reportedly said regarding Parker and Stone, "Guys, you have it all wrong. We're not like that. I know that's your thing, but get your information correct, because somebody might believe that shit, you know? But I understand what they're doing. I told them to take a couple of Scientology courses, and understand what we do. Laughs."
Responding to Hayes' departure, Stone asserted that "This is 100 percent having to do with his faith of Scientology... He has no problem—and he's cashed plenty of checks—with our show making fun of Christians." According to Stone, neither he nor Trey Parker had "heard a peep out of Isaac in any way until we did Scientology. He wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begin." Stone commented that "In 10 years and over 150 episodes of South Park, Isaac never had a problem with the show making fun of Christians, Muslims, Mormons and Jews. He got a sudden case of religious sensitivity when it was his religion featured on the show. To bring the civil s struggle into this is just a non sequitur. Of course we will release Isaac from his contract and we wish him well." According to a later commentary by Stone, prior to the episode's screening Hayes had asked the South Park creators to have Comedy Central pull the episode before it aired and not include it in the series DVD, which they refused.
There were many conflicting stories as to the exact nature of Hayes' departure. Additional reasons given by Hayes ten months after the departure include "They didn't pay me enough," and "They weren't that nice." In late 2007, reports emerged claiming that Hayes was in no condition to stay, because of a stroke he suffered in January. According to a Fox News article, Hayes' agent Christina Kimball, herself a devout Scientologist, was the source of the statements that Hayes quit South Park. Stone lent support to this view in a 2007 interview with Rolling Stone, commenting that "There are reports that Isaac had a stroke and Scientology quit the show for him, and I believe it... It was a brutal, up-close, personal thing with Isaac. If you look at the timeline, something doesn't add up." Due to the absence of Hayes, Chef was voiced in "The Return of Chef" using pre-recorded snippets of dialog from previous episodes. The character was written out of the series by being struck by lightning, burned, impaled, shot, and mauled at the end of the episode.

</section>
<section id="34927" fatherid="34925" title="Tom Cruise parody" lv="" priority="2" level="2">
The creators used the ambiguity of "coming out of the closet", having Tom Cruise literally refusing to come out of Stan's closet, in a parody of rumors involving Cruise. Cruise has a documented history of litigation against others involving rumors as to his sexuality, and some speculated whether Cruise could sue South Park. Entertainment Weekly asked in December 2005 whether South Park was "cruisin' for a bruisin'" and wondered "how that sort of Cruise-bashing is going to go over with Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone's new bosses: Paramount Pictures just inked the dudes to a three-year deal. Other people with Paramount deals? Oh, just, you know, Tom Cruise. Should be one hell of a studio Christmas party".
Concerns over possible litigation were raised in other countries where South Park is syndicated. The episode's planned screening on the UK's Paramount Comedy 1 channel was canceled for fear that Cruise would sue. In Australia, SBS TV screened the episode in late February, a spokesman telling Australian The Daily Telegraph that "We haven't received any legal threats so we're going to publish and be damned."

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<section id="34928" fatherid="34925" title="Closetgate" lv="" priority="3" level="2">
This episode was scheduled to rebroadcast on March 15, 2006 on Comedy Central, but the broadcast was canceled without prior notice, and was replaced with "Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls". Representatives of Comedy Central insist that the episode was changed as a tribute to Isaac Hayes following his departure from the show two days earlier. The following day, the Hollywoodinterrupted.com blog alleged that Comedy Central parent Viacom canceled the rebroadcast due to threats of Cruise to boycott the publicity tour of his upcoming film Mission: Impossible III. These assertions were soon also reported by E! News and American Morning. Fox News attributed threats from Tom Cruise, stating, "to back out of his Mission: Impossible III promotional duties if Viacom didn't pull a repeat of the episode", as evidence of "bad blood" between Cruise and Viacom (which also owns Paramount Pictures, the distributor of MI:III). CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer also cited "industry sources" who believed the episode was pulled "because the network and Tom Cruise's current movie studio are both owned by the same corporation." The New York Post noted that Cruise had "a history of playing hardball", alleging that he had been responsible for having a sex scene featuring his then fiancée Katie Holmes removed from the film Thank You for Smoking prior to its release.
The Washington Post reported that South Park fans "struck back", in March 2006, and threatened to boycott Mission: Impossible III until Comedy Central put "Trapped in the Closet" back on its schedule. Melissa McNamara of CBS News later questioned whether this boycott hurt the Mission: Impossible III box office debut. The South Park creators did not comment directly on Comedy Central's decision to pull the episode, reportedly because they had been told not to discuss the matter to avoid embarrassing Cruise. Instead, they issued a statement to Variety on March 17, 2006, signing the statement, "Trey Parker and Matt Stone, servants of the dark lord Xenu".
The Los Angeles Times dubbed the controversy surrounding the episode's rebroadcast "Closetgate". The Independent later cited the Los Angeles Times, noting that the controversy generated positive publicity for the show's creators: "For Stone and Parker, Closetgate will be the gift that keeps on giving." "Closetgate" has since been used to refer to the "brouhaha" surrounding Isaac Hayes' departure and rebroadcasts of the episode, by other sources including Yahoo! Movies, BBC, Turner Classic Movies, the Herald-Sun, Thoralf Fagertun of the University of Tromsø, and the Chicago Sun-Times.
Cruise's representative responded to the controversy shortly after it broke, telling the Associated Press that the allegations of Cruise's involvement were "not true" and that "he never said that". According to The Washington Post, Cruise's publicist asserted that "Tom had nothing to do with this matter. He's been promoting 'Mission: Impossible III' for the last six months. We have no clue where this came from." Cruise himself addressed the allegations in an interview on ABC's Primetime in mid-April. When asked about whether he had been involved with stopping the rebroadcast on Comedy Central, Cruise stated, "First of all, could you ever imagine sitting down with anyone? I would never sit down with someone and question them on their beliefs. Here's the thing: I'm really not even going to dignify this. I honestly didn't really even know about it. I'm working, making my movie, I've got my family. I'm busy. I don't spend my days going, 'What are people saying about me?'" A representative of Cruise had also denied any involvement of Cruise with the issue, specifically responding to allegations of Cruise's reputed corporate power play.
In April 2006, TelevisionWeek reported that fans had posted the episode in multiple locations on the internet. At that time, the episode had been viewed over 700,000 times on YouTube, and an online petition to re-air the episode had garnered 5,000 signatures. TelevisionWeek noted that Comedy Central "looked the other way at the online proliferation" of "Trapped in the Closet". A spokesman for MTV Networks, owner of Comedy Central, confirmed they had not asked YouTube to pull the episode from their site. The Situation Room also noted that clips from the episode were still available on Comedy Central's web site. In May 2006, "Trapped in the Closet" was shown in London, at the National Film Theatre. The free screening was followed by a discussion with Parker and Stone, who said the screening was a "display of free speech". Free copies of the episode were given out to attendees after the screening.
On July 19, 2006, Comedy Central did air a rebroadcast of the episode at 10:00 Pacific Time and did so again on July 23 at 11:00pm Eastern Time and on September 24 at 10:00 PM Eastern time. Matt Stone stated "If they hadn't put this episode back on the air, we'd have had serious issues, and we wouldn't be doing anything else with them." After the episode was scheduled to be rebroadcast, Trey Parker and Matt Stone were interviewed on CNN's Showbiz Tonight, where they stated that all of the controversy increased publicity for the episode. Parker was quoted: "But it's really like a publicist couldn't have orchestrated this any better for us. You know what I mean? It's like it's been phenomenal. Tom Cruise has done more for South Park than anyone I think in the world."
The episode was released in several DVDs, including South Park the Hits: Volume 1 and South Park: The Complete Ninth Season, in contradiction with an alleged request by either the Church of Scientology or Cruise to never put the episode on DVD format. The full episode is available for viewing on the web site South Park Digital Studios.
A few references have been made by the show and Comedy Central to Scientology as an aftermath of the controversy. On August 1, 2006, Comedy Central placed an advertisement in Variety showing the South Park stars against a background of L. Ron Hubbard's Scientology Celebrity Center, with the headline, "C'mon Jews, show them who really runs Hollywood." Although often misunderstood by the public to parody the Mel Gibson DUI incident, the advertisement actually congratulates South Park on gaining an Emmy nomination for "Trapped in the Closet" and satirizes the cancellation of the episode's rebroadcast in March.
The Rolling Stone cover article Still Sick, Still Wrong, celebrating the show's anniversary, also referred to the controversy. The article depicted Stone and Parker spray painting graffiti on the church's Los Angeles headquarters sign, adding "Is dum" to the Scientology logo and a "Hi Tom" message with an accompanying depiction of Cartman's head.

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</section>
<section id="34929" fatherid="0" title="Reception" lv="" priority="-5" level="1">
<section id="34930" fatherid="34929" title="" lv="" priority="-1" level="2">
In a review of South Park: The Complete Ninth Season, The Denver Post stated the jokes about Tom Cruise "work splendidly and reveal their depth on repeated viewings, much like the show in general." IGN stated that "Perhaps the largest weakness of this season is that the most notorious episodes Best Friends Forever and Trapped in the Closet just don't carry the eye-popping impact that they did when they were ripped from the headlines," giving the DVD a rating of 7.0. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote that Matt Stone and Trey Parker "probably hit their zenith when they made fun of Tom Cruise and Scientology". An article in The Times wrote that South Park "infamously satirized" texts by L. Ron Hubbard "available only to Operating Thetans". TV Guide ranked the episode #17 on its 2009 list of "TV's Top 100 Episodes of All Time"."TV's Top 100 Episodes of All Time" TV Guide; June 15, 2009; Pages 34-49
</section>
<section id="34931" fatherid="34929" title="Analysis" lv="" priority="2" level="2">
An article in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion referred to the episode as a "scathing cartoon parody" of the Church of Scientology. University of Delaware philosophy professor Richard Hanley analyzed the mythology of Scientology, as it relates to the episode "Trapped in the Closet", in his 2007 book South Park and Philosophy: Bigger, Longer, and More Penetrating. Hanley called the Xenu story, as presented in the episode, "utterly ridiculous". He compared Scientology's mythology to Christianity's Virgin birth and the transubstantiation, stating, "Let's be honest, these beliefs are just as ridiculous as those of Scientology." Hanley went on to delve into a philosophical analysis of the "evidential weight" of popularity and tradition in determining the "robustness" of beliefs.
Southwest Minnesota State University philosophy professor Robert Arp also analyzed the philosophical and cultural aspects of the episode in his book South Park and Philosophy: You Know, I Learned Something Today. Arp analyzed Comedy Central's reaction to the episode itself, in a section of his book entitled "2005-2006: Comedy Central Caves". Arp mentions South Park's usage of the onscreen caption—"This is what Scientologists actually believe."—in the episode, noting that the same device was used in the episode "All About Mormons". In referencing this similar use of the onscreen caption device, Arp seemed to point to an inconsistency in the behavior of Comedy Central relative to the episode. He explained, "By a long shot, this show was more kind to Scientology than was 'All About the Mormons' to Mormonism." He noted Comedy Central had suggested it would not rebroadcast the episode for the second time, though it later announced on July 12, 2006 that it would.

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<section id="34932" fatherid="34929" title="Awards" lv="" priority="-3" level="2">
The organization Fight Against Coercive Tactics Network, founded by Lawrence Wollersheim, named the South Park staff their "FACTNet Person(s) of the Year for 2005" for this episode. Robert Arp cited the series winning a Peabody Award due to its willingness to criticize intolerance in April 2006 as a "special concern for criticizing and countering intolerance", and the notion that "the Church of Scientology suffers from the widely held perceptions that it seeks to silence former members and others who criticize its beliefs and practices", as the motivation behind the episode.
South Park's creators submitted the episode for an Emmy Award, though Matt Stone admitted that "We did it to be jerks. A 'fuck you' to Comedy Central." To their surprise the episode was nominated on July 6, 2006 in the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour) category, the show's sixth nomination (one of which they won, for 2005's "Best Friends Forever.") The Simpsons episode "The Seemingly Never-Ending Story" was the eventual recipient of the award. Los Angeles Times writer Tom O'Neil theorized that the "Emmy Award Winning Series" plot device used in the October 2007 episode "More Crap" may have been a reference to the missed Emmy win for "Trapped in the Closet". It was also among Comedy Central's list of "10 South Parks That Changed The World", which started airing at September 24, 2006 in anticipation for the premiere of the second half of South Park's tenth season.

</section>
<section id="34933" fatherid="34929" title="Legacy" lv="" priority="-4" level="2">
The scene where Cruise enters the closet is referenced in the South Park segment of the opening of the 58th Primetime Emmy Awards on August 27, 2006, in which Conan O'Brien is trying to get to the show, but suddenly appears in Stan's room in an animated form. Stan begins yelling at him as he runs into the nearby closet. Immediately following the entrance he exits the closet and says, "There's someone else in there", referring to Cruise, and leaves the door open. Cruise then pops out and closes the door.
There is a scene in the film The Bridge by Brett Hanover, where two young women looking for a laugh tell a Scientology volunteer they learned about the organization from South Park. The volunteer answers that she hasn't seen the episode in question, and the two women later leave during the middle of an orientation video.

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</section>
<section id="34934" fatherid="0" title="See also" lv="" priority="-6" level="1">
</section>
<section id="34935" fatherid="0" title="References" lv="" priority="-7" level="1">
</section>
<section id="34936" fatherid="0" title="External links" lv="" priority="-8" level="1">
Category:Scientology controversies
Category:Scientology in popular culture
Category:South Park episodes: Season 9
Category:Cult-related media
Category:Xenu

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