The Boondocks and its Satirical Social Commentary

The short lived (in my opinion) eight year airing of the wildly popular adult animated sitcom, The Boondocks was one of the most blunt and straightforward television shows to air on American television channels. Aaron McGruder, an accomplished African American writer, producer, and screenwriter, amongst many other professions, used this platform to expose and critique American culture and a wide array of social and political issues. The sitcom, based off of his previously written comic strip of the same name, follows a family of three that consists of Huey Freeman, the shows protagonist and future revolutionary, Riley Freeman, an 8-year-old fanatic of rap culture, and their grandfather as they experience a sudden transformation of lifestyle after they moved from the South Side of Chicago to the Suburbs of Woodcrest.

Besides every episode having a great deal of comedic content, the satirical elements that gives this show a deeper meaning allows for a much needed glimpse into our own society and the wretched way it works. Most episodes of this sitcom integrates hyperbole in its exaggerated characters and parody of real life situations to its advantage to show how ridiculous some situations and some people in our society actually are. This clip of Uncle Ruckus, an African American male who himself hates African Americans, but shows the utmost respect and admiration of white people is one example of hyperbole and parody. The show uses Uncle Ruckus’ exaggerated nature to mirror the essence in which Pastor Manning, the American pastor of the ATLAH World Missionary Church, conducts his sermons and lives his actual life. Uncle Ruckus is supposed to be the most extreme example of what happens to people and their vision of self worth as a result of generations of African Americans being told that they are nothing compared to their white counterparts. He is showcased as the most extreme version of someone who has conformed and attempted to assimilate with their culture, but in the process builds up hatred for himself and people who look just like him. His beliefs in the scene above reflect the actions of Pastor Manning, as he often delivers sermons about how African Americans are no good. The show is obviously adding comedic effect to ridicule people like Manning and Ruckus who are ignoring their self worth as it address this pressing issues that are present in the black community.

Another example of parody is very apparent as the show mirrors an actual news segment about a young boy traveling down the wrong path, seen in the embedded video below. The clip shows the obvious parallels of the real life of Latarian Milton and their version of him, “Lamilton Taeshawn”. The show is imitating the real life of this young boy and his grandmother while also using understatement / verbal irony in their version of the news clip when his grandmother tries to defend him as she says “ See, you have to understand, all children his age love stealing cars and going on high speed chases" and “You have to understand, he really likes that fried chicken”, obviously lessening the significance of all the wrong doing this child has done. In fact, no 8-year-olds love to steal cars and go on high speed chases nor do they seriously injure their grandmother because she will not buy them fried chicken.

This show uses comedy to allow African Americans to see real life situation that involve us and our culture. It also allows allows us to see the many problematic situations in our community and how we respond to them. If we can see that these characters on television look ridiculous in the way they are living their lives, we can see how we need to change ourselves in our real lives.