![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Boondocks, Gay Cowboys, Icons, Cheese, and Stuff
I actually had urges to post LJ entries on various topics over the last few weeks. The main reason I didn't make any of those posts was that there was only one fiction post on the front page of my LJ, and it was the oldest post on the page, meaning that, if I had posted anything but a story, someone randomly surfing to my LJ might not know I write any. Which I actually think about, and which is why I have sort of a rule for myself about always having at least one fiction post in my most recent entries.
Of course, now that I've posted "Don't Mean To,"damned writer's block I can make free with the posting about whatever comes into my head. (At least for another dozen-odd entries...)
Anyway.
Adult Swim, the night-owl programming block that runs on Cartoon Network (11pm-5am Saturday-Thursday), recently premiered a new show: The Boondocks, adapted for TV from Aaron McGruder's comic strip of the same name. I had been a fan of the strip, but stopped reading newspapers, and thus having access to it, shortly after the strip premiered in 1999. But I had fond memories of McGruder's daring comedic take on race issues in modern America and other political matters, so I've been looking forward to the new animated series for months. (Oh, the agony when the premiere was pushed back.)
Not surprisingly, especially for anyone who's ever watched an episode of, say, Family Guy on CN (especially the episodes which were censored or never aired on Fox) on Adult Swim, the animated Freeman family go significantly further in pushing the limits of language and topic than McGruder was ever able to get away with when they were print-only characters whose main venue was America's breakfast-table reading.
(In fact, McGruder found out just how low some of the limits on 'acceptable' topics and language for a daily comic strip are, at least according to many newspapers' editors, over the past several years, with some papers censoring the strip -- or dropping it altogether -- based on the idea that certain strips were "unpatriotic" or "racist" and therefore inappropriate for the funny pages. Like I said, I haven't been keeping up with the strip, but I had to wonder, after reading the past week's worth, whether the tone has been turned down to accomodate fussing editors, or I just happened onto a lull in the invective. Which is not to say that the Boondocks strip is not still funny. But veiled, oblique gay cowboy jokes and generation-gap humour* are a far cry from a couple of grammar-schoolers arguing about how "being Black" is defined in America today or what the ramifications of black men having children with white women are.)
The Boondocks on Adult Swim, on the other hand, can be frustrating for me to watch precisely because it goes so far into "I can't believe they went there!"-land, and I can't repeat a lot of the jokes that get made. (I'm not black, and I don't use the n-word. I'm not 100% white, either, though not everyone realises that when they look at me. And I'm digressing again. Whee, a blog really does tempt you to type your every train of thought out sometimes.) There's a lot of the n-word. I was watching the latest episode with my cat, and there was one stream of epithets and profanity that must've gone on for ten seconds with only one word bleeped out... after which Tara (the cat) turned to me as if to ask, why, in all that, was "pussy" the only thing they weren't allowed to say?
But don't despair, fellow pale folks feeling the burden of your white (or beige) liberal guilt! Not all the humour on the Boondocks is *unspeakably* hilarious. Take last week's episode, for example. I won't talk about the central theme of the ep, both for spoiler reasons and for language reasons. (See, there's all kinds of outs.) But Huey Freeman -- one of the main characters in both strip and show, and the voice of my own inner ten-year-old boy, if my inner child were black and from the inner city -- narrated an explanation for the viewing audience that the subject of that episode was the number three killer, after #2 pork chops and #1 FEMA, of ...er, African-Americans.
Yeah, okay, so it's perhaps not an ideal example. But you still ought to be watching this show, unless you hate laughing. I mean, even the casting is funny; Adam West (1960s TV's Batman!) played the white lawyer who defended R. Kelly in another urinating-on-minors trial in an earlier episode, and other episodes (including this week's) feature Charlie Murphy and Samuel L. Jackson voicing a couple of overprivileged white boys who adopt ghetto mannerisms. (No, I'm not gonna quote Riley Freeman's soliloquy about peeing here. Riley's a little bitch.)
Possibly the humour, or the topic or the language, won't work for everybody reading this. But I can't not love Huey for insisting (in the pilot episode) that Jesus was black, Ronald Reagan was the devil, and "you can't tame the white supremacist power structure with cheese!" as he's saying in my new icon. (And yet this is not a Gratuitous Icon Post, for lo: content. And more icons!) I made some more Huey icons while I was at it, and they're free for the asking.
Huey lays it out for his Granddad:
(link to blank version)
Huey lays it out for a, er, professional woman:
(link to blank version)
(A different cut of the same cap --
-- blank only)
Huey and his fabulous natural:
(link to blank version)
All are for sharing. Please note in a comment if you're taking one; keyword credit is unnecessary but appreciated. Also, if you want alternate text on your icon and can't put it on yourself, ask, and I might be able to make time to hook you up.
Ironically (or not?) the text on my icon -- which is not up for grabs with this caption, sorry -- means I can use it as a cheese icon, too. Apparently I'm white enough to have a serious weakness for cheese, and my fridge is typically stocked with delicacies like bucheron, fourme d'ambert, manchego, nevat, roncal, and roomano (not to be confused with romano). Yes, I have a borderline addiction to imported, protected-appellation cheeses. My secret is out.
*On a further ironic (or not) note, when I asked my retired mother whether she wanted to go see Brokeback Mountain with me, she said she wasn't sure she wanted to see it at all. And she had such a good time when we watched Torch Song Trilogy, The Crying Game, and Boys Don't Cry together...
Of course, now that I've posted "Don't Mean To,"
Anyway.
Adult Swim, the night-owl programming block that runs on Cartoon Network (11pm-5am Saturday-Thursday), recently premiered a new show: The Boondocks, adapted for TV from Aaron McGruder's comic strip of the same name. I had been a fan of the strip, but stopped reading newspapers, and thus having access to it, shortly after the strip premiered in 1999. But I had fond memories of McGruder's daring comedic take on race issues in modern America and other political matters, so I've been looking forward to the new animated series for months. (Oh, the agony when the premiere was pushed back.)
Not surprisingly, especially for anyone who's ever watched an episode of, say, Family Guy on CN (especially the episodes which were censored or never aired on Fox) on Adult Swim, the animated Freeman family go significantly further in pushing the limits of language and topic than McGruder was ever able to get away with when they were print-only characters whose main venue was America's breakfast-table reading.
(In fact, McGruder found out just how low some of the limits on 'acceptable' topics and language for a daily comic strip are, at least according to many newspapers' editors, over the past several years, with some papers censoring the strip -- or dropping it altogether -- based on the idea that certain strips were "unpatriotic" or "racist" and therefore inappropriate for the funny pages. Like I said, I haven't been keeping up with the strip, but I had to wonder, after reading the past week's worth, whether the tone has been turned down to accomodate fussing editors, or I just happened onto a lull in the invective. Which is not to say that the Boondocks strip is not still funny. But veiled, oblique gay cowboy jokes and generation-gap humour* are a far cry from a couple of grammar-schoolers arguing about how "being Black" is defined in America today or what the ramifications of black men having children with white women are.)
The Boondocks on Adult Swim, on the other hand, can be frustrating for me to watch precisely because it goes so far into "I can't believe they went there!"-land, and I can't repeat a lot of the jokes that get made. (I'm not black, and I don't use the n-word. I'm not 100% white, either, though not everyone realises that when they look at me. And I'm digressing again. Whee, a blog really does tempt you to type your every train of thought out sometimes.) There's a lot of the n-word. I was watching the latest episode with my cat, and there was one stream of epithets and profanity that must've gone on for ten seconds with only one word bleeped out... after which Tara (the cat) turned to me as if to ask, why, in all that, was "pussy" the only thing they weren't allowed to say?
But don't despair, fellow pale folks feeling the burden of your white (or beige) liberal guilt! Not all the humour on the Boondocks is *unspeakably* hilarious. Take last week's episode, for example. I won't talk about the central theme of the ep, both for spoiler reasons and for language reasons. (See, there's all kinds of outs.) But Huey Freeman -- one of the main characters in both strip and show, and the voice of my own inner ten-year-old boy, if my inner child were black and from the inner city -- narrated an explanation for the viewing audience that the subject of that episode was the number three killer, after #2 pork chops and #1 FEMA, of ...er, African-Americans.
Yeah, okay, so it's perhaps not an ideal example. But you still ought to be watching this show, unless you hate laughing. I mean, even the casting is funny; Adam West (1960s TV's Batman!) played the white lawyer who defended R. Kelly in another urinating-on-minors trial in an earlier episode, and other episodes (including this week's) feature Charlie Murphy and Samuel L. Jackson voicing a couple of overprivileged white boys who adopt ghetto mannerisms. (No, I'm not gonna quote Riley Freeman's soliloquy about peeing here. Riley's a little bitch.)
Possibly the humour, or the topic or the language, won't work for everybody reading this. But I can't not love Huey for insisting (in the pilot episode) that Jesus was black, Ronald Reagan was the devil, and "you can't tame the white supremacist power structure with cheese!" as he's saying in my new icon. (And yet this is not a Gratuitous Icon Post, for lo: content. And more icons!) I made some more Huey icons while I was at it, and they're free for the asking.
Huey lays it out for his Granddad:
(link to blank version)
Huey lays it out for a, er, professional woman:
(link to blank version)
(A different cut of the same cap --
-- blank only)Huey and his fabulous natural:
(link to blank version)
All are for sharing. Please note in a comment if you're taking one; keyword credit is unnecessary but appreciated. Also, if you want alternate text on your icon and can't put it on yourself, ask, and I might be able to make time to hook you up.
Ironically (or not?) the text on my icon -- which is not up for grabs with this caption, sorry -- means I can use it as a cheese icon, too. Apparently I'm white enough to have a serious weakness for cheese, and my fridge is typically stocked with delicacies like bucheron, fourme d'ambert, manchego, nevat, roncal, and roomano (not to be confused with romano). Yes, I have a borderline addiction to imported, protected-appellation cheeses. My secret is out.
*On a further ironic (or not) note, when I asked my retired mother whether she wanted to go see Brokeback Mountain with me, she said she wasn't sure she wanted to see it at all. And she had such a good time when we watched Torch Song Trilogy, The Crying Game, and Boys Don't Cry together...
no subject
no subject
no subject
And I CRACKED UP all over again.
I find myself feeling uncomfortable about the idea that I'm more "allowed" to roll all over the floor laughing at Boondocks than you would be, due to something neither of us picked. But I've been weirded out by that idea for years. And anyway, it's hard to type accurately about sociopolitics when the phone keeps ringing.
no subject
Cheese, however, I enjoy wholeheartedly and without reservation.
no subject
no subject
...Mmmm, cheese!
no subject
Sometimes, you just have to break down and make your own icons. But it's a great feeling when you find just the icon you wanted, all ready for you to nab and use -- glad I could oblige.
no subject
I don't tell other people what language they 'can' or 'can't' use, though I have strong opinions as to the language people 'should' use... and the language that should be avoided.
no subject
And I CRACKED UP all over again.
A pleasure to be of service. (;
no subject
How great that most people can agree on cheese! Those of us who aren't vegan, or lactose-intolerant, or from a culture that finds dairy products disgusting, or what-have-you...
no subject
no subject
I totally forgot to mention the incredible anime-homage dream-sequence in the Stinkmeaner episode. That had me practically beside myself. It's such a visually artistic cartoon, but the content grabs attention away from that.
no subject
Though I have a sneaking suspcion that someone on the creative or animation team watched a lot of Samurai Champloo, because *seriously*.