South Park and Anti Semitism

I just went to this lecture and while I'm not all that impressed with the direction he took this topic, Matt Sienkiewicz does raise some interesting points about stereotyping in popular culture and the media.
First, Sienkiewicz brought up the history of stereotyping in television and movies. He pointed out that stereotyping was initially commonly used when films were being produced because they were very short (5-20 minutes as opposed to the 90 or 120 minute movies we have today). This makes sense because when you are trying to convey the message of the film (setting, characters, plot, etc.), stereotyping allows the majority of audience members to understand certain characteristics of a person without it blatantly being told to them. This made me wonder: What role (if any) has the film industry had in making stereotypes more salient in American culture? Because of their common use in American cinema, have more people become prone to using stereotypes themselves? Were the stereotypes we know today less common before the onset of mass media or were they as common back then? Obviously, these are difficult questions to answer, but interesting nonetheless.
Another point that Sienkiewicz brought up was that, in America anyway, there are communities that do not frown upon semitism as much as they do up racism. Not to say that antisemitism is okay to some people, but they just see it as less offensive than other racial or ethnic prejudices. Shortly after this he said, "For many, the Jew we know on TV is the only Jew we know." However, he never really went on to make the connection between these two ideas. If people are not around others who are different from them (be it through religion, race, language, etc.), they are likely to use whatever source of information they have to make judgments about that group. This essentially seems like the process that occurs when stereotyping a group takes place. I think it would be fair to say that this type of thing may have been related in the recent antisemitic hate crimes displayed on campus. How much real contact with people of Jewish faith do you think those that committed those acts had? Probably not much, which is where this controversy with South Park kicks in.
Sienkiewicz showed several clips from a particular episode of South Park called "The Passion of the Jew" because it raises a lot of other issues with regards to stereotyping and Jews. I will post this episode on the blog so you can watch it for yourself if you would like.