The Boondocks: Series Premiere
By: Mark Runyon | Category: Show Review | 11/08/05 | 08:19 PM
 |
 |
Grade: B+ | Genre: Animation
Summary: The Boondocks may be a tough dose to swallow, as it is certain to offend many with its borderline abrasive approach, but its biting wit and underlying message make it a compelling watch.
The opening 30-seconds of the Boondocks, the newest addition to Cartoon Network's Adult Swim Sunday night line-up, tells you everything you need to know. You see this group of white people rioting, just tearing each other apart. Huey, a young African American teenager, is rudely awakened by his grandfather piping the words, "Umm Hmm. You were having that dream where you make the white people riot, weren't you?" Black Power my brother. If you're not offended, you're not paying attention. The Boondocks has leapt off the funny pages in slick style. The top-notch animation is in da house, the severely politically incorrect jabs are fully representin' and the culture shock is off da hook. In case you were wondering, yes I very well could be the whitest person on the face of the earth. |
So young Huey and Riley (both voiced by Regina King) move with their grandfather (voice of John Witherspoon) out to the boondocks, better known as white America. Granddad has pilfered away the boy's entire inheritance to buy his dream house in the burbs. He's a crotchety character that does naked Tae Bo along with the infomercial in the living room and lives to instill the fear of God into his boys for drinking the last of his daily dose of vitamin C. It's really too bad they can't be bothered to listen. Huey is Malcolm X at puberty, preaching the truth of the fallacy of white Jesus and trying to convince the rich white neighbors that Ronald Reagan was the devil ("Each of his names have 6 letters. That's 666."). If the Black Panthers ever decide to jump on the nostalgia bandwagon to make a comeback, Huey could be their poster boy. Riley dishes up his own share of troublemaking, using the high profile neighbor's grandson as target practice during the hoity toity garden party. Boys will be boys.
Aaron McGruder, the series creator, sure knows how to yank the laughs out of you even if, at times, you question if you're allowed to be laughing at this. The N-word is very liberally spread over the families' conversation as if they were looking to capitalize on the N vacuum left by the departed Dave Chappelle. One of the white ladies at the party said it best, "I think the N-word is ok if they use it." At the core, these boys seem to be furiously clutching to their culture in their new whitewashed environment. Their grandfather seems rather content to assimilate into this new state of being to prove to his lifetime inferiority complex that he's good enough to live on this street side-by-side with the white man.
Huey is an absolute riot. When granddad tells him that the new white man is more refined and likes gourmet cheeses, he replies with an incredulous, "you can't tame the white supremacist power structure with cheese." He's so bloody serious, and it drives him up the wall when people write him off as some little kid. At the garden party where he is jumping up on his soapbox for anyone who'll listen, everyone says, "young man, you speak so well. Isn't he adorable?" I think you'd blow a gasket too if you got a pat on the head when you were trying to convince a preacher that Jesus had a fro and stinging a group of Richie Rich Republicans with the reality that Reagan was the devil. He also brandishes his grandfather for pulling out the old tale of getting attacked by dogs and fire hoses during the heated days of fighting segregation. The flash back to young granddad showing up late to the rally because he had to get his rain slicker is priceless.
I heard McGruder wouldn't be on a local radio station here in Atlanta (99X) because it catered to a predominately white demographic. Hey man, show the love. We're all brothers underneath the skin. This sharp distaste for conventional white America is ever present in the Boondocks. Its cartoons that go for the throat like the comic does. Some papers actually moved the Boondocks from the funnies to the editorial page with Doonesbury, given its highly critical stance in the early days of the Iraq war. That much passion and fervor command you to listen. It may be a tough dose to swallow, as it is certain to offend many with its borderline abrasive approach, but its biting wit and underlying message make it a compelling watch. What happens to our culture when everything around us tries to grind us down and assimilate? You either take the blue pill like a good little lamb or pop the red one to wake up to your reality.
Catch the Boondocks on Cartoon Network Sunday nights at 11E.
|
